Ukuhlolwa kwezintombi through the lenses yabahloli, nezintombi. Finding voice in performance, and ritual.

Abstract

This MA is a project of echoing the voices of abahloli, nezintombi a platform that was accessible to me. The academy; a platform in which these voices in narratives around virginity testing have been silent/silenced. Perhaps, this is not the platform they seeked to exist. Perhaps that is why this MA took the path that it took. An audio-ethnographic bilingual final thesis. I know now, that perhaps it is where and how I first looked to interogate these voices. I looked for years in the academy, anything at all that would tell me what izintombi nabahloli themselves had to say. The work of Black Feminism taught me, that perhaps I was looking in the wrong place. Using a wrong lens. The voices of Black feminism in the global South told me, perhaps I was looking at the wrong thing. Words. In sentence structures, and cohesive conversations. Perhaps, that was not these women’s choice of expression. Perhaps they express in song, in dance, in ritual performances. With their bodies. So I listened. And I heard. This Masters is an archiving of the things I would come to learn, about why, how and where abahloli nezintombi practice usiko lokuhlolwa/hlola.