Women and Photography in Apartheid South Africa

Tracing the lives and works of five women in four case studies, author Marie Meyerding examines the representation of women in the field of photography in South Africa in the second half of the twentieth century. All of them are critically understudied, with no existing scholarship dedicated exclusively to their photographic contributions. Focusing on the representation of women on two different levels-as agents, behind the camera, and as subjects, in photographs-it showcases women photographers portraying their female contemporaries and analyses to what extent they adhered to or subverted common forms of gender representation. In recuperating their forgotten archives, the book argues that none of these women are marginal figures, but rather that each of them played a leading role in the field of photography in their own time. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history of photography, gender studies, intersectionality and African studies.

Marie Meyerding is a postdoc with a Walter Benjamin position (German Research Foundation) at the Institute of Art and Musicology at the Technical Universität Dresden and received her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin. Her research is published in African Arts, Third Text, kritische berichte, Critical Arts, Safundi, Camera Austria and sehepunkte and she is the author of Sights of Struggle: The History of the Tambo Village Women.

Introduction; Chapter 1 | 'Africa's First Woman Press Photographer': Mabel Cetu's Photographs in Zonk!; Chapter 2 | An Intimate Lens: Jansje Wissema and the Recognition of Photography as Art in South Africa; Chapter 3 | The Gendered Politics of Visibility: Struggle Photography, Afrapix and Lesley Lawson's Working Women; Chapter 4 | Questions of Authorship and Attribution: On the Photographic Practice of Mavis Mtandeki and Primrose Talakumeni; Conclusion; Bibliography