Abstract
This article tells the story of Maleseka Kena, a woman born in South Africa but who lived most of her adult life in rural Lesotho. It narrates how her story of helping apartheid refugees cross the border and move onward complicates understandings of what the international border, belonging, and citizenship meant for individuals living near it. By interweaving her story with larger narratives about the changing political, social, and economic climate of the southern African region, it also highlights the spaces that women had for making an impact politically despite facing structural obstacles both in the regional economy and in the villages where they were living. This article relies heavily on the oral testimony of Maleseka herself as told to the author, but also makes use of press sources from Lesotho, and archival material from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Recommended Citation
Aerni-Flessner, John
(2015)
"Homemakers, Communists, and Refugees: Smuggling Anti-Apartheid Refugees in Rural Lesotho in the 1960s and 1970s,"
Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies: Vol. 13:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.cortland.edu/wagadu/vol13/iss1/8