Challenging the identity of South African Indian women through playwriting (and theatre): a look at three South African Indian women playwrights writing within the KwaZulu-Natal region post 1994.

Abstract

This dissertation concerns itself with challenging the identity of South African Indian women through playwriting (and theatre). It focuses on three South African Indian women playwrights writing in KwaZulu-Natal post 1994. The identity ofSouth African /ndiun' women has been historically constructed as a cultural one. This construction has largely been perpetuated by the South African Indian male through cultural practices like theatre. In challenging such constructions it is important to consider discussions on identity and culture itself. As such Gayatri Spivak’s (1990) arguments on identity are appropriated in this dissertation. Alice Walker (1984) articulates the black woman's position as that of a 'Womanist'-marginalised by race, class and sex. It could be argued that the South African Indian woman is not only marginalised by race, class and sex, but also by a constructed sense of not belonging to South Africa and the African continent at large. This sense of not belonging to the African continent extends to the South African /ndian community at large, who as a result of apartheid have emerged as a marginalised minority group. This is perhaps one of the main reasons that the South African /ndian community has looked to India as their historical and cultural ‘homeland’. The South African Indian identity is therefore constructed within this fixed notion of ‘Indian culture’. The role and identity of the South African /ndiun woman within this ‘culture’ (and cultural practice) has been constructed as a submissive and subordinate one. The notion of culture itself needs to be investigated, since culture is not a neutral entity (Tax, 1973). Moreover, this so-called ‘Indian culture” is situated within patriarchy and thus carries further gendered ideological constructions. It therefore becomes necessary to challenge this constructed notion of South African /ndiun women’s identity by allowing South African Indian women to begin to articulate their own subjectivities.