Abstract
M.Litt. et Phil. (Anthropology)
On the far eastern border of the Mhala district of Gazankulu there is a village
called Dixie. The residents of this village and their conditions of living formed the
setting for my research.
The research was strictly ethnographic, and so is this thesis, given the dire shortage of in-depth ethnographic information particularly on the experiences of teenage girls. The research revealed various facets of the lives of these people. Whilst the research included all the teenage girls of the village, and most of the teenage boys, information on only four girls was singled out for the thesis, because of the diversity in their experiences and to demonstrate the impact of unique circumstances on the experience of violence. To the case material of these four girls, was added that of a teenage boy to highlight the contrast between the lives of girls and boys in this social setting.
The events that formed a significant part in the daily lives of the girls and the boy were diarised in detail so as not to tamper with the information as far as possible. It emerged that girls were consistently subjected to violence by those persons with whom they were closely involved. Poverty contributes largely to the amount and intensity of violence on female persons, and it is thus violence which dominates social life in the village for these people. The result is a chain of events that is shocking and deeply disturbing. The information reveals very clearly the extent of male domination which is still prevalent in our society and it exposes the continual subjugation women experience daily in the struggle against men and poverty. This thesis wishes to challenge social scientists of our time to focus their attention on violence in much more detail than has been the case until now.