Addressing intersectionality in the FeesMustFall movement in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract: This thesis is a case study of how women's identities are made salient and marginalised in the FeesMustFall (FMF) movement in Cape Town, South Africa, and how this has played into their engagement with the movement. Thus, this study is centred around the perceived tension between essentialising identities and accommodating intersectionality within the FMF movement. An intra-categorical approach was used to situate the study within a frame of race and gender. The concepts of kyriarchy and intersectionality were combined with the conceptualisation of identities as performed subject positions, in an integrated analytical framework. This situated the experiences of the women within power-structures that simultaneously places the subject in positions of both privilege and oppression. The empirical material was gathered during a 2-month Minor field study in Cape Town where 8 women engaged in the the FeesMustFall movement were interviewed. The findings suggest that, the marginalisation and salience of the women’s identities was dictated by how the women positioned themselves and were positioned within kyriarchy in the given historical and temporal context. Due to the primacy of racialized identities and oppressive gender norms within the FeesMustFall space, the intersectional identities of women were marginalised in the space.