McGiffin, Emily; (2022) Gender, Race, and the Biopolitics of Extractivism in the Poetry of Nontsizi Mgqwetho. Research in African Literatures , 53 (2) pp. 60-78. 10.2979/ral.2022.a884539.

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Abstract

Published almost exclusively in the multilingual Johannesburg newspaper Umteteli wa Bantu during the 1920s, Nontsizi Mgqwetho's poetry is enmeshed with the racial and industrial politics of her time and place. Despite its denunciations of the colonial state and vehement calls for black unity and activism, her work is complicated by its publication in a newspaper sponsored by the Chamber of Mines. This article investigates Mgqwetho's forceful political poetry and its intersection with both the coercive, racist labor policies of the period and the discursive power of Umteteli wa Bantu. It argues that in linking her religious and political convictions with the social anxieties of her times, Mgqwetho's work provided the ford through the era's turbulent political waters.

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