The author identifies hostels as sites of public and domestic violence, literal destruction and rebuilding, and as an important node in the spread of HIV/AIDS. He focuses on thirty black migrant women living in an East Rand hostel to map the everyday geographies of South Africa's time of change. By following the lives of these women, he describes spatialized forms of marginalization, impoverishment, infection and disempowerment.
In this collection voices in feminist and queer theory are brought together to create an interdisciplinary dialogue that will define the terms of the debates between and within feminist and queer a theoretical framework.These debates revolve around the multiple interrelated issues - such as gender, identity, intimacy, privacy, and sex harassment - that all extend from the emphasis given to gender on the one hand and sex and sexuality on the other. These two theories have much in common but also much that distinguishes them from one another, and that causes tension. The authors in this volume explore the legal, political, social and cultural implications of their distinct theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality.