Women miners have two identities: underground, where traditional markers of femininity must be suppressed, and at home, where they are expected to be ‘good’ wives and mothers, writes Asanda-Jonas Benya.

This is a lightly edited excerpt from “Migrant Women in South Africa’s Platinum Belt: Negotiating Different Conceptions of Femininities” by Asanda-Jonas Benya in Migrant Labour After Apartheid: The Inside Story (HSRC Press, 2020) edited by Leslie J Bank, Dorrit Posel and Francis Wilson.

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