The freedom to be a black woman: automobility and black, female subjecthood in South African Literature

Abstract

A close reading of literary representations of automobility in Johannesburg in the late 2000s gives insight into the way in which freedom, mobility, and collective belonging are linked with the racialised and gendered discourse of modern, democratic citizenship. The literary representations mark automobility as a means to achieve progress in gender equality while remaining embedded in discourses that code positive representations of automobility as white. The lack of easy access to automobility for black women is linked to a perception of blackness as a marker of socio-economic exclusion and marginalisation, which impacts their identity formation and sense of belonging. The analysis engages with selected concepts from the field of mobility studies, namely Cresswell’s (2010) observation that mobility and modern citizenship are conceptually related, Bissell’s (2010) understanding of the formation of “mobile collectives,” and Sheller’s (2018) research into mobility justice. These will be used to analyse the role automobility plays in the emergence of a new black, female subjecthood in South African literature.