Like Family - Book Review
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More than a million black South African women are domestic workers. These nannies, housekeepers and chars continue to occupy a central place in post-apartheid society. But it is an ambivalent position. Precariously situated between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, white and black, these women are at once intimately connected and at a distant remove from the families they serve. ‘Like family’ they may be, but they and their
employers know they can never be real family. Ena Jansen shows that domestic worker relations in South Africa were shaped by the institution of slavery at the Cape. This established social hierarchies and patterns
of behaviour and interaction that persist to the present day, and are still evident in the predicament of the black female domestic worker.
Ena Jansen was professor of South African literature at the University of Amsterdam until 2016. She grew up in KwaZulu-Natal and studied literature at the universities of Stellenbosch and Utrecht in The Netherlands before obtaining her PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand where she lectured for 16 years. She lives in Cape Town and Amsterdam.
employers know they can never be real family. Ena Jansen shows that domestic worker relations in South Africa were shaped by the institution of slavery at the Cape. This established social hierarchies and patterns
of behaviour and interaction that persist to the present day, and are still evident in the predicament of the black female domestic worker.
Ena Jansen was professor of South African literature at the University of Amsterdam until 2016. She grew up in KwaZulu-Natal and studied literature at the universities of Stellenbosch and Utrecht in The Netherlands before obtaining her PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand where she lectured for 16 years. She lives in Cape Town and Amsterdam.
