Dora Tamana: travel, home and the transnational politics of African motherhood

Abstract

This article explores the intersectional politics of Dora Tamana from the 1940s to the early 1980s. A key figure in the anti-apartheid movement, Tamana’s activism was deeply informed by her own health, as well as the physical well-being of her family and community. Drawing on her own personal experiences and losses, she carefully constructed a militant and uncompromising politics of African motherhood that grappled with the violence of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. This emphasis on health, care and kinship also crossed borders, forming the basis of Tamana’s Black international politics which were shaped by the international women’s movement and her travels in Europe, China, Mongolia, and the Soviet Union.