Project title

Unruly Womxn: assemblages of individual and collective resistance

Project description

Susan Holland-Muter had envisioned an investigation into how the impact of anti-gender movements is experienced in the granular, everyday lives of womxn. Her proposed study aimed to explore Brazilian and South African womxn’s forms of everyday resistance by identifying and analyzing the different modes and meanings they attach to embodying the category of “unruly womxn.” These embodiments were to be examined across three interrelated sites: the body, the community, and the nation.

Holland-Muter intended to explore how these modes and meanings are (re)produced through the counter-narratives of “unruly womxn” to hegemonic gender and sexual discourses—forming assemblages of unruly thoughts, practices, and discourses that challenge and traverse national boundaries.

Her methodology included conducting semi-structured interviews with ten womxn each in Recife and Cape Town, as well as ten participants from Brazilian and South African communities in Amsterdam. These interviews were to include talking to their selected photographs, objects, and memorabilia—representations of the participants’ “unruliness.”

Susan Holland-Muter passed away before she had the opportunity to begin her NIAS Fellowship. Her research team are grateful for the donation NIAS has made towards continuing Susan’s project, navigating Susan’s theoretical and analytical field in her spirit.

Selected publications

  • “Not in Front of my Friends”: Navigating Lesbian Motherhood in the Borderlands
    Article | Full-text available | April 2023
    This article examines how two lesbian mothers navigate conflicting demands between societal expectations of “good motherhood” and the need to be “out,” based on narrative interviews in Cape Town.

  • The Politics of Safety Talk and Practices: Lesbians Constructing Belonging and Queer World-Making in Cape Town
    Book Chapter | December 2022
    Explores how lesbian individuals in Cape Town create spaces of belonging and engage in queer world-making through safety discourse and practices.

  • Making Place, Making Home: Lesbian Queer World-Making in Cape Town
    Article | Full-text available | December 2019
    Investigates contrasting narratives in Cape Town’s queer spaces, emphasizing racialized spatial dynamics and the visibility of black lesbians.

  • Outside the Safety Zone
    Book | Full-text available | July 2012
    Based on literature reviews and interviews, this work analyzes violence against black lesbians and gender non-conforming women in South Africa, proposing a research agenda to address the issue.