Papers by Sarita Ranchod
Agenda (Durban), Dec 23, 2013
My work with clay began as part of a healing bodily journey. In 2003 I permanently injured my lef... more My work with clay began as part of a healing bodily journey. In 2003 I permanently injured my left forearm in a freak accident. A sudden, strong gust of wind blew a heavy wooden door shut on my arm while I was standing in a doorway. The force of the wind and the heaviness of the door crushed the nerves in my left forearm. In that moment my life changed irrevocably. I was in excruciating pain all of the time. It took the medical establishment a year to figure out why my arm was not healing, and why I remained in agonising pain. The nerves had been damaged and had not recovered. The logic of exercising and strengthening an injured limb did not apply. The only message my hand and arm received from my brain was a relentless electrical pain.
Rhodes Journalism Review, 2004
Despite the relative arbitrariness of 10 years as marker, it provides us with an opportunity to s... more Despite the relative arbitrariness of 10 years as marker, it provides us with an opportunity to stand still and critically reflect on the road travelled thus far; in terms of what 'freedom' has come to mean and how South African media expresses and reflects freedoms.
Rhodes Journalism Review, 2003
The story of the African people is a fight against subordination, domination and oppression. It i... more The story of the African people is a fight against subordination, domination and oppression. It is about battles for freedom - freedom from domination, imperialism, freedom to be, to choose. It is a celebration of survival. And in surviving, there is a story of sustaining - of holding on to a value system, of holding on to ways of life, ways of healing, ways of communing that respect life, that respect the earth and the soul. It is a story of victory of good over evil.
Agenda, 2020
abstract This visual essay is an exploration of slave women’s herstories deploying what Audre Lor... more abstract This visual essay is an exploration of slave women’s herstories deploying what Audre Lorde (1982) calls bio-mythography − to creatively imagine unrecorded herstories through art-making. Discovering my home was once a slave lodge, whose history had been artfully deleted, and realising the absence of a meaningful archive of slave women’s lives, I felt pressed to creatively engage with herstories of slave women at the Cape. Honouring slave herstory in the intimate space of home powerfully connects the personal and the political for me. This body of work, Khadi is an engagement with the politics of place, gender, race and culture, responding both to my African heritage, my Indian descent, and viscerally, to the place I call home, and its herstory, through the medium of sculpture. While the sculptures were an organic outflow of creative expression, I am indebted to the intellectual contributions of feminist scholars working on slavery at the Cape from different vantage points. These scholars and creatives include Gabeba Baderoon, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Floretta Boonzaier, Nadia Davids and Berni Searle, all of whom, in one or another way, engage with the Cape’s buried history of slavery and how it connects to our present.
Rhodes Journalism Review, 2004
Intersections, 2001
Blackness in South Africa, Political Blackness and Non-Racialism, Political Identity
Agenda, Dec 23, 2013
Reflection of a body of work celebrating Black women's beauty through the lens of a Black feminist
City Press, 2015
Reflections on eating out while Black in post-apartheid Cape Town, South Africa
Reflections on Serbia's Schools without Violence programme, efforts to reduce gender inequality a... more Reflections on Serbia's Schools without Violence programme, efforts to reduce gender inequality and links to gender-based violence.
Body of Work (Agenda - Empowering Women for Gender Equity), Nov 30, 2013
This visual essay reflects on my sculptural art that engages with notions of Black beauty and Bla... more This visual essay reflects on my sculptural art that engages with notions of Black beauty and Black womanhood from the perspective of a Black woman, locating it within discourses of dis/ability, visibility, representation and creation.
LESSONS FROM SERBIA
Addressing Gender-based Violence through the
School without Violence Programme
Book Reviews by Sarita Ranchod
Talks by Sarita Ranchod
On gender, poverty and inequality; dignity and human rights, and why toilets (and other public se... more On gender, poverty and inequality; dignity and human rights, and why toilets (and other public service and infrastructure delivery) is good for women and girls, and is good for reducing structural inequality
Articles by Sarita Ranchod
Agenda Feminist, 2020
This visual essay explores slavery at the Cape from a Black feminist perspective. It articulates ... more This visual essay explores slavery at the Cape from a Black feminist perspective. It articulates efforts to find out more about the enslaved people who lived in what is now my home, but was one a slave lodge under both British and Dutch colonial rule. It details my creative journey using what Audre Lorde calls 'bio-mythography' to creative imagine slave herstories in the absence of documentation on the lives and realities of enslaved women. It engages with both my African and Indian heritage through this creative, sculptural exploration.
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Papers by Sarita Ranchod
Book Reviews by Sarita Ranchod
Talks by Sarita Ranchod
Articles by Sarita Ranchod