CITIZENSHIP IN NEO-PATRILINEAL STATES - GENDER AND MOBILITY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

Following independence, many states in Southern Africa have modified t heir rules of access to citizenship, moving from the territorial model of ius soli (applied during the (late) colonial period by and to whit e settlers) to the more exclusive, descent-based model of ius sanguini s, in a specifically patrilineal mode which explicitly rejects bilater al principles. Newly-independent states in Southern Africa have stress ed patrilineality as the basis of their new citizenship, even where, i n colonial if not precolonial times, descent systems were recorded as showing only a weak commitment to patrilineality (e.g. the Shona of Zi mbabwe), or were unambiguously bilateral (the Lozi of Zambia) or even matrilineal (many Zambian and Malawian 'tribal' categories). Many auth ors have already analysed the legal disabilities that female citizens suffer in their ordinary lives as a result of this state-defined ident ity bias. This paper looks at the situation of women who marry across, and those who on informal trade move extensively across, state bounda ries, and their position in relation to the new patri-biased citizensh ip rules.