"This volume is based on papers originally presented at the research conference "Body Politics and Gender Justice", held in Cape Town in February 2009."

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction / Ann Schlyter --Contesting illegality: women in the informal copper business on the Zambian copperbelt / Patience Mususa -- Women coping with change: urban poverty and everyday politics in northern Mozambique / Margareta Espling -- Bodies at work in Volvo plants in Sweden and South Africa / Paula Mählck -- Polygamous families in urban Malawi: sharing housing and resources / Lucy Kondwani Chipeta -- Essential motherhood: implications for law and population policy / Mulela Margaret Munalula -- Teenage pregnancy and HIV in South Africa / Nolwazi Mkhwanazi -- From pain to virtue: clitoridectomy and other ordeals in the creation of a female person / Lisen Dellenborg -- Bearing the pain: changing views of the meaning and morality of suffering / Maria Malmström -- Women in the back seat in Malian citizenship / Assitan Diallo -- Gendered spectacle: new terrains of struggle in South Africa / Desiree Lewis -- Postscript: challenges to rights-based approaches in support of women citizens / Ann Schlyter.