A Political Love

Since its announcement, interest and conversation around the book have grown steadily - especially regarding themes of love, mothering, body intelligence, and the transformative potential of cross-political intimate witnessing. These discussions reflect just a fraction of what the book hopes to open up.
This is a slow book, written for slow reading. It invites the reader into a contemplative space - where the inner labour of mothering, which in philosopher Gilles Deleuze words would be seen as “a plane of immanence,” is treated not only as physical or emotional, but as a profoundly intellectual and spiritual practice. The writing seeks to make this inner world accessible, legible, and resonant.
Who am I?
I'm Nobonke van Tonder—a clinical psychologist and dancer, based in Cape Town, and an elder in the Mjoli clan of the amaXhosa. My psychotherapy practice includes a wide variety of clients, but I hold a particular concern for parents. I've found that when a parent is able to access a deeper, grounded perspective on their own experience, it profoundly changes the way they relate to their children - with presence, clarity, and often, the realm of relational healing.
As a dancer and movement researcher, I draw from non-Western, African-rooted ways of knowing the body. Over the years, I've developed tools and approaches that help people navigate difficulty and trauma with the wisdom of the body - not in abstraction, but in grounded, somatic presence. My dancing informs my psychology, just as my psychology informs my writing.