Remembrance: the Essop brothers,formative realism and contemporary African photography

Remembrance is the title of group of photographic artworks by Hasan and Husain Essop. Made in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the artworks picture people and places, buildings and landscapes. At first look, the action within the frames is straightforward. The photographs present ancient and modern religious sites in digitally produced, staged scenarios. However, there is an unseen complexity to these composite images that are made of hundreds of individual still shots, shot one section at a time and then meticulously stitched together. One impact of these contemporary artworks is their ability to show the powerful impact of global Islamic culture. Dynamics of place and belonging, the picturesque and landscape, slavery, religion and race are offered to view by means of these images. I offer formative realism as a conceptual framework to think with and against these pictures made by photographic means. I will say something about the concept and context of formative realism, discuss principal features and propose a way of seeing. The central questions are these: what do the Essops’ pictures show us about Islam in South Africa and beyond? How does this seeing matter to the ongoing activity of race, racism and “Othering” now? How does any of this matter to the dynamics of contemporary visual art in South Africa?     

In search of African history: the re-appropriation of photographic archives by contemporary visual artists

The digital revolution has fundamentally changed our relationship to archives, by accelerating their “dusting off” and their re-appropriation, particularly in the art world. This article will show the ways in which some contemporary visual artists use new digital technologies to provide new ways of storing, reading and retrieving contemporary African history. Such artists do so by revisiting diverse forms of archives that are mainly photographic, and which were produced during the colonial and independence eras.     

Framing interior: race,mobility and the image of home in South African modernity

This paper explores the depiction of dwellings in order to locate the emergence of a particular framing of the interior in South Africa. I suggest that in the first half of the twentieth century, images of domestic spaces pointed both to racially distinct interiors and racialised forms of interiority. As an aesthetic technology of the late nineteenth century, photography aided in the production of visual motifs that fixed the appearance of race in a new way, and located such an appearance in particular places. The visual intertwining of race and place – designating racially proper and improper places – was instrumental to apartheid’s attempt to curtail racial mixing and unregulated mobility. In contrast with the imposed movement engendered by migrant labour, I suggest that the figure of the interior becomes a privileged standpoint from which to view the triumph of race as a form of fixity in modern South Africa.     

The state and the colonial unconscious

In this article, Fanon’s concept of the colonial unconscious – introduced in Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon 1968 Fanon, F. 1968. Black Skin, White Masks, London: Paladin.  [Google Scholar]) – is used to clarify the post-1994 political conjuncture in South Africa; in particular, unconscious forms of resistance against the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). Fanon’s concept of colonialism is first outlined and developed before his concept of the colonial unconscious is itself refined and put to work in the analysis of Brett Murray’s The Spear in terms of the return of the colonial repressed. It is argued, in conclusion, that the NDR needs to include within its ambit this unconscious dimension of South African politics without, however, giving in to the temptation of attempting to totalise and saturate all processes of subject formation.     

Privilege and precarity: public scripts and self-censorship in shaping South African social science

South African social science’s close relationship with politics and policy have long provided a source of vitality and intellectual direction. Although one of the field’s greatest strengths, intimacy with socio-political and economic transformations engenders solipsism and stagnation. Ironically, it also compromises scholars’ political autonomy and intellectual ethics by blinding analysts to the emerging socio-political formations which will shape the country’s future. As demands for decolonisation and academic transformation continue, the pressures for political alignment will only grow. Drawing on over a decade of inquiry into the formal and informal governance of human mobility into and within South Africa, this article reveals the contours of such isolation and conceptual complacency. From this we can find direction for satisfying the “dual imperative:” contributing to progressive policy while maintaining scholarly autonomy. While not disengaging from politics, we must work to destabilise the language of it even where it means potential isolation from officials, peers, and personal profits. Doing so can protect social science’s autonomy while opening new opportunities for understanding the world in which we live and new tools for challenging those who seek to describe, theorise and change it. Doing otherwise risks converting the South African academic project into a policy think tank or self-referential echo chamber.     

Bread and wine: Bourdieu's photography of colonial Algeria

The photography of Bourdieu, whilst documenting aspects of his sociological work in Algeria, problematizes the relationship between its photographic referents and their history. To grasp this relationship, I will decode the historical signification of three photographs taken by Bourdieu in the mid-1950s when Tillion published L'Algérie en 1957 and Sartre 'Le colonialisme est un système' situating Bourdieu's photographic and sociological work in relation to both Tillion and Sartre. Although the influence of Tillion on Bourdieu is discernable, especially in Sociologie de l'Algérie , their political positions are at variance. Bourdieu's snapshots provide us with a perspective on how to interpret the causes of the vagrancy and famine in colonial times. Despite his avowed hostility to Sartre, Bourdieu concurs with the latter's critique of colonialism. His three photographs together project a political affinity with both Sartre and Barthes. The impoverishment of native Algerian society was not due to the fact that it failed to catch the train of progress, as Tillion intimates; rather it resulted from its systematic despoilment by colonial France.     

Social documentary and personal investigations in contemporary South African photography: Tracey Derrick’s “One in Nine” series

A shell of white gauze floats against a split background in Tracey Derrick’s 2009 photograph, Inhabit – Habergeon – middle English, piece of armour to protect the neck and chest (Inhabit), both autonomous and materially frail. The shadowed wall lifts the calcified gauze towards the viewer, as its lithe body hovers above the vertical divide that separates light from dark. This position apart from the edge may be read as a passage missed or overcome. A year of invasive treatment following her diagnosis of stage two breast cancer in March of 2008 led South African documentary photographer Tracey Derrick to create a photographic series that combines her humanist sensibility with personal reflections on illness. Derrick represents meditations on her trajectory through illness in “One in Nine: My Year as a Statistic,” a collection of reposeful digital colour photographs – including Inhabit – that features the cast Derrick made to obtain accurate measurements for her prosthesis. This body of work complicates a widely held assumption that post-apartheid photography in South Africa focuses more on the individual than collective societal issues. Derrick’s unusual series warrants methodological treatment that attends to the complex ways in which the visual vocabulary and concerns of apartheid-era documentary photography overlap with the personal explorations associated with post-1994 photographic production. In this paper, I utilise socio-historical, psychoanalytic and phenomenological readings of Tracey Derrick’s photograph and “One in Nine” series to elicit an interpretation of the image and series as statement of agency within a metaphorical battle against an invisible, yet pervasive disease. By reading Derrick’s photograph through these theoretical lenses, I reveal her image to be a metaphoric assertion of tenacity and Derrick’s agency, and highlight the areas of overlap between Derrick’s documentary practice and her more personal “One in Nine” project.     

Analysis of HIV Caregivers in South Africa: A South African Depression and Anxiety Group

ABSTRACT

The severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is well documented. However, little is known regarding the well-being of caregivers of persons with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. This study sought to evaluate characteristics, similarities and differences between groups of HIV caregivers in rural, semi-rural, and urban areas of South Africa. Interesting trends were noticed in the areas of suicidality, alcohol abuse, and intimate trauma. Findings indicate a substantial need for further study in the area of suicidality, denial of or lack of desire to know HIV status and the accompanying diagnostic stigma, and the need for a support network within lay caregivers.     

Academic freedom,institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary South Africa 1

This article examines threats from the state, institutional bureaucrats and academics themselves to academic freedom and to the institutional autonomy of universities in South Africa, and argues that the situation is more complex than is often perceived. The generally disappointing post‐independence history of academic freedom and autonomy in Sub‐Saharan Africa is drawn upon to illustrate the perils that may accompany too eager an embrace of the state by intellectuals in South Africa in confronting persisting racial inequities in institutions of higher learning. The article suggests that a ‘republican’ approach linked to social accountability may provide a way forward. To be securely founded, the advancement of academic freedom and institutional autonomy must be embedded in the prevailing power realities: it must grow from the contestation of empowered stakeholders. Finally, the article makes a number of specific recommendations calculated to strengthen the quest for such freedom and autonomy.     

Marx,labour and emancipation in South African sociology: a preliminary rethinking

In a university and disciplinary environment where knowledge is increasingly commodified, this paper sketches a reconstruction of the mature Marx’s analysis of capitalism. I argue that his understanding remains methodologically powerful and helps to ground sociological analyses of the present. While accepting that there are good grounds for questioning the relevance of Marx in the wake of the South African political transition and the Post‐Fordist transformation of labour, this interpretation departs significantly from how Marx has generally been interpreted by sociologists and other social scientists in the country by foregrounding the commodity as the starting point of his social critique. Indeed, I argue that ‘class’ and ‘workplaces’, long a focus of radical sociologists, are on their own inadequate to grasp Marx’s concept of capitalism. Finally, drawing on the Frankfurt School, I suggest the importance of a critique of labour and the recognition of contradiction as the starting point of an emancipatory project.     

The Impact of Religious Intensification on Family Relations: A South African Example

Using the example of South African Jewish families in which the daughters became Ultra‐Orthodox, this article examines the reactions and adaptations of mothers to their daughters' religious intensification. A qualitative study in which 15 mothers and 15 daughters were interviewed found that the mothers' initial reactions were primarily positive and ambivalent, with some negative reactions, but over time the mothers became increasingly ambivalent. Overall, mothers and newly observant adult daughters made serious efforts to maintain family cohesion and relationships of mutual respect. The results are explained by the South African context, stress theory, the concept of family resilience, and intergenerational theory.     

Climate and food inequality: the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign response

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on climate and food inequalities while highlighting food sovereignty responses. It provides an analysis of climate inequalities ramifying through the world today. At the same time, food inequality is conceptually clarified as a counter approach to food security. It is argued that food inequality is consistent with the case for food sovereignty. Moreover, the combination of climate and food inequalities also highlight the complexity of climate crises and the challenges they pose for food regimes. The article further highlights the emergence of the food sovereignty response and systemic alternative. Taking this further is a case study of the transformative politics of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and its constitutive approach to various forms of power from below.     

The anxiety of affect: melodrama and South African film studies

This paper argues that the realist approach typically adopted in South African film studies reduces films to message‐bearing narratives in a way that ignores the specificity of the medium. Conversely, melodrama both as cinematic genre and as expressive register explicitly draws our attention away from issues of right representation to other neglected but essential dimensions of cinema. We argue that, far from being morally reductive or politically quietist, melodrama is a representational mode wholly appropriate to understanding the South African context including the painful stories of its apartheid past. To illustrate this broader critical point we offer an analysis of two films (of 2004) about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) – In My Country and Forgiveness – which, we argue, can only be adequately understood if their uses of the visual and affective strategies of melodrama, which are consonant with aspects of the TRC itself, are acknowledged.     

Dignity and ethics in research photography

The aim of this paper is to provide new conceptual and practical insights about the issues associated with ethics and dignity when undertaking research involving the collection of photographic data. Case studies of photographs taken as part of a research project in Chennai, India, are employed to illuminate the significance of dignity. The case studies reveal that dignity-in-context provides a useful conceptual tool that encapsulates the range of ethical issues that might be encountered. This concept has two dimensions. The first, dignity-in-outcome, assists deciding what and whether to photograph by drawing attention to the need for those being researched to benefit from the research, to present an authentic view of the situation and to ensure that participants are not demeaned or reduced. The second is dignity-in-process that helps researchers decide why and how to photograph in terms of involving those being researched in the way an image is captured, choosing the right angle for the image and the impression the image will give if and when it is published.     

Sensational signs,authority and the public sphere: Settler colonial rhetoric in times of change

The article explores the emotional regimes of settler colonialism in post‐apartheid South Africa. The focus is on apocalyptic fears of the imagined eradication of whiteness. These fears are articulated in response to postcolonial/decolonial interpellations of abject whiteness, and are made visible in a range of sensational signs that circulate online and offline. The signs cluster around two themes that are central to the ideologies of settler colonialism: land (and its feared loss), and (white) bodies (and their feared disappearance). Following Sarah Ahmed (2004a,b), emotionally charged signs can be seen as actions (akin to words in speech act theory). In contrast to Jürgen Habermas’ conception of the public sphere as an idealized place of rational debate, the article argues that a combination of affect‐emotion‐feeling and the performance of ‘reason’—what Aristotelian rhetoric refers to as pathos and ethos—are integral for understanding public‐political discourses of whiteness at a time when white privilege has been called out globally (and locally), and white dominance has lost its stronghold.     

South African NGOs and the public sphere: between popular movements and partnerships for development

This article examines the widespread notion that post‐apartheid democracy can be deepened and civil society strengthened by NGO activities in the sphere of public debate and participation. I focus on a number of interrelated processes which I argue may compromise NGOs' ability to expand the public sphere: first, donors' overwhelming focus on NGOs as the sole representative of civil society may contribute to a homogenous and institutionalised public sphere; second, the tendency for NGOs to be drawn into partnerships with government bodies and corporate sponsors casts doubt on their ability to open up spaces for critical public debate. By directing attention to popular movements as potentially offering a site for the production of critique, NGOs' relationships to such movements are examined. It is argued that attention must be paid to the processes of NGO‐isation and reformism by which NGOs themselves come to define what civil society should be and may consequently contain counterpublic spheres.     

Rapid change in a South African tertiary institution: Implications for occupational social work

Universities, like most organisations, are in a state of continuous transformation. The past decade has seen dramatic changes taking place at universities in South Africa, which have impacted on employees, especially academics. This article focuses on the transformations at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape, and recounts the qualitative findings of a small-scale research project, conducted by the first author, which provide a flavour of the way in which UFH academics perceived and responded to a fast changing university milieu. It examines the strengths which sustained them and argues that universities should help people to identify and utilise such strengths within their organisations by employing occupational social workers. The authors, both social work trained and former practitioners, have written this article jointly under the auspices of a three-year British Council Higher Education Link Programme between the Social Work Department at the University of Fort Hare and the Community and Criminal Justice Studies Division at De Montfort University, Leicester.     

"It's not cricket": colonial legacies and contemporary inequalities

Cricket has been historically significant in defining notions of English national identity and continues to feature in debates over the inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in British society. British-African-Caribbean players are well represented in the English game but participation appears mediated by ethnic group membership. This contemporary pattern can only be understood when contextualized within the historical development of cricket in the Caribbean and, in particular, the struggles between whites and blacks and between the white elites. Over-representation in certain cricketing roles has been an ever-present feature of this negotiation; contemporary inequality is, therefore, largely a consequence of the legacy of British Imperialism.     

‘Eternal grumblers’: V.S. Naipaul and the uses of South Africa

The essay studies the uses of South African characters and motifs in V.S. Naipaul's fiction and non fiction.     

Interpersonal Relationships in Multiracial Schools in a South African Context

Using a qualitative approach, I investigated the problems experienced by the different systems in a South African school that became racially integrated, and the ways in which the problems were addressed. Focus group interviews with ninth- and eleventh-grade pupils, teachers, white and black parents, as well as written information supplied by pupils and teachers were used to assess the changing situation. To determine how some of the problems in the school could successfully be resolved, group therapy was implemented with a group of pupils and with teachers. A needs analysis and problem solution session with White and Black parents was also implemented. It is concluded that school psychologists and school management have an important role to play in facilitating positive changes in the new political and sociocultural environment.