Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The concept of a movement landscape is used to analyse continuities and changes in popular mobilization since the end of formal apartheid. Focusing on four different episodes of protest since 1997, the article examines their relationship to the ANC movement and traditions, and their organizational forms. It finds a general theme of fluid and ephemeral organization, and a distrust of formal hierarchal organization, that is relatively new in South Africa. The Marikana strikes produced the most far-reaching organizational realignments, while the student struggles generated the most innovative re-imaginings of political forms and discourses. It concludes that although there have been critiques of and challenges to the ANC tradition, and experiments with new forms of organizing, they have not produced alternatives that have lasted or dislodged the dominant approaches defined and popularized by the ANC movement.     

Fractured compounds: photographing post-apartheid compounds and hostels

Hostels and compounds have held a compelling fascination for South African photographers over many decades, from the colonial to the post-apartheid era. The photographic representations of these spartan barracks have permeated the narrative of South Africa as the photographers showed the lives, recreations and living conditions, the institutionalised, alienating nature of the environment, its dehumanising conditions, and the cultural and geographical schizophrenia experienced by the migrant labourer navigating the urban/rural divide. In the last two decades, the monolithic structure of the hostel compound has become fractured, as aspects of this environment have altered due to changes in the political, social and economic landscape of South Africa. But it is not just the hostel that has changed, post-apartheid: the photographic representations have transformed too. These adjustments include: a shift from black and white to colour; an increased reluctance to present the hostel dweller as victim; decreased prominence of exposé; a more optimistic and less violent image of the hostels; essays which highlight the permanence of the hostel dweller; a trend which puts less emphasis on the hostel dweller and more on his or her environment; and new narratives around gender, sexuality and individuality have emerged. As a result of the use of colour, the display of these works in commercial art galleries and the decline of the human figure in the picture, the works are arguably less political. It is the complex nature of these shifts in post-apartheid hostel imagery that will be investigated in this paper, with specific reference to the work of Peter Magubane, T.J. Lemon, Sabelo Mlangeni, Angela Buckland, Jodi Bieber, David Goldblatt, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Sam Nhlengethwa.     

他者之域：和解的希望——《耻》的后殖民解读

民族、身份认同以及主体与他者的关系问题是后殖民理论中所探讨的重要课题。从后殖民的角度解读了南非作家J.M.库切的小说《耻》。分析了后殖民时期南非白人主体地位衰落以及被边缘化、客体化,丧失身份认同感的状况;阐释了强暴所隐喻的深刻意蕴,即作为抵抗话语的强暴只是殖民压迫的复制,是殖民权力的颠倒;探讨了作品所揭示的后殖民时期非殖民化进程中宽容、和解、和谐共存的理念及其深远意义。     

New dawn or end of labour?: from South Africa’s East Rand to Ekurhuleni

ABSTRACT

The question raised in this article is whether the key role played under apartheid by labour in the transition to democracy can be revived in the struggle against the persistent and deepening inequality of the post-apartheid period. We argue that the transition to a neoliberal state in the post-apartheid period has fragmented workers and weakened their capacity to build sustainable workplace organization. However, in spite of this, we identify the emergence of collective action and organization amongst these precarious workers. We show how in response to the degeneration of their traditional organizations, these workers are rebuilding worker organization still very much inscribed in the organizational traditions built on the East Rand over 40 years ago. We challenge the pessimistic ‘end of labour’ thesis that suggests that the informalization of employment has made collective organization impossible.     

The Sunday Times Heritage Project: heritage,the media and the formation of national consciousness

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, the landscape of memory in South Africa has undergone significant changes. While most new monuments, memorials and heritage sites have emerged under the aegis of the government, this article focuses on a private sector initiative, the Sunday Times Heritage Project (STHP), sponsored by the Sunday Times newspaper in celebration of its centenary in 2006. The project involved the installation of 30 small-scale memorials commemorating key moments in the history of South Africa, with each memorial being accompanied by a website entry. The article focuses on the role of the media in shaping a new national consciousness in South Africa and specifically investigates how a new, supposedly shared history emerges through the work of the Sunday Times journalists in selecting stories and negotiating with stakeholders. With reference to specific examples, significant differences are highlighted between the newspaper’s heritage initiative and the state-initiated memory projects, but ultimately, it is argued, the STHP reveals a calculated or unconscious acceptance of the state-endorsed historical discourse structured around resistance narratives, which has become hegemonic since 1994.     

‘Love beyond colour’: the formation of interracial gay men's intimate relationships in post-apartheid South Africa

Arguably, family sociology has witnessed a paradigm shift from a general view of family as a monolithic entity to recognising family pluralism in the last few decades. Recognition and appreciation of diversities such as race, class and gender are at the forefront of this change. This shift includes the construction of day-to-day lives of same-sex households. It should be mentioned that feminist scholars have made important contributions to the role and position of women in families, but lesser contribution has been made to same-sex families' research. Similarly, it has been argued that same-sex family research is one of the important aspects of family scholarship that has not been adequately explored and it is yet to make a serious impact in family studies. In recognition of this gap in family sociology, this study contributes to the existing literature on the emerging familial construction of same-sex households. This study explores the political transition that led to the current visibility of gay identity and interracial intimate relationships that were previously subjugated during apartheid in South Africa. The study is based on an eight-month fieldwork and data were collected through in-depth interviews from 10 interracial gay partners (comprising of 20 gay men). The study found that there is a growing formation of gay men's romantic relationships that transcend colour in post-apartheid South Africa, given the previous history of racial segregation and criminalisation of same-sex attractions as the ‘other’ in the country. The two common ways in which gay men who participated in this study form their household are through face-to-face and computer-mediated relationships.     

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.     

South Africa’s settler-colonial present: Khoisan revivalism and the question of indigeneity

ABSTRACT

South Africa’s settler-colonial past is widely acknowledged. And yet, commonplace understandings of the post-apartheid era and a focus on the end of segregation make an appraisal of settler colonialism in present-day South Africa difficult and controversial. Nonetheless, we argue that an understanding of South Africa’s “settler-colonial present” is urgent and needed. We suggest that settler colonialism as a specific mode of domination survives apartheid. In particular, we focus on the recent revival and political mobilisation of indigenous Khoisan identity and cultural heritage to show that settler colonialism and apartheid should be understood as distinct yet overlapping modes of domination. A settler-colonial mode of governance aiming at “the elimination of the native” in two interrelated domains, dispossession and transfer, characterises past and present South Africa. An understanding of this continuity offers opportunities for an original interpretation of both Khoisan revivalism and contemporary South African society.     

What does Ubuntu solve? Thoughts on the rhetoric used in the making of the Heritage Transformation Charter

Following the drafting of the Heritage Transformation Charter, an academic study investigated one of the mandates of the Charter, that of oral traditions as part of South Africa’s living heritage. Through an engagement with the discursive elements of both the draft and final texts of the Charter, it found that the authors of the Charter considered Ubuntu as its underlying philosophy, which should inform not only the heritage sector but become an overarching principle for nation building. This approach transpired mostly through the use of rhetoric in the Charter texts, which seemingly placed the discussion of the concept of Ubuntu and to a certain degree the entire Charter firmly within a postcolonial Afro-centric position. Following some of the rhetoric with regard to Ubuntu, and considering the characteristics of rhetoric, its functions and manifestations, the paper will trace the effects of such rhetoric from within the context of a public document such as the Charter to the context of the wider South African society. Thereby, elaborating on the rhetoric around Ubuntu in the Charter texts, it will demonstrate in part how such rhetoric is used in shaping the wider postcolonial and post-apartheid discourse in the present socio-economic dispensation.