Shifting Meanings of Postconflict Sexual Violence in South Africa

Dados Bibliográficos

ID18966751
AutoresLouise Du Toit (0000-0003-4186-5812)
Ano2014
Volume40
Fascículo1
Páginas101-123
Data de publicação2014-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/676895
OpenAlexW1964816503
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas14

In this article, I identify four interpretive frames that have been or may be used to make sense of the high incidence of rape in contemporary postapartheid South Africa, namely, past perpetrator trauma, current socioeconomic exclusion, patriarchal politics, and ontological violence. This analysis aims to present each of these as a kind of story or narrative within which the phenomenon is framed, thus setting out a rough typology of rape interpretations. Each frame is then critically considered in terms of criteria such as its compatibility with the available statistics and known patterns of rape, its internal coherence, its inclusivity (accounting for the perspective of both perpetrators and victims), whether it does justice to the nature of rape, its probable effect on society, and in particular whether it furthers or obscures insight into a broader South African culture of complicity with rape. I conclude that the first two frames, the most prevalent discourses around rape, tend to adopt an uncritical perpetrator perspective, to “other” perpetrators, and ironically to privilege the perpetrator over the victim. Thus, they tend to play a powerful ideological role in society as a whole. The last two frames are more promising, but I show that the political interpretation of rape as instrumental violence needs supplementation through an understanding of rape as ontological violence

Criminology · Development economics · Economics · Geography · Political science · Sexual violence · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Psychology · South African History and Culture