Romanticising the “ Boer”
Narratives of White Victimhood in South African Popular Culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20156031 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hannelie Marx-Knoetze (0000-0001-8849-3724, University of South Africa, corresponding author), Hannelie Marx Knoetze (University of South Africa) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 48-69 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564718.2020.1822601 |
| OpenAlex | W3107526854 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 16 |
In this article, I present a critical reading of a purposive sample of popular cultural expressions from various sites as they relate to the emergence of narratives of white victimhood in South Africa. The particular focus falls on the resurgence of nostalgic appropriations of the construct of the Afrikaner Boer imaginary, and the concomitant utopian farm ideal. The argument is that this resurgence, in conjunction with popularised, yet unfounded, claims of “white genocide” as it pertains to the murder of white farmers in South Africa, is employed as a means of restoring white hegemony. I contend, moreover, that the globalisation of the genocide-narrative gives nationalist, Afrikaner whiteness – which has historically been regarded as a “lesser whiteness” (Van der Westhuizen 2018) – access to global, normative whiteness, thereby legitimising its hegemonic ideals. A counterargument, however, is that these narratives result in the hypervisibility of whiteness, negating its normative invisibility and creating the potential to subvert and decolonise whiteness as a dominant ideology. The research is theoretically situated within critical whiteness studies and, following a deep description of the context, presents analysis and interpretation alongside concrete examples of popular cultural expressions
Aesthetics · Art · Hegemony · Ideology · Literature · Narrative · Nationalism · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Imaginary · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Law · Psychology · South African History and Culture
Whiteness just isn't what it used to be
Playing in the dark
The ignorance contract
Musical parody, “zef” and the politics of belonging
Tactical Reversal or Re-centring Whiteness? A Response to Green, Sonn, and Matsebula
As the Postcolonial Moment Deepens
White Fright
The Afrikaners
Local is lekker
Media Culture
Rehabilitating a whiteness disgraced
Gender, Degeneration and Sexual Danger
The future of whiteness
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.22 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2025 (23) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |