Queer knowledge and the politics of the gaze in contemporary South African photography
Zanele Muholi and others
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2172963 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew Van Der Vlies (0000-0002-8431-6701) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 140-156 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13696815.2012.697647 |
| OpenAlex | W1970729182 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 16 |
This article is concerned chiefly with work by the contemporary South African lesbian photographer and activist Zanele Muholi, drawing some comparisons with photographs by Sabelo Mlangeni and Lunga Kama. All of these photographers are concerned with the visibility of sexual minorities, the politics of the gaze, the construction of archives, the role of photography that is activist, and the generation of new ideas about community and citizenship. Muholi's work, in particular, speaks to tensions between the body politic and the biopolitics of the black body, the autochthonous subject of tradition and the queer agent of utopian possibility. In teasing out some of the complexities of these tensions and their implications for audiences of the photographs, this article considers thematic concerns and formal attributes of a number of works. It interrogates, too, their implications for thinking about queer futurity in the postcolony, and what their reception reveals about the judgement – and tolerance – of the new custodians of national cultural identities in South Africa
Aesthetics · Art · Body politic · Citizenship · Custodians · Foregrounding · Gaze · Invisibility · Lesbian · Literature · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Queer · Sociology · Subject (documents · Transgender · African history and culture studies · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · South African History and Culture · Gender Studies · History · Law
Remains of the Social
Response
Dirty politics
Self-portrait as Epistemic Disobedience
Spectacles of Promise and Disappointment
Empathy’s echo
Photographing the zone of the “seam”
Lesbian”/female same-sex sexualities in Africa
The writing is on the wall
Art, media and gender based activism
African Cultural Studies
Reflections on Trans* & Taxonomy (with Neo Musangi)
Queering portraits of “maids” and “madams” in Zanele Muholi’s “ Massa” and Mina(h)
Archiving the Other or Reading Online Photography as Queer Ephemera
Exit/Exist
Before you're a DJ, you're a woman
Copy, Archive, Signature
Fear of a queer planet
The Cultural Politics of Female Sexuality in South Africa
Zoë Wicomb's Queer Cosmopolitanisms
Zanele Muholi's Intimate Archive
Through the Postcolonial Eyes
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
No Future
An Archive of Feelings
South Africa in the Global Imaginary
The Body and the Archive
Queer Family Romance
Degas's Brothels
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2024 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |