Sensational signs, authority and the public sphere

Settler colonial rhetoric in times of change

Bibliographic Data

ID3655290
AuthorsAna Deumert (0000-0002-0199-8955, University of Cape Town South Africa, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume23
Issue5
Pages467-484
Publication date2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociolinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-6441 • E-ISSN: 1467-9841
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/josl.12377
OpenAlexW2974599272
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited52

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 aspathosandethos-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

Aesthetics · Art · Colonialism · Ethos · Ideology · Literature · Pathos · Political science · Politics · Public sphere · Racism · Rhetoric · Sociology · White (mutation · White supremacy · African cultural and philosophical studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture

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