Equality or unity? Black Consciousness, white solidarity, and the new South Africa in Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter and July’s People
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9002518 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edward Powell (0009-0003-5554-8874, independent scholar, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 225-242 |
| Publication date | 2017-02-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9894 • E-ISSN: 1741-6442 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0021989416687349 |
| OpenAlex | W2588789246 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
In the early 1970s, the Black Consciousness movement called on black radicals to dissociate themselves from dissident white South Africans, who were accused of frustrating the anti-apartheid cause in order to safeguard their ill-gotten privileges. In turn, liberal whites condemned this separatism as a capitulation to apartheid’s vision of “separate development”, despite the movement’s avowed aspiration towards a nonracial South Africa. This article considers how black separatism affected Nadine Gordimer’s own perspective on the prospect of achieving this aspiration. For Gordimer, Black Consciousness was necessary for black liberation, and she sought ways of reconciling white dissidents with black separatism. Still, these efforts didn’t always sit well together with her continuing belief that if there were to be a place for whites in a majority-ruled South Africa, then they needed to join blacks in a “common culture”. I consider how this tension marks Gordimer’s portraits of whites responding to being rejected by blacks in Burger’s Daughter and July’s People. In both novels, white efforts to resist apartheid’s racial segregations appear to be at odds with black self-liberation, with the effect that whites must find a way of doing without the as-yet deferred prospect of establishing a “common culture” in South Africa
Consciousness · Daughter · Double consciousness · Epistemology · Genealogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · White (mutation · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · History · Law · Legal Issues in South Africa · Philosophy · Religious studies · South African History and Culture
I write what I like
Nadine Gordimer
Black Power in South Africa
Writing Revolution
Nadine Gordimer's ‘future histories’
Apartheid Inequality and Postapartheid Utopia in Nadine Gordimer's July's People
Translating the Present
Biko’s ghost
Why Race Matters in South Africa
Complexities of identity/difference
The Novels of Nadine Gordimer
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2003 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |