Identities at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and class in a liberalising, democratising South Africa : the reconstitution of 'the Afrikaner woman'

Van der Westhuizen, Christi

Identities at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and class in a liberalising, democratising South Africa : the reconstitution of 'the Afrikaner woman'

Doctoral Thesis

2013

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Sociology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation explores the extent to which the post-apartheid democratic space in South Africa has allowed for the emergence of new identities for Afrikaans women beyond the normative Afrikaner nationalist volksmoeder [mother of the nation] ideal. The study interrogates Afrikaner subjectivities through the interpretive lens of ordentlikheid - an ethnicised respectability - at the intersections of gender, sexuality, class and race. Framed by the theoretical perspectives of Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, and Butler, the study employs discourse analysis across three phases: Firstly, an analysis of Sarie women's magazine, as an instrument of a culturally-sanctioned, normative discourse; secondly, an analysis of texts generated in focus group interviews with subjects who self-identify as women, white, heterosexual, middle-class and Afrikaans-speaking; and thirdly, an analysis of texts from individual in-depth interviews.

Description

Includes bibliographical references.

Keywords

Sociology

Reference:

Collections

PhD / Doctoral

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