Shuttling between the suburbs and the township: the new black middle class(es) negotiating class and post-apartheid blackness in South Africa

Africa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thabisani Ndlovu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
Status Inconsistency ◽  
Literary Sources

AbstractA generation of South Africa's new black middle class shuttles between the suburbs and the townships. This has become the focus of some South African humorous essayists, among them Ndumiso Ngcobo and Fred Khumalo, on whose works this article is based. The article argues that studying the new black middle class should extend to these literary sources and approaches. The humorous essays by these two authors consistently reference metaphors of mobility and the vexed intersection of black middle-classness, consumption, racialized residential zoning and compromised status. Through the mode of humour, the essays evince the psychological burdens borne by those with township roots but who live in the suburbs, as they negotiate status inconsistency in a post-apartheid search for human dignity. Constant visits to the township and the retreat to the suburbs constitute negotiations of spatial, financial and psychic concerns imbricated in the legacies of apartheid's racialized politics of distinction.

scholarly journals ‘Black diamonds’, ‘clever blacks’ and other metaphors: Constructing the black middle class in contemporary South African print media

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Dimitris Kitis ◽  
Tommaso M Milani ◽  
Erez Levon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
White Minority

South Africa (SA) has been undergoing a process of transformation since the end of White minority rule (apartheid) in 1994. During this period, various employment and lifestyle opportunities have given rise to a growing Black middle class (BMC). Against this backdrop, the article draws upon an intersectional approach to corpus-assisted discourse studies in order to examine the construction of the BMC in a 1.4 million-word corpus composed of 20 mainstream Anglophone South African newspaper titles published between 2008 and 2014. With the help of the corpus tool AntConc, the article investigates the collocates of ‘black middle class’, ‘black diamonds’, ‘clever blacks’ and ‘coconuts’, classifying results according to semantic categories in order to provide an idea of the multiple but nuanced representations of the BMC in contemporary SA. The analysis finds several lexically rich moralizing and paternalistic discourses that, in accordance with an intersectional perspective, enact a complex pattern of strategies that are simultaneously exclusionary and inclusionary.

Decently transgressing: expressions of female heterosexuality and the discourses of (hetero)sexual pleasure in South Africa

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110374
Author(s):  
Letitia Smuts
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Sexual Agency ◽  
South African Context ◽  
The South ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
African Context

This article explores sexual agency and pleasure among heterosexual women in South Africa. By focussing on Tupperware-style sex-toy parties, this article offers a glimpse into a ‘hidden’ world of white, middle-class women living in Johannesburg. What is revealed in this ethnographic account is that these gatherings promise women new ways of enjoying sex, while remaining within the boundaries of heteronormative notions of (hetero)sex. I use the term ‘decently transgressing’ to capture the ways in which the women in this study make sense of their (hetero)sexual selves and how they negotiate their (hetero)sexual agencies, particularly in relation to past and present heteronormative discourses within the South African context. The findings show that there are tensions between women wanting to embrace their own sexual agency and desires, yet at the same time being limited by certain heteronormative norms.

The New Black Middle Class in South Africa

Politikon ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 470-471
Author(s):  
Busisiwe Khaba
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Black Middle Class

Family policy for all South African families

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1189-1200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlize Rabe
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Family Diversity ◽  
Vulnerable Families ◽  
African Families

The ‘White Paper of Families in South Africa’ is critically analysed in this article. It is shown that although family diversity is acknowledged in the aforementioned document, certain implications of the document undermine such professed diversity, not all caretakers of children are acknowledged and supported, and financially vulnerable families are not strengthened. Instead, narrow ideals of family life are at times promoted, suggesting middle-class heterosexual values. It is argued here that the realities of family life should be accepted as such and family in different forms should be supported consistently, not subtly pushed to conform to restricted interpretations of what families should be like.

The new black middle class in South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 117 (469) ◽  
pp. 715-716
Author(s):  
Ján Michalko
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Black Middle Class

Equality and Non-Discrimination in the South African Constitution

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Joan Small ◽  
Evadne Grant
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
The Law ◽  
South African Constitution

Equality occupies the first place in most written constitutions, but in South Africa, its importance is magnified both in terms of the text of the Constitution and in terms of the context in which that Constitution operates. The Bill of Rights is expected, in South Africa, to help bring about the transformation of the society. These expectations of transformation through the operation of the Bill of Rights are informing the development of the law in relation to equality and non-discrimination by the Constitutional Court. The concept of discrimination is uniquely defined in the South African Bill of Rights. The Courts are struggling to give legal effect to the terminology. The test developed by the Court to interpret the equality clause, it is submitted, is comprehensive and informed. But the application of the test is sometimes problematic. This paper addresses the evolving concepts of equality and discrimination in South Africa and discusses some of the difficulties with certain aspects of the test for discrimination, including the concepts of unfairness and human dignity, which have caused division among the judiciary.

scholarly journals Black consumers perceptions towards luxury brands in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
K Mercy Makhitha
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
Luxury Brands ◽  
Global Brands ◽  
The Past ◽  
Gender And Education ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Black Consumers ◽  
Area Data

The paper determines the black consumers’ perceptions towards luxury brands in South Africa. The purchase of luxury brands has been on the rise locally and internationally. Global brands have been investing in SA by expanding to the region. The demand for luxury brands has also increased over the past decades. In SA, the middle-class group has also increased, particularly the black middle class which increased the market for luxury brands. To achieve the objectives of the study, a survey was conducted among black consumers in Thohoyandou, Venda, South Africa. Data were collected by two fieldworkers who intercepted shoppers visiting a regional mall in the area. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25. The descriptives, factor analysis, and ANOVA were analyzed to achieve the objectives of the study.  The findings of the study reveal that black consumers are more influenced by the rarity and uniqueness of the brands followed by the financial and functional values of the brands. Black consumers’ perceptions towards luxury brands were found to differ across age and income groups but did not differ across gender and education levels. Organizations targeting black consumers must design brands that are rare and unique and ensure that brands deliver the financial and functional values desired by black consumers

Bonhoeffer, South Africa, and Global Contexts

2019 ◽  
pp. 411-427
Author(s):  
Nico Koopman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Potential Problems

This chapter examines the reception of Bonhoeffer in global contexts by taking one such context as a detailed case study, namely South Africa. The chapter begins by examining the complex concept of ubuntu, which has been appealed to in South African ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ processes. Exploring the emphases upon the notions of solidarity, communion, unity and reconciliation which are ingredient within that influential concept, the chapter then moves to outline some of the concerns that have been levelled against this concept and its application in public theology, before suggesting how Bonhoeffer’s own relational anthropology, with its Christological and ecclesiological dimensions, might ameliorate some of these potential problems. It concludes by suggesting that Bonhoeffer’s thinking here can make a significant contribution to the development of a contemporary public theology of human dignity and rights both in South Africa and beyond.

‘A quintessentially English designer’ from Durban: Victor Stiebel’s South African Childhood (1968)

2021 ◽  
Vol 00 (00) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Lindy Stiebel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Fashion Industry ◽  
Autobiographical Writing ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
The Times

Victor Stiebel (1907–76), in his obituary in The Times, was described as a well known and highly esteemed British couturier. Yet, for the first eighteen years of his life, Stiebel lived unremarkably in Durban, South Africa, with his middle-class colonial family. In an article written by a fashion historian who appraised his importance within the British fashion industry, Stiebel is described as the quintessential English designer. How did this ‘Englishness’ develop and what evidence do we see of this quality in his autobiography South African Childhood (1968) that covers his childhood years? The leap from Durban to London and his subsequent career as a court dressmaker and couturier, plus designer for Hollywood stars including Vivien Leigh and Katherine Hepburn, is vast, but it is one that Stiebel eagerly made. The bridge, this article argues, is the very ‘Englishness’ that Stiebel encountered in his home and the colonial society of Durban in the Edwardian era in which he grew up. Life in the colonies concentrated this quality in its settlers probably because of their distance from the metropole rather than their proximity. This article sets out to examine what form this ‘Englishness’ took in Stiebel’s life and work, evident visually in his dress designs according to fashion historians, but also, from a literary historian’s point of view, in his autobiographical writing and written correspondence, particularly that with the actress Vivien Leigh.

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