Empathy, Negrophobia and Rape in Zukiswa Wanner’s London Cape Town Joburg

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Dlamini Nonhlanhla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Social Good

This paper reflects upon two (un)related spectacular phenomena in South Africa: rape and black racism using Zukiswa Wanner’ London Cape Town Joburg (2014). It examines how the text uses irony to turn postapartheid optimism on its head, while refusing to uncritically borrow and use apartheid language of manufacturing difference. In addition, it makes connections between rape, intimacy and empathy in the contexts of sexual violence by examining the role of tactical empathy during the episodes of rape in the text. It concludes by suggesting that although empathy is an emotion for social good and transformation, it maybe co-opted and used to perpetuate uncanny/predatory masculinities and sexual violence on people perceived to be less privileged, weak and/or ‘deviant’. In addition, this work proffers that foregrounding vaginal discourses on discussions about rape in South Africa render other forms of sexual violence – male and anal rape – invisible/unthinkable.

scholarly journals Sexual violence against children and youth: Exploring the role of congregations in addressing the protection of young girls on the Cape Flats

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shantelle Weber ◽  
Nadine Bowers-DuToit
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Faith Formation ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

The Children’s Institute, a research arm of the University of Cape Town, reports that 18.5 million children live in South Africa. The institute’s vision is for ‘A society in which children are valued, nurtured and protected; their rights are realised; and where they are able to participate, develop and reach their full potential’. A quick scan of South African newspaper headlines, however, reflects numerous accounts of the abduction, rape and murder of young girls on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa, during 2016–2017. This seems to confirm the statistic that one in three children is a victim of sexual violence and physical abuse before the age of 18. Sadly, many of these instances are alleged to have been linked to a family member or close family friend. Some have even been linked to Christian church contexts. This article explores this unacceptable rise in violence against these young girls and from this vantage point continues to more specifically reflect on the role congregations can play in such instances. The article argues that such abuse takes place within an ecosystem of violence and then considers how the trauma of such an experience has affected the faith formation of these young girls. The article, furthermore, highlights the recent publication entitled ‘Children, Church and the Law’, which calls for the establishment of church policy on the protection of children in our local congregations and communities as one preventative and educative tool in addressing this issue.

Femme Fatales: Girl Gangsters and Violent Street Culture in Cape Town

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 438-463
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziewanski
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Violent Victimization ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
Street Culture ◽  
Income Status ◽  
Cultural Performances

This article examines the ways that 21 girl gangsters perform violent street culture in Cape Town, South Africa. It examines their participation in the city’s township gangs, with a particular focus on female involvement in gang-related acts of aggression and violence. Research looks to move beyond portrayals of girl gangsters in Cape Town as either victims or accessories. It shows how they leverage street cultural performances in reaction to intersectional oppression, and in an attempt to empower themselves. Young women in this study joined gangs and took part in violence for many of the same reasons that men do—protection, income, status, and so on—as well as due to threats of sexual violence faced specifically by females. But street cultural participation for females in Cape Town also often perpetuates cycles of violent victimization, incarceration, and substance abuse that keep girl gangsters trapped in a life on the streets. In this way, females in this study broke from the binary view of girl gangsterism as either totally liberating or totally injurious, embodying both simultaneously.

PATCHWORKED MEDIA: MOBILE DEVICES AND CREATIVE PRACTICE IN CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Anja Venter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Material Reality ◽  
Development Trajectories

There has been a recurring narrative in research that revolves around mobile technologies and society, particularly in relation to Africa: that these technologies have the potential to reconfigure and revolutionise the development trajectories of entire countries (Donner & Locke, 2019). But if these narratives are to be the case, then, indeed, the role that mobile devices can play in production (in this case of art, media, and design) is going to have to be something that allows people in the global South to earn a living. This paper presents an exploration of the creative practices, with a focus on mobile creative practices, of a cohort of Extended Curriculum Program (ECP) Visual Design students from a university in Cape Town, South Africa (2014). All of these students came from low-income, resource constrained contexts in the townships that surround Cape Town. In questioning whether mobile technologies can help young South African creatives forge careers or attain resources that could help them do so, the role of mobile technologies is complicated. While these devices offer new emerging creative affordances, and in some cases, can offer means to generate income, the material reality is a different story. I conclude by arguing that instead of these devices offering access to a global network, they, at best, provide the means for young creatives, such as those featured in this study, to a forge a media patchwork.

Defining and improving the role of emergency medical services in Cape Town, South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 557-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trisha Anest ◽  
Sarah Stewart de Ramirez ◽  
Kamna S Balhara ◽  
Peter Hodkinson ◽  
Lee Wallis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Emergency Medical Services ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Emergency Medical

WITCHCRAFT AND THE EXCHANGE OF SEX, BLOOD, AND MONEY AMONG AFRICANS IN CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Bähre
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Intimate Relations

AbstractIn post-apartheid South Africa witchcraft is an ever-growing concern, as political liberation has not led to liberation from occult forces. The study of modernity and globalisation has revealed the significance of the study of witchcraft in contemporary Africa. Among Xhosa migrants in Cape Town the discourse on witchcraft also revealed very specific problems that people encountered within close relationships. The lived conflicts, anxieties and desires were revealed in the exchange of sex, blood (as a metaphor for life itself ), and money. This same pattern of exchange appeared in witchcraft, and particularly the role of witch familiars. Witch familiars embodied the anxieties and desires that people experienced on a daily basis concerning sex, blood, and flows of money in intimate relations. The structural problems that were part of the migrants' social configurations were thus revealed in a structural pattern of exchange within witchcraft.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document