Impurity and Danger : Excerpt from Cape Calypso

This chapter assumes that the globally resurging nationalism, identity politics and xenophobia may be explicated by the conceptual dichotomy Purity-Impurity. South Africa is an especially apt case for such analysis. Twenty-five years after the transition, its inhabitants are still divided according to the apartheid categories and very modest progress has been made in breaking former barriers and changing attitudes. Yet, whereas apartheid was one of the foremost applications of a “politics of purity”, the Western Cape has also historically been one of the epicentres of creolisation. By means of an experimental cross-genre (literary and academic) approach, the apartheid vision of “separate development” is here interrogated as suppressed creolisation. The chapter is an abbreviated excerpt from a forthcoming diptych on creolisation vs. racialisation in South Africa.This chapter is an abbreviated version of a chapter in the forthcoming monograph Contaminations and Ethnographic Fictions : Southern Crossing

Impurity and Danger : Excerpt from Cape Calypso

This chapter assumes that the globally resurging nationalism, identity politics and xenophobia may be explicated by the conceptual dichotomy Purity-Impurity. South Africa is an especially apt case for such analysis. Twenty-five years after the transition, its inhabitants are still divided according to the apartheid categories and very modest progress has been made in breaking former barriers and changing attitudes. Yet, whereas apartheid was one of the foremost applications of a “politics of purity”, the Western Cape has also historically been one of the epicentres of creolisation. By means of an experimental cross-genre (literary and academic) approach, the apartheid vision of “separate development” is here interrogated as suppressed creolisation. The chapter is an abbreviated excerpt from a forthcoming diptych on creolisation vs. racialisation in South Africa

Mas eu fui uma estrela do futebol! As incoerências sociológicas e as controvérsias sociais de um militante sem-terra sul-africano

Este artigo procura analisar as histórias que se cruzam com o engajamento político de um militante do Landless Peoples Movement, na África do Sul contemporânea. Por meio do estudo da relação desta liderança com o movimento, com sua bandeira de luta e com outras dimensões de sua vida coletiva, procurarei discutir alguns dos desafios que as ciências sociais enfrentam quando buscam associar indivíduos e processos sociais. Com esta análise pretendo chamar a atenção para os limites dos estudos tradicionais sobre militantes políticos e para a necessidade de incorporação de perspectivas plurais no que tange à análise das ações coletivas por parte das ciências sociais.<br>This article analyzes the series of histories that intersect with the political engagement of an activist from the Landless Peoples Movement in contemporary South Africa. Based on a study of the relation between this leader and the movement, campaign issues and other dimensions of collective life, I discuss some of the challenges facing the social sciences when they seek to associate individuals with social processes. Through this analysis I look to call attention to the limits of traditional studies of political activists and the need for the the social sciences to incorporate plural perspectives into any analysis of collective action