Tongue tied : the politics of language, subjectivity and social psychology in South Africa

This thesis consists of a series of analytically independent, but conceptually interrelated studies of language ideologies across a number of different discursive terrains. The overarching objective of these interventions is to illuminate the relationship between language, politics and subjectivity from a number of different historical, philosophical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. This, in turn, is pursued with the aim to critically interrogate the ways in which social psychology has traditionally conceptualised and approached language (and language related phenomena), and to explore some of the conceptual, metatheoretical and theoretical requirements for a reconfigured, critical social psychology of language. Towards this end, the following specific themes are explored: (1) the political role language has historically played in South Africa, especially with regards to the articulation and political embodiment of various ethnically, racially and nationally mediated forms of subjectivity (Chapter 3); the politically productive role language has played in the emergence of nationalism, nation-state societies and the modern political order more broadly (and, vice versa, the role nationalism and the modern nation-state has played in delineating language as an ontologically, epistemologically and politically consistent object of state, academic and popular interest) (Chapter 4); (3) the way in which nationally mediated and state-oriented conceptions of language, politics and political subjectivity have been assumed, naturalised and reproduced by traditional social psychology throughout the twentieth century (Chapter 5); and (4) the way in which ordinary discussions about language in an everyday South African setting contribute (by invoking liberal and nationalist discourses, amongst others) to the continued racialisation of language and public space in this country, and to the further legitimisation of linguistically mediated forms of inequality and marginalisation (Chapter 6). In each instance the focus is on language as both constructed and constructive in relation to the emergence of particular social and political orders and their associated subjectivities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limits of discourse and ideology as frameworks for the study of language, politics and subjectivity, and develops a number of tentative ideas about language as a corporeal component of embodied and affective subjectivities (Chapter 7).Ph. D. (Psychology

The social in social psychology : cognitive, postmodern and discursive alternatives to individualism

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study evaluates the development of a discursive approach to social psychology in terms of this discipline's most pressing metatheoretical question: what is the relation between the individual and the social in social psychology? This question is illuminated through a discussion of traditional cognitive approaches to social psychology as well as postmodern critiques of the discipline, after which the discursive approach is introduced to address shortcomings in both these perspectives. The discursive approach incorporates a key insight of recent developments in the philosophy of language, namely that language is not primarily referential, but constructive of our experiences and relationship to reality. By taking seriously both the performative or rhetorical and the abstract-systemic characteristics of language, discursive social psychology addresses the traditional issues of individualism and the reduction of the social on two levels: first, as it is revealed in especially traditional cognitive approaches to social psychology; and secondly, as it supports a set of specifically Western cultural values that reproduce cultural and political practices and power imbalances. Discursive social psychology is subsequently presented as a definite advance with regard to providing richer conceptions of social-cognitive processes and the socio-cultural foundations of psychological phenomena. Despite this there are also important limitations that should be taken into account before discursive social psychology is imported to South Africa as a critical alternative: the focus on language goes along with a negation of the materiality and embodied nature of experience. Because experience cannot be pre-reflexively psychological meaningful, discursive social psychology remains to develop a theory of agency that indicates how criticism, resistance and change is possible.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie evalueer die ontwikkeling van 'n diskursiewe benadering tot die sosiale sielkunde in terme van hierdie dissipline se mees knellende metateoretiese vraag: wat is die verhouding tussen die individuele en die sosiale in sosiale sielkunde? Hierdie vraag word aangespreek deur eers te kyk na tradisioneel kognitiewe benaderings tot en postmodernistiese kritiek op die sosiale sielkunde, waarna die diskursiewe benadering bekendgestel word soos dit die tekortkominge in hierdie twee perspektiewe aanspreek. Die diskursiewe benadering inkorporeer 'n sleutel-insig van onlangse ontwikkelinge in die taalfilosofie, naamlik dat taal nie primêr referensieel is nie, maar konstruktief en medebepalend van ons ervaring van en verhouding tot die werklikheid. Deur beide die performatiewe of retoriese en die meer abstrak-sistemiese kenmerke van taal ernstig op te neem, spreek die diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde die tradisionele knelpunte van individualisme en reduksie van die sosiale op twee vlakke aan: eerstens, soos dit onthul word in veral tradisioneel kognitiewe benaderings tot sosiale sielkunde; en tweedens, soos dit 'n stel spesifiek Westers-kulturele waardes onderhou wat bydra tot die reproduksie van kulturele en politieke praktyke en mags-wanbalanse. Diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde word gevolglik aangetoon as 'n definitiewe vooruitgang wat betref die uiteensetting van ryker konsepsies van sosiaal kognitiewe prosesse en die sosiaal-kulturele grondslae van sielkundige fenomene. Ten spyte hiervan is daar egter ook belangrike gebreke wat in ag geneem moet word voordat diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde as kritiese alternatief na Suid-Afrika ingevoer word: die fokus op taal gaan qepaard met 'n negering van die materialiteit en liggaamlikheid van ervaring. Omdat ervaring nie pre-refleksief sielkundige betekenis kan hê nie, bly hierdie ontwikkeling se verstaan van agentskap in gebreke om te verduidelik hoe kritiek, teenstand en verandering moontlik is

The linguistic turn and social psychology

This article investigates some of the implications of the linguistic turn in modern philosophy for the development of social psychology. The linguistic turn, according to which language does not primarily mirror reality or our experience but is co-constructive thereof, gave rise to productive developments in social psychology. Wittgenstein’s insight that the meaning of words depends on their use value in specific language games made it possible to see social cognition as an interactive and social achievement, rather than as a selfenclosed mental process merely directed at the social environment. Post-structuralist developments like those of Derrida and Foucault, based on the structuralist linguistics of De Saussure, make the psychological subject, experience, social institutions and knowledge products of more fundamental textual processes. Despite contradictions these approaches underlie the development of what may be called a discursive social psychology: a discipline focusing on the different discursive aspects of social psychological life, which refuses to restrict that life to individual levels of analysis

Civil society leadership in the struggle for AIDS treatment in South Africa and Uganda

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This thesis is an attempt to theorise and operationalise empirically the notion of ‘civil society leadership’ in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘AIDS leadership,’ which is associated with the intergovernmental institutions charged with coordinating the global response to HIV/AIDS, is both under-theorised and highly context-specific. In this study I therefore opt for an inclusive framework that draws on a range of approaches, including the literature on ‘leadership’, institutions, social movements and the ‘network’ perspective on civil society mobilisation. This framework is employed in rich and detailed empirical descriptions (‘thick description’) of civil society mobilisation around AIDS, including contentious AIDS activism, in the key case studies of South Africa and Uganda. South Africa and Uganda are widely considered key examples of poor and good leadership (from national political leaders) respectively, while the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) are both seen as highly effective civil society movements. These descriptions emphasise ‘transnational networks of influence’ in which civil society leaders participated (and at times actively constructed) in order to mobilise both symbolic and material resources aimed at exerting influence at the transnational, national and local levels

Book Review: Perspektief en profiel: ’n Afrikaanse literatuurgeskiedenis (Tweede uitgawe)

Book Title: Perspektief en profiel: ’n Afrikaanse literatuurgeskiedenis (Tweede uitgawe)Book Author: H. P. van Coller. (red.)Pretoria: Van Schaik, 2015 en 2016. Deel 1: 898 pp. ISBN: 978 0 627 03104 5;Deel 2: 1076 pp. ISBN: 978 0 627 03105 2; Deel 3: 1126 pp. ISBN: 978 0 627 03106 9

The social in social psychology : cognitive, postmodern and discursive alternatives to individualism

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study evaluates the development of a discursive approach to social psychology in terms of this discipline's most pressing metatheoretical question: what is the relation between the individual and the social in social psychology? This question is illuminated through a discussion of traditional cognitive approaches to social psychology as well as postmodern critiques of the discipline, after which the discursive approach is introduced to address shortcomings in both these perspectives. The discursive approach incorporates a key insight of recent developments in the philosophy of language, namely that language is not primarily referential, but constructive of our experiences and relationship to reality. By taking seriously both the performative or rhetorical and the abstract-systemic characteristics of language, discursive social psychology addresses the traditional issues of individualism and the reduction of the social on two levels: first, as it is revealed in especially traditional cognitive approaches to social psychology; and secondly, as it supports a set of specifically Western cultural values that reproduce cultural and political practices and power imbalances. Discursive social psychology is subsequently presented as a definite advance with regard to providing richer conceptions of social-cognitive processes and the socio-cultural foundations of psychological phenomena. Despite this there are also important limitations that should be taken into account before discursive social psychology is imported to South Africa as a critical alternative: the focus on language goes along with a negation of the materiality and embodied nature of experience. Because experience cannot be pre-reflexively psychological meaningful, discursive social psychology remains to develop a theory of agency that indicates how criticism, resistance and change is possible.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie evalueer die ontwikkeling van 'n diskursiewe benadering tot die sosiale sielkunde in terme van hierdie dissipline se mees knellende metateoretiese vraag: wat is die verhouding tussen die individuele en die sosiale in sosiale sielkunde? Hierdie vraag word aangespreek deur eers te kyk na tradisioneel kognitiewe benaderings tot en postmodernistiese kritiek op die sosiale sielkunde, waarna die diskursiewe benadering bekendgestel word soos dit die tekortkominge in hierdie twee perspektiewe aanspreek. Die diskursiewe benadering inkorporeer 'n sleutel-insig van onlangse ontwikkelinge in die taalfilosofie, naamlik dat taal nie primêr referensieel is nie, maar konstruktief en medebepalend van ons ervaring van en verhouding tot die werklikheid. Deur beide die performatiewe of retoriese en die meer abstrak-sistemiese kenmerke van taal ernstig op te neem, spreek die diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde die tradisionele knelpunte van individualisme en reduksie van die sosiale op twee vlakke aan: eerstens, soos dit onthul word in veral tradisioneel kognitiewe benaderings tot sosiale sielkunde; en tweedens, soos dit 'n stel spesifiek Westers-kulturele waardes onderhou wat bydra tot die reproduksie van kulturele en politieke praktyke en mags-wanbalanse. Diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde word gevolglik aangetoon as 'n definitiewe vooruitgang wat betref die uiteensetting van ryker konsepsies van sosiaal kognitiewe prosesse en die sosiaal-kulturele grondslae van sielkundige fenomene. Ten spyte hiervan is daar egter ook belangrike gebreke wat in ag geneem moet word voordat diskursiewe sosiale sielkunde as kritiese alternatief na Suid-Afrika ingevoer word: die fokus op taal gaan qepaard met 'n negering van die materialiteit en liggaamlikheid van ervaring. Omdat ervaring nie pre-refleksief sielkundige betekenis kan hê nie, bly hierdie ontwikkeling se verstaan van agentskap in gebreke om te verduidelik hoe kritiek, teenstand en verandering moontlik is