What does it mean to perform whiteness in the postcolonial era? To answer this questionmdash;crucial for understanding the changing meanings of race in the twenty-first centurymdash;Megan Lewis examines the ways that members of South Africarsquo;s Afrikaner minority have performed themselves into; around; and out of power from the colonial period to the postcolony. The nationrsquo;s first European settlers and in the twentieth century the architects of apartheid; since 1994 Afrikaners have been citizens of a multicultural; multilingual democracy. How have they enacted their whiteness in the past; and how do they do so now when their privilege has been deflated?​Performing Whitely examines the multiple speech acts; political acts; and theatrical acts of the Afrikaner volk or nation in theatrical and public life; including pageants; museum sites; film; and popular music as well as theatrical productions. Lewis explores the diverse ways in which Afrikaners perform whitely; and the tactics they use; including nostalgia; melodrama; queering; abjection; and kitsch. She first investigates the way that apartheidrsquo;s architects leveraged whiteness in support of their nation-building efforts in the early twentieth century. In addition to re-enacting national pilgrimages of colonial-era migrations and building massive monuments at home; Afrikaner nationalists took their show to the United States; staging critical events of the Boer War at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. A case study of the South African experience; Performing Whitely also offers parables for global whitenesses in the postcolonial era.
2016-11-28 2016-11-29File Name: B01MTU7IRV
Review
