The construction of the South African tsotsi: challenging myths and a challenging reality. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Tsotsitaal as performed discursive identity: the impact of the social context on a ‘stylect’.
"Based on a recent investigation into the use of Tsotsitaal in Cape Town, and following on from Mesthrie (2008), Hurst (2009), and Mesthrie & Hurst (forthcoming), this paper outlines the argument for the term ‘stylect’ to describe the nature of a particular group of urban varieties that can broadly be classified as tsotsitaals. It is argued that tsotsitaals involve more than just linguistics: that they draw on other symbolic performances of identity such as body language, clothing, and other facets of what could commonly be called ‘style’. It is argued that a linguistic phenomenon that can be classed as a stylect is more than merely a ‘slang’, but not a ‘language’: it is a performed discursive act of styling to constitute identity. The particular identities constituted through the use of Tsotsitaal in South Africa are outlined in terms of, on the one hand, their historical continuity and on the other hand their specific contemporality. The relations between the spectrum of tsotsitaal subcultures, and the trajectory of apartheid and democracy in South Africa are outlined, in order to demonstrate the intimate relationship between urban languages and both national and global discourses. Hurst, E. (2009) Tsotsitaal, global culture and local style: identity and recontextualisation in twenty-first century South African townships. Accepted for publication in Social Dynamics, September issue. Mesthrie, R. (2008) “I’ve been speaking Tsotsitaal all my life without knowing it”: towards a unified account of Tsotsitaals in South Africa. In M. Meyerhoff and N. Nagy (eds.) Social Lives in Language. New York: Benjamins, New York: 95-109. Mesthrie, R. & Hurst, E. (forthcoming) Cape Town Tsotsitaal: a challenge to previous characterisations of tsotsitaals in South Africa. "
Language Matters, 2013
The collection of South African urban language phenomena called Tsotsitaal, Scamtho, Ringas (in short ‘Tsotsitaals’) etc, have been described differently as code-switching, mixed languages, or essentially slang vocabulary. These descriptions however, fail to acknowledge the centrality of performance to these phenomena. Tsotsitaals draw on extra-linguistic modes of identity performance such as body language, clothing, and other facets of what could commonly be called ‘style’. This article uses Coupland's (2007) description of style to understand how tsotsitaals can be viewed as discursive practices performed to achieve social meaning. The research draws on fieldwork conducted in Cape Town in 2006–2007 to expand our understanding of tsotsitaals. It considers perceptions of the style associated with tsotsitaals from the viewpoint of both speakers and listeners in a township community in Cape Town. We argue that current terminology used for varieties of this sort is inadequate to describe the combination of performance, lexicon and style associated with tsotsitaals.
Geographies of the Black African Masculine in Tsotsi and The Wooden Camera
"This article examines the various representations of black masculinities in the films Tsotsi (dir. Gavin Hood, 2005) and The Wooden Camera (dir. Ntshavheni wa Luruli, 2003) in order to complicate the manner in which an authentic black African masculinity has become conflated with the tsotsi (gangster) figure in South African cinema. This article begins with the examination of two film posters used to promote Tsosti and The Wooden Camera in France. Both posters rely on stereotypes of the black African masculine as dangerous, deviant, and violent. By examining the various representations of black masculinities in these films, and by situating these representations within the sociohistorical and political contexts, this article complicates the overdetermined representation of the tsotsi figure that reinforces black masculinity as pathological on global screens. This article also examines the articulation of black masculinity within the township space, which the author theorizes as an in-between space. The article concludes with a call to consider the politics of race and representation, especially the implications of racializing Africanness and who can claim the rights to representation, particularly the representation of the black African body, after 1994.
2012
This paper examines the intersection of physical violence, structural violence, and masculinity through the life history narrative of a 20-year-old man exiting an informal gang in Gugulethu, a township in Cape Town. Beginning and remaining with James Madoda’s narrative, the paper shows how the gendered physical violence between young men in townships emerges from historical and present-day structural violence - here defined as institutionalised power inequalities that limit life opportunities - and argues that structural violence needs to be discussed and addressed as a policy issue in South Africa. It also suggests that structural violence may provide a platform for collaboration among civil society actors working on socioeconomic transformation and the prevention of violence.
“These violent delights have violent ends”: good subjects of everyday South African violence
Acta Academic, 2020
While the deaths of Mlungisi Nxumalo and Lucky Sefali barely registered in the media and public consciousness, they can be read as an exemplar of South African violence. Te more closely we examine this incident, the more difcult it becomes to distinguish between those fghting for justice, and those undermining it. Te imagined boundaries between law-abiding citizen and criminal become unclear, as does the distinction between the use of force to protect citizens, and the use of violence to damage the social fabric. Tis leads to a critique of the conventional attributions of criminality and ideas about effective criminal justice, and instead reframes the problem of violence as one of the constructions of certain kinds of subjects, persons for whom the normalised exercise of various forms of unrecognised or legitimated violence is part of the texture of everyday life.
Invisible Girls and Violent Boys: Gender and gangs in South Africa
2000
Women are almost completely left out of South African research on gangs (as researchers and researched). There is also no clear conceptualisation of what constitutes a gang, with writers sometimes treating a whole range of collective behaviours as the same phenomenon. 1 Writers also refer to different types of gangs without always specifying how they are similar to or different from one another. 2 Further, despite an emerging body of work on African gangs, 3 media and public attention remains focused on coloured gangs in the Western Cape. Additionally, apart from Glaser's work on tsotsi 4 gangs (1990), writers on African gangs have focused even less on women gang members than their counterparts writing on Western Cape gangs. Inevitably then, information in this article is mainly about coloured Western Cape gangs. 5