"I am at a party I don't wanna be at": Towards a 'Phenomenology' of Apartheid Studies (original) (raw)

This paper, to be presented at the 22nd SPM Conference at Tallinn University, Estonia, uses the opening line of Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran’s “I don’t care” to make a case for a ‘phenomenology’ of apartheid. I draw on fragments from Brazil, England, the US, France, Australia, Canada, Bulgaria, Singapore, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Palestine, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and so on, to show that the foremost phenomenon of the 21st century is – quite simply – apartheid. To my mind the notion of apartheid is perhaps the best suited for a full and adequate understanding of our modern times. But what is apartheid? I define apartheid, among other things, as 'the capacity to carry a pass'. Apartheid functions by invoicing the cost of oppression on the oppressed themselves. Human beings everywhere (I use the term blackbodies, drawn from physics) participate in their own oppression when they find themselves at parties that they do not want to be at. This paper anticipates my book, Apartheid Studies, due to be launched at the end of 2020. Apartheid Studies is a new field of studies which I founded in 2012 after the Lonmin massacre in South Africa when 34 miners were murdered on live national television by police.