Representations of rhizomatic identitarian trajectories in selected contemporary Southern African narratives (original) (raw)

The Afropolitan Identity as a Rhizome

The Afropolitan Identity as a Rhizome, 2021

Working within Selasi and Mbembe's tenets of Afropolitanism and Guatarri and Deleuze (1987) concept of a rhizome, this paper interrogates and contextualizes the Afropolitan identity as a rhizome. The aim is to deepen the conversation and debate on Afropolitanism as a new way of mapping the African cultural identity in synch with the world while offering a new descriptive vocabulary. The examples interrogated in this study are drawn from selected African novels which evince the Afropolitan sensibilities. This is portrayed through rhizomatic characterization. This study is also in conversation with Ede's notion of "rhizomatic existence". This paper stresses that the rhizomatic features of the Afropolitan identity portray the Afropolitan as an individual with transnational affiliations whose identity cannot be pinned in an absolute sense to a single cultural geography. Importantly, the prefix "Afro", in Afropolitanism suggests that Afropolitanism privileges Africanness while the cultural fusion which cosmopolitanism engendered in Africa's metropole and beyond is the fulcrum upon which the idea of Afropolitanism is drawn from.

The Expatriate experience of Struggle for Identity in South

This paper examines the ramifications of identity in Athol Fugard " s Sizwe Bansi is Dead and Andrew Whaley " s The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco. The plays x-ray the processes of individual and national self definition in apartheid South Africa and decolonized Zimbabwe. The central characters in both plays are mired in the crisis of identity formulation as a result of the events of colonialism and the processes of decolonization. Fugard " s play depicts the dilemma of the oppressed in constructing self identity in a society that oppresses and devalues. Whaley " s play problematizes the question of identity in independent Zimbabwe. The plays reveal the capacity of the human spirit to rise against oppressive and de-humanizing strictures and create new images and identities in a colonized and decolonized milieu. The plays also capture the specific and universal human experience in the search for self and national definition and conclude that people are what they make themselves. However, for my article presentation I have chosen the title called " The Expatriate Experience of Struggle for Identity in South African drama: Fugard " s Sizwe Bansi is Dead Andrew Whaley " s The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco-A comparative study " in which I explored the anthropological and historical survey by conveying the expatriate experience of struggle for identity in south African drama which writes by appealing it " s humanist call for dissolving barriers between nations, peoples, and communities on the grounds that world civilizations were syncretised long before the divisions introduced by the territorial boundaries of nation-states.

the reconstruction of identity in african literature.docx

This research will explore the issue of identity in postcolonial literature. The experience of colonization in Africa has considerable affectins upon various levels and domains, controversially, the question of identity came more apparently to the surface. This research examines the exploration of identity formation in Ngugi Wa Thiong`o`s a Grain of Wheat and Chinua Achebe`s Arrow of God. the study is based on the theory postcolonial literature and particularly the African literature. And it uses the literary approach of post-colonial theory in analyzing the two literary works. The work`s aim is to establish a clear analysis of the identity construction in the African literature.

I am/am I an African? A relational reading of Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction by J.U. Jacobs

Literator

The publication of Diaspora and Identity in South African Fiction (2016) by J.U. Jacobs is a timely intervention, in that it is the first comprehensive study of South African fiction to sustain the argument that South African writing is always already diasporic. Although Jacobs’ diasporic framework undoubtedly serves as an important addition to the recent trends identified by literary scholars, his focus on 12 well-established writers (including Coetzee, Wicomb, Mda, Gordimer and Ndebele), highlights some of the gaps that need to be filled in a study of this kind. For instance, what about the younger generation of writers, including those from elsewhere in Africa who are writing about living in South Africa? How do they deal with what has been termed the new diaspora, with debates around Afropolitanism and the experiences of internal, inter-continental and trans-continental migrancy in an increasingly globalising world? Despite these shortcomings, Jacobs’ premise about the inevitabl...

The Complexity of Identity: the Afrikaner in a changing South Africa (thesis)

This thesis sets out to model the notion of group identity in terms of the theory of complexity. It is an attempt to speak meaningfully about a concept that needs to have a sense of stability in order to constitute an 'identity', but at the same time has to be able to change in order to adapt to changing circumstances -and indeed does change. This tension between stability and change is seen as a manifestation of the philosophical endeavour of 'thinking the difference' which, in this context, is understood to mean that if we are committed to thinking the difference (and thereby undermining the philosophy of the same) for ethical reasons, we have to speak of group identity itself in terms that preserve difference. That entails keeping the tensions inherent to the notion intact, rather than choosing to emphasise one end of the tension, thereby reducing the other. As such, identity is understood as being relational. While modelling group identity as a complex system two important tensions are identified: that of the inside-outside divide that is a function of the boundary-formation of the system and the traditional tension between agency and structure in the formation of identity. The emphasis on difference as constitutive of identity places the argument within poststructuralism as a school of thought. More specifically, the links that have been established between complexity theory and the work of Jacques Derrida is explored to unpack the implications these links would have for group identity. This application is done within the framework of time: first the issues of the past and the memory of the group are investigated to explore whether identity as a complex system can cope with its own tensions. The work of Derrida is employed to show how the memory of a complex system can be understood as the inheritance of the system. This is an ethical understanding which entails responsibility. Understanding the past in this way, it is argued, allows the future to be thought. This is the case, it is argued, because the future must be understood as a Derridean 'new beginning' which entails engaging with and deconstructing the past. Finally, this notion of the future as a new beginning is unpacked. It is defined as the group's singular opportunity to allow for 'real' change, change that is only possible if the system is disrupted by its outside. It is argued that the complex system as a very particular open system can accommodate the possibility of the 'new beginning'. This understanding of the system and its outside is brought in relation to Derrida's understanding of the economy of the system and the future as a 'new kind of writing'. The implications of this theory for the notion of autonomy are briefly addressed. In order to test the theory, the argument is applied throughout to the example of the Afrikaner as a group identity. In conclusion, suggestions are made as to how the Afrikaner could understand itself and its memories in order for the group identity to survive meaningfully and -more importantly -ethically. 130 5.2 In search of a true invention 132 5.3 Barthes's theory of myth 133 5.4 The disruption of the Hegelian economy 139 5.5 The future as a new kind of writing 146 5.6 A short intervention 152 5.7 The economics of Afrikanerskap 156 5.8 Conclusion 160 Conclusion 162 Bibliography 175

Living and Feeling Apart. Difference and Identity in South Africa

Apartheid has shaped South African’s cultural and personal identities. The paper discusses several identity concepts of post-colonialism (Hall, Gramsci, Spivak, Said, Derrida, Kristeva, Foucault) in the context of South African Apartheid and illustrates arguments by references to South African novels, including A Dry White Season, A Question of Power and In the Heart of the Country. It is shown that the definition of the self via difference to an Other contributes to the formation of both, personal and collective identities. The very peculiarity of racism in South African society is seen in the fact that outward difference not only defines one’s self-identity but also the identity ascribed by others, or more specifically, by South African law. Race was the category according to which spaces were formed and disrupted, leading to identity crisis and national traumatization.

Constructing and deconstructing identities in post- apartheid South Africa: A case of hybridity versus untainted Africanicity?

This essay analyses the rhetoric of racialised South African discourse. It inquires into apartheid's imagined identity of the 'Afrikaner' and the use of the Bible in the construction of Israel's identity (real or imagined). The imaginary character of Israel's identity enables one to explain South African identity discourse in terms of an unequal dialogue where identity can be overridden as was the case during the colonial period where equality and inequality were created simultaneously. For the postapartheid state, it means that racism can enter through the back door when culture is made to fulfil the role biology once played. What has become crucial in a discourse that replicates old racist polarities, is to refuse the founding concepts of the problematic, i.e. an essentialist identity in favour of a constructedness of identity.

Ambivalent identity and self repatriation in the plot characterisation of selected black auto/biographical novels

International Journal of English and Literature, 2019

Literature of the Black Diaspora locates within its multi-layered gamut, a kaleidoscope of artistic productions; self-narratives careered by the quest for identity and self-expatriation from a ruthless atmosphere of slavery and racial subjugation. Studies have fixated on thematic preoccupation, language form in works of Afro-American and Caribbean traditions. Not so much has been explored especially on identity and journey motifs in the autobiographical novels of both traditions. This study seeks to interrogate novels from both climes for the purpose of foregrounding the signposts of journey through plot characterisation. For the purpose of this study on plot character reading of novels of the two literary traditions, we shall deploy aspects of Aderemi Raji-Oyelade's reading kinesis, a character theory which hinges on two axioms of character kinesis. One privileges the reader who attempts to construct a network of transformative acts of the main character negotiating a conscious retrieval of his/her presence in the text. The other is the kinetic dimension which underlines the function of the character as he/she evolves in a process of motion introducing, confirming or contradicting and ultimately completing the image of the self. Characters' movements towards awareness are evident in V.S Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas, Michael Anthony's A Year in San Fernando, George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Black Boy. These texts were subjected to critical analyses to show their identarian aesthetics informed by character transmutability. All the texts evince a great degree of the kinetic reader's locomotive sense of self struggle and realization gleaned from the characters' textual kinesis. Literature of the Black Diaspora, drawing from two major traditions of prose writings, employs similar aesthetic rendering of the self; that is, their ordeals in the excruciating environment where their colour confines them to the receiving side of the yoke of second class citizenry.