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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Between recognition and resentment: an Afrikaner trade union's brand of post-nationalism
Author:Boersema, Jacob R.ISNI
Year:2012
Periodical:African Studies (ISSN 1469-2872)
Volume:71
Issue:3
Pages:408-425
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:Afrikaners
group identity
trade unions
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2012.740884
Abstract:What comes after Afrikaner nationalism? This article presents a detailed analysis of the discourse of the mainly white Afrikaner trade union Solidarity to explore Afrikaner identity politics after apartheid. Solidarity has claimed a remarkably prominent position in the postapartheid debates about Afrikaner identity, race and class. The trade union's success should be explained within the context of the neoliberal elite transition and the uneven impact of the African National Congress (ANC)'s policies of racial redress. Both developments affect particularly the lower middle class of Afrikaners. The author exposes subtle shifts in Solidarity's rhetoric after 1994: away from the language of Afrikaner nationalism and white supremacy, and towards a new discourse organized around the tropes of 'rights' and 'belonging'. This discourse has given new legitimacy to Solidarity in South Africa's postapartheid political landscape, while simultaneously repositioning Afrikaners as a victimized and threatened minority that is no longer privileged. However, a tension in Solidarity's discourse between this new politics of recognition and their politics of resentment remains. The author explains this tension through the distorting effects of shame dynamics. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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