Battling the Race: Stylizing Language and Coproducing Whiteness and Colouredness in a F reestyle R ap P erformance

In the last 19 years of post‐apartheid S outh A frican democracy, race remains an enduring and familiar trope, a point of certainty amid the messy ambiguities of transformation. In the present article, we explore the malleable, permeable, and unstable racializations of contemporary S outh A rica, sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of linguistic anthropology Vol. 24; no. 3; pp. 277 - 293
Main Authors Williams, Quentin E., Stroud, Christopher
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.12.2014
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Summary:In the last 19 years of post‐apartheid S outh A frican democracy, race remains an enduring and familiar trope, a point of certainty amid the messy ambiguities of transformation. In the present article, we explore the malleable, permeable, and unstable racializations of contemporary S outh A rica, specifically the way in which coloured and white racializations are negotiated and interactionally accomplished in the context of C apetonian hip‐hop. The analysis reveals the complex ways in which racialized bodies are figured semiotically through reference to historical time and contemporary (translocal) social space. But also the way iconic features of blackness are reindexicalized to stand for a transnational whiteness.
ISSN:1055-1360
1548-1395
DOI:10.1111/jola.12064