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Part of
Singing, Speaking and Writing Politics: South African political discourses
Edited by Mirjana N. Dedaić
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 65] 2015
► pp. 67–85

To be or not to be ‘African’

Discursive race politics in a South African online forum

Since 1994, the term ‘African’ has increasingly become a contested reference label in post-apartheid South Africa, as numerous ‘white’ South Africans have appropriated it in self-reference, much to the disapproval of a significant number of ‘black’ people. In this chapter I examine what it means to individuals of different ‘racial’ backgrounds to identify as ‘African’ and how this is communicated and represented linguistically on the renowned South African online forum Thought Leader. The study illustrates not only the pervasiveness of individual ‘racial’ thinking and stereotyping in South Africa, but also demonstrates different facets of identities are negotiated and contested within the controversial discourse of ‘Africanness’.
Keywords: African, black, identities, online discourse, race, South Africa, white
Published online: 30 October 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.65.04rud
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Rudwick, Stephanie
2018. Language, Africanisation, and Identity Politics at a South African University. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 17:4 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo

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