Liberating possibilities of a new identity: A review of Christi van der Westhuizen’s Sitting Pretty: White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Liberating possibilities of a new identity: A review of Christi van der Westhuizen’s Sitting Pretty: White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa
 
Creator van Wyk, Tanya
 
Subject — Identity; postapartheid; panopticon; heternormativity; feminist; race; nationalism
Description In this article, Christi van der Westhuizen’s sociopolitical contribution in her publication, Sitting Pretty: White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa, is reviewed. In light of the official end of apartheid in 1994, South Africans are attempting to define a new identity. Van der Westhuizen’s publication focusses on how the identity of white Afrikaans women, as both the oppressor and the oppressed, influences and contributes to the endeavour of a search for new identity. In deconstructing and re-imagining new identity, Van der Westhuizen deconstructs the ‘supporting scaffolding’ of Afrikaner identity and examines the impact of white patriarchal hegemony that silences the voice of women, sexual minorities and black consciousness. The review concludes with the emphasis on the transformative role of shame, that is, the willingness to expose the false sense of goodness that we had of ourselves, as pointed out by Van der Westhuizen. In this regard, the recognition of the intersectionality of people’s experiences becomes a key aspect of the endeavour of a search for new identity.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2018-09-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v74i4.5220
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 74, No 4 (2018); 3 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5220/11637 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5220/11636 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5220/11638 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5220/11635
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Tanya Van Wyk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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