2014 Winner: Die Antwoord: An Antagonistic Negotiation of Post-Apartheid Afrikaner Identity

Project Information
Die Antwoord: An Antagonistic Negotiation of Post-Apartheid Afrikaner Identity
Arts
HAVC191P
In this paper, I contextualize the music, videos, and performances of South African rave-rap group Die Antwoord into the complex post-apartheid history of South Africa. The tensions Die Antwoord exposes in South Africa can only be understood by placing their work into context with the struggle to move beyond race politically, economically, and socially in a country built on segregation. I argue that Die Antwoord’s videos call into question the attempts that have been made to reimagine (or reimage) South Africa as “post race.” Instead, they expose the structural remnants of segregation and the resulting racial inequalities that trouble these attempts. Then, utilizing Chantel Mouffe’s nuanced conceptualization of antagonism as, “art that foments dissensus, that makes visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate,” I show that Die Antwoord’s work is antagonistic to these structures, (Mouffe 12). Thus, Die Antwoord’s work not only makes visible the fissures within “post race” South Africa but also undermines the power structures that continue to rely on the oppression of people. Finally, I will not ignore the criticism leveled by scholars like Kitchiner that these works perpetuate the racist structures that they engage. I will address the perils attached to antagonism when it takes this form.
PDF icon 616.pdf
Students
  • Atara Melody Jaffe (Stevenson)
Mentors