Ties that Bind

Frank B. Wilderson, Nare Mokgotho, Molemo Moiloa, Nomancotsho Pakade, Mosa Phadi, Tsitsi Jaji, Neelika Jayawardane, Daniel Magaziner, Bridget Kenny, Franco Barchiesi, T. J. Tallie, Lesego Rampolokeng, Stacy Hardy, Sisonke Msimang, Shannon Walsh, Jon Soske

Description

What does friendship have to do with racial difference, settler colonialism and post-apartheid South Africa? While histories of apartheid and colonialism in South Africa have often focused on the ideologies of segregation and white supremacy, Ties that Bind explores how the intimacies of friendship create vital spaces for practices of power and resistance. Combining interviews, history, poetry, visual arts, memoir and academic essay, the collection keeps alive the promise of friendship and its possibilities while investigating how affective relations are essential to the social reproduction of power. From the intimacy of personal relationships to the organising ideology of liberal colonial governance, the contributors explore the intersection of race and friendship from a kaleidoscope of viewpoints and scales. Insisting on a timeline that originates in settler colonialism, Ties that Bind uncovers the implication of anti-blackness within nonracialism, and powerfully challenges a simple reading of the Mandela moment and the rainbow nation. In the wake of countrywide student protests calling for decolonisation of the university, and reignited debates around racial inequality, this timely volume insists that the history of South African politics has always already been about friendship. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Ties that Bind will interest a wide audience of scholars, students and activists, as well as general readers curious about contemporary South African debates around race and intimacy.
Chapter 1 Thinking about Race and Friendship in South Africa - Jon Soske and Shannon Walsh

Chapter 2 With Friends like These: The Politics of Friendship in Post-Apartheid South Africa - Sisonke Msimang

Chapter 3 Bound to Violence: Scratching Beginnings and Endings with Lesego Rampolokeng - Stacy Hardy and Lesego Rampolokeng

Chapter 4 Afro-Pessimism and Friendship in South Africa: An Interview with Frank B. Wilderson III - Shannon Walsh

Chapter 5 The Impossible Handshake: The Fault Lines of Friendship in Colonial Natal , 1850–1910 - T. J. Tallie

Chapter 6 The Problem with ‘We’: Affiliation, Political Economy, and the Counterhistory of Nonracialism - Franco Barchiesi

Chapter 7 Affect and the State: Precarious Workers, the Law , and the Promise of Friendship - Bridget Kenny

Chapter 8 ‘A Song of Seeing’: Art and Friendship under Apartheid - Daniel Magaziner

Chapter 9 ‘Friend of the Family’: Maids, Madams, and Domestic Cartographies of Power in South African Art - M. Neelika Jayawardane

Chapter 10 Corner Loving: Ways of Speaking about Love - MADEYOULOOK

Chapter 11 Kutamba Naye: In Search of Anti-Racist and Queer Solidarities - Tsitsi Jaji

Chapter 12 The Native Informant Speaks Back to the Offer of Friendship in White Academia - Mosa Phadi & Nomancotsho Pakade

Sujets

• Minority Studies
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781868149698
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
First published in South Africa in 2016
Compilation Editors
Chapters and poems Individual contributors 2016
Images Individual copyright holders
ISBN 978-1-86814-968-1 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-86814-969-8 (EPUB - North and South America and China)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the Publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The Publisher gratefully acknowledges the institutions and individuals referenced in the captions. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced. Please contact Wits University Press at the address above in case of any omissions or errors.
Edited by Jill Weintroub
Proofread by Alison Lockhart
Indexed by Marlene Burger
Design and layout by Fire Lion
Cover image courtesy of Mohau Modisakeng
TIES THAT BIND
Race and the Politics of Friendship in South Africa
EDITED BY SHANNON WALSH JON SOSKE
CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES vi FANON S SEcret Gabeba Baderoon 1 1 THINKING ABOUT RACE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOUTH AFRICA Jon Soske and Shannon Walsh 3 2 WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: THE POLITICS OF FRIENDSHIP IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA Sisonke Msimang 31 3 BOUND TO VIOLENCE: SCRATCHING BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS WITH LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG Stacy Hardy and Lesego Rampolokeng 48 4 AFRO-PESSIMISM AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOUTH AFRICA: AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK B. WILDERSON III Shannon Walsh 70 5 THE IMPOSSIBLE HANDSHAKE: THE FAULT LINES OF FRIENDSHIP IN COLONIAL NATAL, 1850-1910 T. J. Tallie 100 6 THE PROBLEM WITH WE : AFFILIATION, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND THE COUNTERHISTORY OF NONRACIALISM Franco Barchiesi 125 7 AFFECT AND THE STATE: PRECARIOUS WORKERS, THE LAW, AND THE PROMISE OF FRIENDSHIP Bridget Kenny 166 8 A SONG OF SEEING : ART AND FRIENDSHIP UNDER APARTHEID Daniel Magaziner 192 9 FRIEND OF THE FAMILY : MAIDS, MADAMS, AND DOMESTIC CARTOGRAPHIES OF POWER IN SOUTH AFRICAN ART M. Neelika Jayawardane 216 10 CORNER LOVING: WAYS OF SPEAKING ABOUT LOVE MADEYOULOOK 243 11 KUTAMBA NAYE: IN SEARCH OF ANTI-RACIST AND QUEER SOLIDARITIES Tsitsi Jaji 263 12 THE NATIVE INFORMANT SPEAKS BACK TO THE OFFER OF FRIENDSHIP IN WHITE ACADEMIA Mosa Phadi Nomancotsho Pakade 288 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 308 CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES 310 INDEX 312
LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER 9 FRIEND OF THE FAMILY Figure 9.1 Image from House of Bondage Ernest Cole Family Trust 223 Figure 9.2 Image from House of Bondage Ernest Cole Family Trust 223 Figure 9.3 Image from Ernest Cole: Photographer Ernest Cole Family Trust 225 Figure 9.4 Image from House of Bondage Ernest Cole Family Trust 225 CHAPTER 10 MADEYOULOOK Figure 10.1 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 245 Figure 10.2 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 253 Figure 10.3 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 253 Figure 10.4 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 254 Figure 10.5 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 254 Figure 10.6 Photographer Andreas Vlachakis MADEYOULOOK 259
Love itself, the subversive gift, is an important public good, and loving is a significant political act, particularly among those stigmatized and marked as unworthy of love and incapable of deep commitment.
- Richard Iton, In Search of the Black Fantastic
From now on, all friendship is political.
- Comit invisible, L Appel
FANON S SECRET
GABEBA BADEROON

The grape picker holds out
his hand full of fruit but turns
his face, the slight, unavailable cast
of his head his most precious possession.

The woman who cleans your house
all day is in the places you cannot be,
touches your sheets.

You hate
what is held back,
not known to you,
kept, stolen, enchanted.
1: THINKING ABOUT RACE AND FRIENDSHIP IN SOUTH AFRICA
JON SOSKE AND SHANNON WALSH
Writing in 1896, Olive Schreiner, arguably the most radical critic of imperial policy of her day, argued that a racial apocalypse could be averted only if South Africa s white population ruled the country in the spirit of friendship, a course of stern unremitting justice is demanded from us towards the native ... we [must] raise him bind him to ourselves with indissoluble bonds of sympathy and gratitude . By tying the responsibilities of colonial governance to the cultivation of an unbreakable emotional bond, Schreiner articulated a vision of friendship that served as both an instrument and outcome of the civilizing mission, replacing a precarious rule of violence with the cultivation of a native subjectivity that was bound by affection and gratitude to the (former) colonial master. 1 Strikingly, a similar rhetoric can be found in the writing of white South Africans ranging from the segregationist Jan Smuts to the liberal author and politician Alan Paton, from apartheid ideologues of the 1950s to the young nonconformist Patrick Duncan. In the 1930s and 1940s, a social scientific version of this language developed under the sponsorship of the European-Native Joint Councils movement and the South African Institute of Race Relations. Whether articulated as a civilizing mission, separate development, or racial equality, each of these projects made claims on the emotional life of the colonized, and envisioned its outcome as generating bonds of affection between black and white. A history of colonial power in South Africa must therefore incorporate a genealogy of the language and practices of friendship.
At the same time, friendship is often understood to transcend the sphere of politics. Circulating affections and desires create connections that are not easily mapped onto existing power relations. Friendship can crystallize almost instantly both practices that resist structures of oppression and those that enable them: intimacies and complicities. This volume explores friendship as a mode of liberal colonial power, while still holding on to possibilities for insurgent, transgressive, and subversive friendships. How did the (generally homosocial) framework of colonial friendship function to police other forms of desire and articulate the gender dynamics of white settler society? How did African intellectuals, spanning from the work of S. M. Molema in the 1920s to Steve Biko in the 1970s, develop a critique of colonial friendship? How did the rhetoric, symbolism, and imagery of the liberation struggle attempt to subvert or reconfigure the expectations of friendship as a racial script? To what extent do languages and practices of solidarity - both during the anti-apartheid struggle and within the contemporary South African left - build on earlier visions of racial friendship? How has literature and art served as a space to disrupt the emotional economy of colonialism or experiment with alternate models of love and intimacy?
Writing from a diverse range of disciplinary, theoretical, and political perspectives, the contributions to this volume bring South African debates into conversation with three currents of scholarship developed in other contexts. First, we engage with a new generation of scholarship in settler colonial studies, critical race theory, and indigenous studies. These literatures, albeit in ways that differ significantly, have placed the structure of settlement ( Wolfe 2006 ) and the very definition of the human at the center of debates over core ideas of political theory: nation, civil society, sovereignty, citizenship, and recognition ( Burton 2011 ; Byrd 2011 ; Simpson 2013 ; Stoler 2002). We consider ways in which the idea of the South African nation, both historically and following the 1994 transition, presupposes the structures of settler society - expressed in the project of civilization or liberal civil society - and normalizes the underlying violence of whiteness. Second, we engage in a dialogue with queer theory and postcolonial feminism regarding the role of affect and intimacy in the operation of power. By looking at affect we bring a lens to the libidinal and emotional forces that circulate in often-invisible ways between and through how people relate to one another. Third, we reflect on the critique of solidarity that has emerged across a number of locations, including African American feminist activism and Palestinian studies. In developing such concerns, we read the question of nonracialism, an idea often treated as uniquely South African, within an international set of debates regarding over-identification, appropriation, and the denial of privilege. Several chapters struggle with what anthropologist Audra Simpson (2014) describes as refusal: the ethical and political rejection of the gift of friendship, a refusal that includes rejecting what is deemed good, rational, and sensible by a given social order. Finally, this volume asks: what forms of love, friendship, and mutuality can emerge from the rupture created by the failure of civil society, and solidarity, as universalizing projects?
Until the last decade or so, most scholarship on race in South Africa focused on the grand architecture of segregation or ideologies of white supremacy ( Posel, Hyslop, and Nieftagodien 2001 ). By placing the question of friendship at the center of South African cultural life, past and present, this volume examines how power operates within everyday social relationships. These are not only historical questions. In a country profoundly divided by race, class, and gender-based violence, these issues are central to almost any discussion of South Africa s present. Interrogating friendship as a political space is not meant to hollow it out or stiffen the emotional and intimate flows that make friendship dynamic and hopeful. To the contrary, the chapters in this volume keep alive the promise of friendship an