The Black and White Rainbow: Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-Building in Democratic South Africa

✍ Scribed by Carolyn E. Holmes

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 265
• Series: African Perspectives
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--Indiana University, 2015.
Nation-building imperatives compel citizens to focus on what makes them similar and what binds them together, forgetting what makes them different. Democratic institution building, on the other hand, requires fostering opposition through conducting multiparty elections and encouraging debate. Leaders of democratic factions, like parties or interest groups, can consolidate their power by emphasizing difference. But when held in tension, these two impulses--toward remembering difference and forgetting it, between focusing on unity and encouraging division--are mutually constitutive of sustainable democracy. ?Based on ethnographic and interview-based fieldwork conducted in 2012-13, The Black and White Rainbow: Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-Building in Democratic South Africa explores various themes of nation- and democracy-building, including the emotional and banal content of symbols of the post-apartheid state, the ways that gender and race condition nascent nationalism, the public performance of nationalism and other group-based identities, integration and sharing of space, language diversity, and the role of democratic functioning including party politics and modes of opposition. Each of these thematic chapters aims to explicate a feature of the multifaceted nature of identity-building, and link the South African case to broader literatures on both nationalism and democracy.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgemnts
Chapter 1. Introduction: Remembering and Forgetting in Democratic South Africa
Nation-Building and Democracy: Memory and Forgetting
Research Design and Methodology
Structure of the Book
Chapter 2. South Africa: Forming a State, Building a Community
No South Africans Before South Africa
Unity through Segregation: Mid-Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century
The Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism and the Hardening of Legal Segregation
The Grand Apartheid Era
Negotiating the End of Apartheid: Nation-Building and Democratization
Conclusion
Chapter 3. Reconciliation and Rainbows: Symbols With and Without History
Rainbow Nation Symbolism
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Nation-Building through History-Telling
Memory and History in Nation-Building and National Symbols
Rainbow Forgetting or Commissioned Remembering
Chapter 4. Opposition and Party Politics in Democratic South Africa
Race and Elections
Exit as Identity Politics
Conclusion
Chapter 5. The Social Logic of Nation-Building: Navigating Race and Gender
Gender and Race from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid
Interpersonal Nation-Building: Gendered Relationships and Racialized Social Lives
Economic Threat and Redress in Terms of Race
Defending Our Families: Crime, Gender, and Racialized Threat Perception
Race Relations on a Given Thursday at Midnight in Bloemfontein
Conclusion
Chapter 6. Community Theater: Ceremony and Performance of Nationhood and Identity
Strictly Defined Ethnocultural Rituals
Affiliative Rituals
Nationally Oriented Rituals
Conclusion
Chapter 7. Homes, Farms, Parks, and Walls: Land, Space, and Ownership of Democratic South Africa
Land Ownership and Land Reform: Who Owns What?
Integrating Public Space and Protecting Private Space: Contrasting Dynamics
Where Is South Africa?
Conclusion
Chapter 8. The Medium and the Message: Language and Communal Identity
Language and Identity
Language, Nationalism, and the University—Parallel-Medium Universities
Newspapers, Language, and Print Capitalism
Conclusion
Chapter 9. Conclusion
Policy Implications
Areas of Future Research
Conclusions: A Troubled Bridge Over Water
Appendix: Interview Guide and Interview Index
Notes
Bibliography
Index