Abstract
The persistent Afrophobic attacks on black African immigrants in South Africa since the 1990s alert us to a new cultural watershed. Just when the country had done away with apartheid, the black-on-black attacks reified the emergence of a new cultural crisis. This article reflects on the emergent cultural identities enabled by practices of black-black violence. It takes conflict cultures as a frame to discuss Afrophobia in the context of new identity consciousness. This is achieved through a critique of Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009), a film where racial antipathies are supplanted with a nebulous culture of aversion. Theorising this scenario as a euphemism for struggles with post-apartheid cultural reorganisation, the article suggests conflict culture as a theory that can account for incomplete identity transformation among all races of the South African nation.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 17-31 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Critical Arts |
Volume | 37 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Keywords
- Afrophobia
- conflict culture
- District 9
- post-apartheid black cultures
- South African cinema
- visual ethnography
- xenophobia
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies
- Communication
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)