Xenophobia, sovereign power and the limits of citizenship:
- Idahosa, Grace E, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141970 , vital:38020 , DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2014.914637
- Description: African foreigners in South Africa have frequently been the targets of violent and discriminatory practices, which occur in the enabling context of negative discourses concerning African foreigners that circulate in various spheres of public life. This study is interested in one particular field of interaction between African foreigners and the South African state, namely the public health sector. Discriminatory and, sometimes, violent practices towards African foreigners on the part of South African citizens are widely documented. Less discussed are the ways in which these practices of violence and discrimination are in fact state practices. We show this with reference to the treatment of African foreigners in the public health sector. We refer to this prejudicial treatment as health-care Xenophobia which is made possible by a wider set of discourses related to citizenship and the rights accruing to citizens which suggest the ‘non-rights’ of the non-citizen.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Idahosa, Grace E , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141970 , vital:38020 , DOI: 10.1080/09744053.2014.914637
- Description: African foreigners in South Africa have frequently been the targets of violent and discriminatory practices, which occur in the enabling context of negative discourses concerning African foreigners that circulate in various spheres of public life. This study is interested in one particular field of interaction between African foreigners and the South African state, namely the public health sector. Discriminatory and, sometimes, violent practices towards African foreigners on the part of South African citizens are widely documented. Less discussed are the ways in which these practices of violence and discrimination are in fact state practices. We show this with reference to the treatment of African foreigners in the public health sector. We refer to this prejudicial treatment as health-care Xenophobia which is made possible by a wider set of discourses related to citizenship and the rights accruing to citizens which suggest the ‘non-rights’ of the non-citizen.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
‘Unnatural’,‘un-African’and ‘ungodly’: homophobic discourse in democratic South Africa
- Vincent, Louise, Howell, Simon
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141570 , vital:37986 , DOI: 10.1177/1363460714524766
- Description: On 28 November 2006, South Africa’s legislature passed the Civil Union Act (No. 17, 2006), which legalised same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. While South Africa was fifth in the world to recognise the right of people of the same sex to marry, the country is by no means free of homophobic attitudes. However, we argue that an examination of the discourses embedded in the public discussion of gay marriage shows that the post-1994 period has not simply been a case of homophobia as usual. The altered context has given rise to the need for new ways of homophobic discourse to position itself. The rights enshrined in the Constitution represent a powerful set of ideas about the distinction between the democratic state and its apartheid predecessor. These ideas provide the dominant framework for political debate in the current context and it is therefore within this overarching framework that anti-gay sentiments must find a way to express themselves that has legitimacy. Our finding is that the reinscription of homophobia in an era of the ascendancy of human rights discourse has been chiefly in terms of three potent legitimising tropes – homosexuality as ‘unAfrican’, ‘unGodly’, and ‘unnatural’. It is only by deepening our understanding of the terms in which homophobia is being articulated in the current period that we can develop effective counter discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Howell, Simon
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141570 , vital:37986 , DOI: 10.1177/1363460714524766
- Description: On 28 November 2006, South Africa’s legislature passed the Civil Union Act (No. 17, 2006), which legalised same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. While South Africa was fifth in the world to recognise the right of people of the same sex to marry, the country is by no means free of homophobic attitudes. However, we argue that an examination of the discourses embedded in the public discussion of gay marriage shows that the post-1994 period has not simply been a case of homophobia as usual. The altered context has given rise to the need for new ways of homophobic discourse to position itself. The rights enshrined in the Constitution represent a powerful set of ideas about the distinction between the democratic state and its apartheid predecessor. These ideas provide the dominant framework for political debate in the current context and it is therefore within this overarching framework that anti-gay sentiments must find a way to express themselves that has legitimacy. Our finding is that the reinscription of homophobia in an era of the ascendancy of human rights discourse has been chiefly in terms of three potent legitimising tropes – homosexuality as ‘unAfrican’, ‘unGodly’, and ‘unnatural’. It is only by deepening our understanding of the terms in which homophobia is being articulated in the current period that we can develop effective counter discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
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