What is the role of race in Thabo Mbeki’s discourse?
Date
2007-02-16T11:32:32Z
Authors
Daniels, Glenda
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Abstract
In this dissertation several instances of President Mbeki’s discourse are identified
and shown to reveal an excessive attachment, or “passionate attachment” to ‘race’
as a marker of social and political identity. It is proposed that this is a pattern cutting
across different (discursive) interventions by the President. The interventions
examined include: Letters from the President, Mbeki’s Two Nations’ Theory, Black
Economic Empowerment, African Renaissance, Nepad and HIV/AIDS.
Several theorists have been referred to in order to begin putting together a
conceptual theoretical framework with which to clarify and account for this emergent
pattern. The conceptual framework adumbrated here and employed in the analysis of
Mbeki’s discourse borrows heavily from Butler and Zizek in particular. The concept of
“passionate attachment” comes from Butler and those of “rigid designator” and
“social fantasy” from Zizek. Use is made of these theoretical references in order to
start accounting for the compulsion that characterizes these discursive interventions
which are always in some respect ‘inappropriate’ or in ‘excess’ of expectations. They
also seem self enclosed and to play a very specific role in Mbeki’s discourse. It is in
this connection that the concepts of “passionate attachment”, “fantasy” and “rigid
designator” are deployed.
Description
Student Number : 8710695F -
MA dissertation -
School of Arts -
Faculty of Humanities
Keywords
Race, Discourse, Passionate Attachment