Nation, family, intimacy : the domain of the domestic in the social imaginary

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dc.contributor.author Du Plessis, Irma
dc.date.accessioned 2013-04-18T11:55:40Z
dc.date.available 2013-08-31T00:20:03Z
dc.date.issued 2011-08
dc.description.abstract The institution of domestic work and the figures of the domestic worker (the ‘maid’) and the employer (the ‘madam’) – both of which are always raced and gendered – seem to carry a powerful and affective metaphoric and symbolic load in post-apartheid South Africa. The paper explores this phenomenon as linked to the dual nature of domestic work – as both a lawful and regulated contemporary social practice and a central feature of what may be termed the apartheid social imaginary – an implicit social understanding of the way in which things stand between fellow citizens in the terms of Charles Taylor. Domestic work is suitable for this kind of transposition because of its association with intimacy and family – both markers of nation – as well as its location in the social order of apartheid – the domestic domain. In order to trace some of the sources and meanings attached to contested understandings of domestic work, the paper examines the representation of white Afrikaans-speaking women’s subjectivity and agency in historical accounts – one of the particularistic strands through which the symbolic relationship between white female employer and black female domestic worker may be accessed. This is based on a symptomatic reading of Hermann Giliomee’s account – in his book The Afrikaners: Biography of a people –of white Afrikaans-speaking women’s subjectivity and the way in which this is constructed in relation to white men and black en_US
dc.description.librarian hb2013 en_US
dc.description.librarian gv2013
dc.description.uri http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rssr20 en_US
dc.identifier.citation Du Plessis, I 2011, 'Nation, family, intimacy : the domain of the domestic in the social imaginary', South African Review of Sociology, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 45-65. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 2152-8586 (print)
dc.identifier.issn 2072-1978 (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.1080/21528586.2011.582740
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/21313
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Routledge en_US
dc.rights © Taylor & Francis. This is an electronic version of an article published in South African Review of Sociology, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 45-65, 2011. South African Review of Sociology is available online at : http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rssr20. en_US
dc.subject Social imaginary en_US
dc.subject Domestic work en_US
dc.subject Apartheid en_US
dc.subject Afrikaner women en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Women domestics -- South Africa en
dc.subject.lcsh Women, Black -- Employment -- South Africa en
dc.subject.lcsh Race relations -- South Africa en
dc.title Nation, family, intimacy : the domain of the domestic in the social imaginary en_US
dc.type Postprint Article en_US


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