Deconstructing Apartheid's Global Gaze: Death and Resistance in Fugard et al.'sSizwe Bansi is Dead

Abstract

This paper examines the ownership, use, and representation of the structures of power in Athol Fugard and his collaborators' Sizwe Bansi is Dead . It specifically focuses on the relationship of subjection, the cultural and social identity crises it engenders, and shows how the oppressive relationships in the play reflect a global trend of economic and social marginalization. Using the Foucauldian theory of power and knowledge, the paper discusses how the transgressive acts depicted by the authors in Sizwe Bansi is Dead illustrate the dispersal of power at different levels within South African society (and the world at large), the tensions and conflicts between these powers, and the attendant perennial acts of resistance. The paper proceeds from a discussion of these issues into a consideration of how the events in the play reflect not just particular situations in South Africa, but contemporary acts of survival in an increasingly globalizing world.