Parodies of whiteness: Die Antwoord and the politics of race, gender, and class in South Africa

Abstract

AbstractThe dramatic reconfiguration of the social, political, and ideological order in South Africa since 1990/1994 has demanded a concomitant reconceptualization of (white) Afrikaner notions of self and belonging in the (new) nation. In this article, we draw on recent developments in the study of varidirectional voicing (polyphony), performance, and mediatization to examine how the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord makes use of parody and metaparody in their music to critique emerging ‘new Afrikaner’ identities and the racial, class, and gender configurations on which they are based. We also discuss the structural limits of these critiques and the political potential of (meta)parodic performance more generally. ((Meta)parody, polyphony, performance, race, class, gender, South Africa)*