Piracy as counter-hegemony

Abstract

Despite several attempts by the Antipiracy Foundation in South Africa, piracy and counterfeitingof movies on DVD is still widespread. This paper explores piracy in Hanover Park, a Cape Flatstownship, as an expression of a politics of resistance to racism and racial disadvantage, but morespecifically as a routine social practice deeply embedded within the lived reality of communitymembers. The research questions were guided by a desire to explore qualitatively the processesby which consumers in this low-income neighbourhood practise and understand their purchaseand consumption of pirated goods, particularly films on DVD. The study found that the consumers of Hanover Park engage in a complicated process of bricolage, often recontextualising what they view to communicate new meanings, appropriatingAfrican-American and gang films as a form of political cultural resistance. Because of group andfamilial viewing practices, social networks are solidified and piracy often becomes a form of politicalbricolage against a perception of racial and class marginalisation. We find that both the ‘reworking’of community and expression of resistance unfortunately seem to occur primarily in the arena ofleisure, where the practice of piracy is routinised as an integral part of the lived experiences ofcommunity members. ‘Globality’ is experienced through a preference for Hollywood and Bollywoodblockbusters; and a media-saturated globalised national context meets the unequal purchasingpower and economic constraints of the local context, while resulting in little moral concern over thepractice of piracy, which lends a political dimension to everyday practice.