Six corporeal curiosities: re/presenting contemporary South African embodiment

Abstract

After two colonial occupations, one systematically brutal racial segregation campaign and two decades of democracy, there is no wonder that contemporary South Africa is characterised by complex, hybrid identities. This paper connects this past and present though the lens of embodiment, taking six snapshots that tell significant stories of South African bodies that span time and place. Together, slowly, these bodies create a corporeal dialogue, a weaving in of various writing practices and around the issue of embodiment in space and time. In the interplay between their differing levels of contextual strangeness in these narratives, I hope to reflect a certain social estrangement that characterises something of a country in its third decade.