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EMBODIED BLACK RAGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Hugo Canham
Hugo Canham*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
*
*Corresponding author: Dr. Hugo M. Canham, Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Braamfontein, 2050, South Africa. E-mail: hugo.canham@wits.ac.za
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Abstract

Examining two sets of archived materials that include a corpus of narratives that reflect on the period of apartheid in South Africa and posters used by anti-apartheid activists, the paper teases out the operations of racism and the manifestations of rage on the Black body. Critical discourse analysis and affect as theory and method are applied to trace the work of racism and its affective consequences and resistances. Here affect is deployed to read the terrain of the corporeal and the discursive. Black rage is seen as a response to White supremacy and it has the following outcomes: it can have destructive consequences, can enable psychological release of pent up anger, and can simultaneously be an expression of self-love.

Keywords

Apartheid Archive ProjectAffectBlack RageBlack BodiesEmbodied RageNarrativePostersSelf-love
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Fall 2017 , pp. 427 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2017 

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