Afrikaaps: A celebratory protest against the racialised hegemony of 'pure' Afrikaans

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT Afrikaaps is a multi-media (Becker and Oliphant, 2014) protest theatre production that has beenperformed locally and internationally between 2010 and 2015. Afrikaaps, also termed 'VernacularSpectacular', is performed in Kaaps, a vernacular subvariety of Afrikaans. This approximately hourand-a-halfproduction, directed by Catherine Henegan, involved eight mainly hip-hop artists from theCape Flats.Through artistic means of expression such as hip-hop, performance poetry, jazz, dialogues, etc.,Afrikaaps foregrounds issues pertaining to marginalised and stigmatised Kaaps in response to theracialised hegemony of standard/'pure' Afrikaans. Central to this response is the celebration of (anethnified) Kaaps 'coloured' identification.This multi-sited ethnography has various foci: The 2010 South African and 2011 Dutch versions of theproduction, the 2010 documentary film with the same title, and a description and analysis of the variousways in which members of the Afrikaaps collective experience the hegemony, ideology, and fiction of'suiwer' (pure) Afrikaans.Three sites are foregrounded: A performance poetry event in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as part ofthe 2011 Dutch tour; the 2015 matinee performance, part of the annual Suidoosterfees in Cape Town;and the 2015 screening of the Afrikaaps documentary by student collective Open Stellenbosch atStellenbosch University. I discuss the ways in which each site aims to subvert the hegemony.I show that Afrikaaps is a case study of the heterogeneity of Afrikaans. I argue that the celebration ofKaaps by the production and the positive identification with Kaaps by members of the Afrikaapscollective are extremely relevant within the current climate. In the wake of the nationwide#AfrikaansMustFall protests, this climate encompasses the deliberate, renewed recognition andcelebration of Afrikaans varieties other than standard Afrikaans in the public sphere.The conceptualisation of Afrikaans as an indigenous, 'creole' language relates to current, opposingviews of the Afrikaans language as a 'colonial' language and an African language. Afrikaaps aims tosubvert the general perception of Afrikaans as a 'white' language of the 'white' Afrikaner oppressor. Iconcurrently argue that the production endeavours to connect the Afrikaans language to an ethnicityother than 'white Afrikaners', namely 'coloured' Kaaps-speakers. I demonstrate that the use of Kaapsis a decolonising political tool (Erasmus, 2006) in response to the general perception of Afrikaans as a'colonial' language.A concurrent aim of the production includes the encouragement of 'coloured' Kaaps-speakers from theCape Flats to be proud of their mother-tongue and their claimed indigenous (Khoi and San) and slave('Malay') cultural heritage. I regard the emphasis on the symbolic value of Kaaps by the production asimperative to the reclaiming of a positive identification with Kaaps. I accordingly argue that Afrikaaps 're-imagines' negative notions of 'coloured' by celebrating 'creolised' 'coloured' identification iv're-imagines' negative notions of 'coloured' by celebrating 'creolised' 'coloured' identification(Erasmus, 2001).I emphasise that the encouragement by Afrikaaps to 'reclaim' Afrikaans 'for all who speak it' links withthe topical debate 'to whom does Afrikaans belong'. The production encourages all Afrikaans-speakersto 'reclaim' the 'creole' language formed in the early, cosmopolitan Cape in response to the hegemony.Afrikaans is thereby conceptualised as inclusive and 'liberated'; the racialised divide within theAfrikaans speech community can therefore be bridged. I argue that these claims express a current hopefor Afrikaans to be viewed as a language of 'transformation'.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University