Beyond Racial Essentialism: Post-Apartheid Fiction and the Limits of Post-Essentialist Anthropology
Beyond Racial Essentialism: Post-Apartheid Fiction and the Limits of Post-Essentialist Anthropology

Summary/Abstract: This paper makes the case that, to this point, the post-apartheid denial of racial essentialism has not developed a sufficient theory of personhood; that philosophical anthropology and literary writing suggest that the post-essentialist movement (while ethically and politically necessary to overcome the ontological violence of apartheid) did so in a manner that provides an insufficient platform from which to navigate ethically, establish a stable sense of self, and generate responsive selfhood. Drawing on literary texts by Coetzee's Disgrace and Mda's Ways of Dying, I try to prove that narratives offer a view on the indeterminacy of being, an indeterminacy not adequately addressed by post-essentialist anthropology; and, more importantly, in dialogue with Mamdani, Ricoeur and Taylor, that fluid and relative ways of being are not satisfactory for a responsive sense of self, when an underlying framework for ethically responsible behavior is not provided. In this sense, literary texts act as diagnostic devices through which the deficiency of an enduring post-essentialist ontology is exposed and a stable philosophical anthropology made necessary.

• Details
• Contents