ABSTRACT
In South Africa, the effects of the apartheid discourse continue to reverberate after the official end of the system. The postapartheid field is a site of intense contestation over previously normalised hierarchies, including race, gender and class. Given the affective charge that these contestations frequently carry, the question arises whether emotion engaged to do political work can create transformative openings out of whiteness. The chapter builds on a growing body of work that approaches emotions as not only the ‘glue’ that binds people and inspires commitment to social and cultural structures, but also as constitutive of subjectivities. The subjectivity under investigation is that of the previously hegemonic Afrikaner identity, which has adopted various strategies of rehabilitation to try and rid itself of the apartheid stain. Based on empirical research with white Afrikaans-speaking women, the argument is that postapartheid uncertainties involve affective practices, particularly around shame, that necessarily unsettle whiteness. Among emotions, shame as the primary social emotion makes available disruptive moments in processes of identity formation and therefore most presents opportunities for transformation. It can usher white subjects into an expanded recognition of people racialised as black, and therefore of the idea of being human – but only if acknowledged.
