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a white childhood’s dependency on a black nanny, where nannies were part of the domestic sphere. For me these works raise the issue of how innocence and power are reflected and enacted by and through the process of racialization in that relationship. There are two things I want to tease out here. So the first question concerns the idea of subjectivity in your work, and the links you’re attempting to make in a number of the pieces, between the racialization of the working-class black women and the negation of her subjectivity through that process. Perhaps your Tula-Tula series embodies these ideas most clearly (Figure 1). But your work also suggests that at some level there is a shared history of pathologizing sexuality to which both black and white women have been subjected in South Africa. How do you make a clear distinction between the kind of pathologization through racialization on the one hand, and on the other, the history of how white women’s sexuality has also been contained and confined through the oppressive structures of apartheid? Penny Siopis: It is a distinction that I found difficult to untangle. Patriarchal oppression occurs in both, but the mediating factors are complex and differentiated. I wouldn’t say there is an equivalence of a shared relationship but I think there’s something to be said for both which is produced around gender. I think it’s a bit like the problem of actually talking about women in any general way. I think one has to first make a kind of general point that there is something, if you like, in common, but not necessarily equivalent, and certainly not equivalent in this situation, because obviously the pathologizing of gender is one thing, but then there’s another thing which makes an issue of race, which is a kind of double subjection for black women. AC: You see I think that this is also further complicated, particularly in the South African context. In your work there seems to be a historical slippage between the representation of the control and pathologizing of white women and their sexuality, which is specifically located in the nineteenth century, and the divide between white and black experience which continues today. In other words one can be very clearly located and specifically seen as something which is of the past (although the ramifications continue in all sorts of ways), but
DOI link for a white childhood’s dependency on a black nanny, where nannies were part of the domestic sphere. For me these works raise the issue of how innocence and power are reflected and enacted by and through the process of racialization in that relationship. There are two things I want to tease out here. So the first question concerns the idea of subjectivity in your work, and the links you’re attempting to make in a number of the pieces, between the racialization of the working-class black women and the negation of her subjectivity through that process. Perhaps your Tula-Tula series embodies these ideas most clearly (Figure 1). But your work also suggests that at some level there is a shared history of pathologizing sexuality to which both black and white women have been subjected in South Africa. How do you make a clear distinction between the kind of pathologization through racialization on the one hand, and on the other, the history of how white women’s sexuality has also been contained and confined through the oppressive structures of apartheid? Penny Siopis: It is a distinction that I found difficult to untangle. Patriarchal oppression occurs in both, but the mediating factors are complex and differentiated. I wouldn’t say there is an equivalence of a shared relationship but I think there’s something to be said for both which is produced around gender. I think it’s a bit like the problem of actually talking about women in any general way. I think one has to first make a kind of general point that there is something, if you like, in common, but not necessarily equivalent, and certainly not equivalent in this situation, because obviously the pathologizing of gender is one thing, but then there’s another thing which makes an issue of race, which is a kind of double subjection for black women. AC: You see I think that this is also further complicated, particularly in the South African context. In your work there seems to be a historical slippage between the representation of the control and pathologizing of white women and their sexuality, which is specifically located in the nineteenth century, and the divide between white and black experience which continues today. In other words one can be very clearly located and specifically seen as something which is of the past (although the ramifications continue in all sorts of ways), but
a white childhood’s dependency on a black nanny, where nannies were part of the domestic sphere. For me these works raise the issue of how innocence and power are reflected and enacted by and through the process of racialization in that relationship. There are two things I want to tease out here. So the first question concerns the idea of subjectivity in your work, and the links you’re attempting to make in a number of the pieces, between the racialization of the working-class black women and the negation of her subjectivity through that process. Perhaps your Tula-Tula series embodies these ideas most clearly (Figure 1). But your work also suggests that at some level there is a shared history of pathologizing sexuality to which both black and white women have been subjected in South Africa. How do you make a clear distinction between the kind of pathologization through racialization on the one hand, and on the other, the history of how white women’s sexuality has also been contained and confined through the oppressive structures of apartheid? Penny Siopis: It is a distinction that I found difficult to untangle. Patriarchal oppression occurs in both, but the mediating factors are complex and differentiated. I wouldn’t say there is an equivalence of a shared relationship but I think there’s something to be said for both which is produced around gender. I think it’s a bit like the problem of actually talking about women in any general way. I think one has to first make a kind of general point that there is something, if you like, in common, but not necessarily equivalent, and certainly not equivalent in this situation, because obviously the pathologizing of gender is one thing, but then there’s another thing which makes an issue of race, which is a kind of double subjection for black women. AC: You see I think that this is also further complicated, particularly in the South African context. In your work there seems to be a historical slippage between the representation of the control and pathologizing of white women and their sexuality, which is specifically located in the nineteenth century, and the divide between white and black experience which continues today. In other words one can be very clearly located and specifically seen as something which is of the past (although the ramifications continue in all sorts of ways), but
ABSTRACT
a white childhood’s dependency on a black nanny, where nannies were part of the domestic sphere. For me these works raise the issue of how innocence and power are reflected and enacted by and through the process of racialization in that relationship. There are two things I want to tease out here. So the first question concerns the idea of subjectivity in your work, and the links you’re attempting to make in a number of the pieces, between the racialization of the working-class black women and the negation of her subjectivity through that process. Perhaps your Tula-Tula series embodies these ideas most clearly (Figure 1). But your work also suggests that at some level there is a shared history of pathologizing sexuality to which both black and white women have been subjected in South Africa. How do you make a clear distinction between the kind of pathologization through racialization on the one hand, and on the other, the history of how white women’s sexuality has also been contained and confined through the oppressive structures of apartheid?
