Cultural theory in post-apartheid South Africa: ecotones as theory for cultural enquiry in Mad Buddies (Gray Hofmeyr, 2012)

Abstract

This article discusses ecotones as a theory and method for cultural enquiry in post-apartheid South Africa. It applies semiotics to critique cultural configurations in Gray Hofmeyr’s Mad Buddies, arguing that, first, the film’s figuration of ecotone through the imagery of debris enables theorization of the shift toward post-racial cultural thought; and, two, that visual of ruins affords us a chance to intercept the new racial configurations. The main proposition is that application of ecotones theory in post-apartheid cultural criticism allows us to grasp the incompletion of the racial and cultural transition by anticipating nondescript cultural norms: neither rigidly segregated nor fully integrated.

Keywords:

• Cultural theory
• ecotones
• post-apartheid cinema
• Mad Buddies
• South Africa cinema
• cultural ecology
• ruins
• buddy films

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Steyn, “New Shades of ‘Whiteness’,” 1.

2 Pieterse, “Grasping the Unknowable.”

3 Mbembe, “On the Postcolony.”

4 Teer-Tomaselli, Tomaselli, & Dludla, “Peripheral capital goes global.”

5 Steyn, “New Shades of ‘Whiteness’”.

6 Tomaselli, “Where does my body belong?,” 170.

7 Steyn, “New Shades of ‘Whiteness’,” 4.

8 See, for instance, his characterization of blacks in Mama Jack (2005) and Schuks Tshabalala’s Survival Guide to South Africa (2010).

9 Tomaselli, “Popular Communication in South Africa,” 46.

10 Ibid., 47–50.

11 Ibid., 55.

12 Tomaselli, “Ideology and Cultural production in South Africa,” i.

13 Teer-Tomaselli, Tomaselli, & Dludla, “Peripheral capital goes global.”

14 Tomaselli, “Cultural studies and the African Global South,” 258.

15 Chattopadhyay, “Theories from the South I.”

16 Tomaselli and Handel Kashope Wright, “Africa, Cultural Studies and Difference.”

17 Mututa, “Johannesburg in Transition,”; “Customizing post-apartheid Johannesburg,”; “Battered bodies,”; and “Crisis of Nonentity.”

18 Moyer-Duncan, “Projecting Nation: South African Cinemas after 1994,”

19 Ryan, “Cultural Studies,” 40.

20 Shome, “Thinking Culture and Cultural Studies,” 215.

21 Harrow and Garritano, “Critical Approaches to Africa’s Cinema,” 2.

22 Nyamnjoh, “Insiders and Outsiders,”

23 Mututa, “Customizing post-apartheid Johannesburg,” 2.

24 Shepperson, “AmaBokkebokke,” 398.

25 Steenveld and Strelitz, “The 1995 Rugby Worldcup,” 609.

26 Tomaselli and Mpofu, “The Sociopolitical and Cultural Role of National Symbols in the RSA.”

27 Shepperson, “AmaBokkebokke!”

28 Ibid., 398.

29 Tomaselli and Shepperson, “South African Cultural Studies,” 4–5.

30 Ibid., 19.

31 The film is directed by Gray Hofmeyr, and produced by Keynote Films.

32 Stine, Resler, and Campbell, “Ecotone Characteristics of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Wetland.”

33 Shetler, “'Region’ as Historical Production.”

34 Ibid.

35 Cerney and Butler, “Examining Montane Ecotone Change with Repeat Photography.”

36 Ibid., 111.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 111.

39 Stormer, “Afterword: Working in an Ecotone,” 344.

40 Ibid., 345.

41 Edbauer, “Un.framing Models of Public Distribution,” 19.

42 Stormer, “Afterword: Working in an Ecotone,” 345.

43 Shepperson, “AmaBokkebokke!,” 396.

44 Kang, “Spatial limbo.”

45 Hou, “Insurgent Public Space.”

46 Elin, “Integral Urbanism.”

47 Ibid., 22.

48 Deleuze and Guattari, “A Thousand Plateaus,” 45.

49 Ibid., 76.

50 Waddell, “Images of Apartheid,” 16.

51 Foster, “From Socio-nature to Spectral Presence,” 204.

52 Shome, “Thinking Culture and Cultural Studies,” 206.

53 Kriel, “The image as trans-form and transformation,” 19.

54 Kang, “Spatial limbo,” 220.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Nyamnjoh, “Insiders and Outsiders.”

59 Tomaselli, “Where does my body belong?”

60 Mare, “Declassified.”

61 Tomaselli & Mpofu, “The Sociopolitical and Cultural Role of National Symbols in the RSA.”

62 Nixon, “Selling Apartheid.”

63 Woodward, “In Ruins,”; Yablon, “American Ruins,”; Hell and Schönle, “Ruins of Modernity,”; and Dale and Burrell, “Disturbing structure.”

64 Makhubu, “On Apartheid Ruins,” 570.

65 Hell and Schönle, “Ruins of Modernity,” 1.

66 Tomaselli, “Where does my body belong?” 175.

67 Matsinhe, “Africa’s Fear of Itself.”

68 Gibson, “What Happened to the ‘Promised Land?’”

69 Makhubu, “On Apartheid Ruins.”

70 Nyamnjoh, “#Rhodes Must Fall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa.”

71 Rafapa, “Post-apartheid transnationalism in black South African literature,” 62.

72 Þétursdóttir & Olsen, “An archaeology of ruins,” 4–5.

73 Hart, “Disabling Globalization,” 292.

74 Hofmeyr and Govender, “National Reconciliation, Race Relations, And Social Inclusion.”

75 Moodley and Adam, “Race and Nation in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” 55.

76 Foster, “From Socio-nature to Spectral Presence,” 124.

77 “From Socio-nature to Spectral Presence,” 195.

78 Andersson, “No man’s land,” 291.

79 Tomaselli, “Where does my body belong?,” 176.

80 Lucas, “Conduits of dispersal,” 305.

81 Barchiesi, “Precarious Liberation.”

82 Lucas, “Conduits of dispersal,” 306.

83 Steyn, “New Shades of ‘Whiteness’.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Addamms Mututa

Addamms Mututa is a senior research associate at the University of Johannesburg.