Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home African Women Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Steve Biko and Stoned Cherrie: refashioning the body politic in democratic South Africa
Author:Vincent, LouiseISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:African Sociological Review (ISSN 1027-4332)
Volume:11
Issue:2
Pages:80-93
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:South Africa
Southern Africa
Subjects:clothing industry
female dress
politics
identity
History, Archaeology
Fashion
Clothing and dress--History
Biko, Steve, 1946-1977
About person:Stephen Bantu Biko (1946-1977)ISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/24487625
Abstract:In contemporary South Africa, the politics of protest has given way to a new dynamic of black economic empowerment, the rise of a new black middle class and, with these, expressions of confident middle class black individuality. The mass character of politics prior to 1994 has given way to the more prosaic forms associated with a constitutional democracy. But there have also been ways in which these two tropes have melded. This article examines one particular fashion moment in contemporary South Africa: the employment of the image of martyr of the anti-apartheid movement, Steve Biko, on haute couture women's t-shirts by award-winning local fashion brand Stoned Cherrie. Stoned Cherrie's use of Steve Biko's image as a fashion accessory is provocative because it instigates a renegotiation of meaning both of the past (apartheid, anti-apartheid struggle and its heroes) and the present (femininity, African identity, the distinction between the public and the private, the body and the social). Conventional practices of interpreting both the feminine and the political are here challenged, giving rise to multiple possible readings - profaning Biko, making politics hip, fashioning the self, contesting dominant gender norms - which are difficult to order hierarchically or to reduce to a single overarching logic. Bibliogr., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover