Nostalgia in the post-apartheid state

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Periodical article

Title:	Nostalgia in the post-apartheid state
Author:	Reed, Amber R.
Year:	2016
Periodical:	Anthropology Southern Africa (ISSN 2332-3264)
Volume:	39
Issue:	2
Pages:	97-109
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	attitudes social conditions political conditions
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2016.1172492
Abstract:	In this article, the author joins recent theorists in furthering an 'anthropology of nostalgia' seeking connections between disparate parts of the globe through a shared sense of loss in the face of global capitalism and liberal democracy. Highlighting contemporary work, she suggests linkages between seemingly disparate regional foci. She then moves on to a case study of nostalgia for elements of apartheid in twenty-first century South Africa among historically oppressed residents. Her broader contention is that nostalgia arises most poignantly in states and among populations that have in recent decades transitioned from authoritarian to democratic systems of governance, and that this can be understood through the complexity of cultural politics, anxieties of social reproduction and recent turns toward neo-liberal capitalism. Importantly, this nostalgia should be read less as a commentary on the past than as a critique of the present. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]