What happened to Afrikaner nationalism? Did the end of apartheid spell the end of the nationalism with which it had become synonymous? Was the decade that lay between South Africa's first universal suffrage elections of 1994 and the collapse of the Afrikaners' National Party in 2004 the final chapter in the history of Afrikaner nationalism? If so - and that is the question posed in this thesis - how is one to interpret the Afrikaner campaign that gained momentum during that very same decade in defence of Afrikaans - the language that gave the word apartheid to human history? Contra the lay and scholarly consensus, I argue that Afrikaner nationalism has outlived apartheid. What we are witnessing today, if only in certain elite circles, is not the end of Afrikaner nationalism but its revival. To substantiate this claim, chapter 3 of the thesis develops a definitional and theoretical framework from which I argue in chapters 4 and 5, by means of a diachronical comparison, that the latest movement represents a continuation of the Afrikaner nationalist past. First, however, the scene has to be set. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the political and ideological background without which no analysis would be possible of Afrikaner nationalism's consecutive language and cultural movements. It needs to be stressed, though, that while language and cultural activism has the central attention in this study, it also considers the relationship between cultural and political nationalism - both as concepts and as actual movements - and questions the notion of a dichotomy. In seeking a historical explanation for the contemporary Afrikaner movement, I revisit what Kellas regards as the problem that studies of nationalism have classically addressed, namely the relationship between politics, economics and culture "which in any particular case brought about the transition from ethnicity to nationalism"? (1991:35). Focusing on the Afrikaner case, my thesis explores the role of language in these dynamics - something that has not been done in a systematic manner.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:602749 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Kriel, Mariana |
| Publisher | London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/863/ |
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