Mouseion of Code-Switching
Subverting Social Constructs
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d2c0210188d38c5e4da327699a3d98d3f39753ca208a4c92e3884cb50b08eb3e/Ane.png)
Ané Botha
MArch 2022
Supervisors:
Unit Leader: Craig McClenaghan
Unit Tutor: Ruby Mungoshi
Unit Assistant: Azraa Gabru
UNIT 21
Phantom Cartographies
Nearly three decades into the ‘post-apartheid’ era, South Africa is still grappling with the legacy of a deeply entrenched system of categorisation. As a white woman, my interests are rooted in questions about whiteness, our relationship with ‘other races’ and the hierarchies that that are prevalent in our post-apartheid society. Today there exist unspoken, veiled occurrences that racialise our country.
Whiteness is investigated through mapping code-switching in different spaces. Code-switching, as a performance of race, is a means of elevating your social standing, wielding power, a survival tactic, or appropriate behaviour. It speaks of the spaces we occupy, the audiences of those spaces and who we are as a result in those spaces.
W.E.B Du Bois’s double consciousness theory looks at nationality and race. It is about people of colour, a marginalised group, having to constantly adapt and act differently in different spaces. Richard Dyer explains that whiteness is able to operate in a vacuum and does not immerse itself in the everydayness of the marginalised.
The Mouseion of Code-Switching constructs cartographies of the privilege white people have in current South Africa. This work is important as we occupy the space of post-apartheid where there are remnants and consequences of the past still lurking among us.
Whiteness is investigated through mapping code-switching in different spaces. Code-switching, as a performance of race, is a means of elevating your social standing, wielding power, a survival tactic, or appropriate behaviour. It speaks of the spaces we occupy, the audiences of those spaces and who we are as a result in those spaces.
W.E.B Du Bois’s double consciousness theory looks at nationality and race. It is about people of colour, a marginalised group, having to constantly adapt and act differently in different spaces. Richard Dyer explains that whiteness is able to operate in a vacuum and does not immerse itself in the everydayness of the marginalised.
The Mouseion of Code-Switching constructs cartographies of the privilege white people have in current South Africa. This work is important as we occupy the space of post-apartheid where there are remnants and consequences of the past still lurking among us.
![Cultural Borders. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/46c3ed2b162145ba89d96f757f4e707a185274404f7f0148c93b8cea34f01854/1-cCultural-Borders.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
![Court Politics. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a83f1dbadf432ecdff7ab33093c071a53e096234db10ee7b4d7ae2c70f899c0b/2-Court-Politics.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
![It's not Black and White. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/99b51cdbd2fb7935c4f01425046e37e6190b1629a5954163e2103582691761fa/3-It-s-not-Black-and-White.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
![Church service. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b59b77aeb8666de43fda963744d6f91acea14e12507b5ffa9c0f2b23583ba8da/4-Church-service.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
![Training session. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8e59f1a40a40227c156c4ed74970a8ec8b73a1b63b6972c5e3864c20714d0d4d/5-Training-session.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
![Fair Play. Botha, A. Unit 21. 2022.](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/406045514c8a89e7fb23372b46e4bd84483d36953678e28d29b0bf4b7f6ef178/6-Fair-Play.-Botha--A.-Unit-21.-2022.--min.jpg)
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