How Karlien van Jaarsveld and Refentse Morake became ‘Huisgenote’: a Foucauldian problematisation

Abstract

This article problematises the relative openness or closedness of Afrikaner identity formations manifested in the song and video ‘packages’ of ‘Sing vir Liefde’ (‘Sing for Love’) by Karlien van Jaarsveld and ‘What a Boytjie’ by Refentse Morake. By bestowing the Van Jaarsveld song a Huisgenoot Tempo Award and ascribing transformational potential to the Morake song, Huisgenoot underscores a correlation between its perceptions of desirable Afrikaner identity formations within the new South Africa and those represented by these songs. A Foucauldian lens is employed to focus on the problematisation pivotal to the care of self, and as a means to identify formations of domineering identity constructs within post-1994 South African ‘games of power’. A profit-oriented approach is seen to create pastoral, power-generating media sources, the likes of kykNET and Huisgenoot, that are susceptible to encouraging texts seemingly intent on crosscultural reconciliatory efforts, but that nonetheless foster a defensive identity formation modelled on the Afrikaner nationalist narrative prevailing during apartheid. The analysis of Van Jaarsveld’s and Morake’s music videos leads to a Foucauldian conclusion – aware of its inevitable textual entrapment – that both songs subscribe to an identity formation that is premised on exclusivist, superior notions of Afrikaner identity.