Table Of ContentSUBJECTIVITY, LANGUAGE
AND THE POSTCOLONIAL
In Subjectivity, Language and the Postcolonial, Hannah Botsis draws on theoretical
work that exists at the intersection of critical social psychology, sociolinguistics
and the political economy of language, to examine the relationships between
language, subjectivity, materiality and political context.
The book foregrounds the ways in which the work of Bourdieu could be
read in conjunction with ‘poststructural’ theorists such as Butler and Derrida
to offer a critical understanding of subjectivity, language and power in
postcolonial contexts. This critical engagement with theorists traditionally
from outside of psychology allows for a situated approach to understanding
the embodied and symbolic possibilities and constraints for the postcolonial
subject. This exploration opens up how micro-politics of power are refracted
through ideological categories such as language, race and class in post-apartheid
South Africa.
Also drawing on the empirical findings of original research undertaken in
the South African context on students’ linguistic biographies, the book offers
a unique perspective – critical social theory is brought to bear on the empirical
linguistic biographies of postcolonial subjects, offering insight into how
power is negotiated in the postcolonial symbolic economy.
Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses
including social psychology, sociolinguistics, sociology, politics and education,
this is an invaluable resource for students and researchers alike.
Hannah Botsis completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of the
Witwatersrand (Wits). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre
for Research on Bilingualism at Stockholm University, and is a research
associate of Wits. Her research interests include postcolonial language
biographies and theories of subjectivity and power.
Concepts for Critical Psychology: Disciplinary
Boundaries Re-thought
Series editor: Ian Parker
Developments inside psychology that question the history of the discipline
and the way it functions in society have led many psychologists to look
outside the discipline for new ideas. This series draws on cutting edge
critiques from just outside psychology in order to complement and question
critical arguments emerging inside. The authors provide new perspectives on
subjectivity from disciplinary debates and cultural phenomena adjacent to
traditional studies of the individual.
The books in the series are useful for advanced level undergraduate and
postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers in psychology and other
related disciplines such as cultural studies, geography, literary theory,
philosophy, psychotherapy, social work and sociology.
Most recently Published Titles:
The Psychopolitics of Food
Culinary rites of passage in the neoliberal age
Mihalis Mentinis
Deleuze and Psychology
Philosophical Provocations to Psychological Practices
Maria Nichterlein & John R. Morss
Rethinking Education through Critical Psychology
Cooperative schools, social justice and voice
Gail Davidge
Developing Minds
Psychology, neoliberalism and power
Elise Klein
Marxism and Psychoanalysis
In or against Psychology?
David Pavón-Cuéllar
SUBJECTIVITY,
LANGUAGE AND
THE POSTCOLONIAL
Beyond Bourdieu
in South Africa
Hannah Botsis
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Hannah Botsis
The right of Hannah Botsis to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978–1–138–28933–8
ISBN: 978–1–138–28935–2
ISBN: 978–1–315–26719–7
Typeset in Bembo
by Keystroke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
This book is dedicated to all of us that have a language story,
most especially those who shared their stories with me.
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Language in South Africa 4
A focus on youth 8
Decolonising language in higher education 8
Theoretical frameworks 10
Geography of this book 11
1 Subjectivity, identity and language 16
Language and languages 17
Identity and subjectivity 19
Identity and authenticity 22
Identity as belonging 24
Linguistic repertoires 26
Language and subjectivity in context 28
Conclusion 30
2 The symbolic economy 34
The symbolic and the material 35
The symbolic economy 36
Bourdieu’s theory of fields 38
viii Contents
The relationship between the material and symbolic 43
Forms of capital 46
3 The paradox of subjection 53
Habitus 54
Habitus, the symbolic economy and change 60
Interpellation 62
The discontinuity of power 67
Conclusion 69
4 Subjectivity in the postcolonial symbolic economy 72
Prosthetic interpellation 73
Subjectivity and colonial languages 77
The South African educational symbolic economy 84
5 Subjectivity, language and the South African symbolic
economy 90
Introduction 90
The symbolic economy of Wits 92
‘Authentic’ blackness 95
Ignorant whiteness 98
Accentedness 101
Conclusion 106
Conclusion 111
Bourdieu on the particularity of colonialism and the
postcolonial 111
Universalising theories of the subject and historical
particularity 113
Theories from the South 114
South Africa’s contested futures 115
Acknowledgements 118
Index 119
PREFACE
This book provides researchers with an array of concepts from the work of
Pierre Bourdieu, and shows how they can be put to work. In this way,
Hannah Botsis gives us the best kind of critical introduction to a theoretical
corpus of work that has underpinned traditions of scholarship in anthropology,
cultural studies and sociology. Though there have been glimmerings of this
approach in psychology, in studies of education, language use and in the field
of discourse analysis, the book at last puts Bourdieu on the map for critical
researchers in the psy complex.
In addition, and in line with the reflexive examination of forms of
language in the discipline of psychology and in the culture that hosts it, the
book extends Bourdieu’s own work in a context that is peculiarly resonant
with the forms of power he himself explored. Pierre Bourdieu was concerned,
in his early work, with the forms of social relationship that structured the
lives of the Kabyle people in the Berber areas of Algeria, exploring the way
that what became known in his writing as ‘habitus’ enables the reproduction
of those social relationships. This ‘habitus’ – the organisation, space and
experiential shape of language – enables us to revisit binary oppositions that
have bedevilled discourse analysis as well as mainstream psychology,
including, of course, the opposition between ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. Should
language be conceived of as a tightly structured grid into which human
beings have to fit themselves in order to be heard and understood by others,
or should it be viewed as a medium through which experiential commitment
and purpose shines as people communicate with each other? This false
