This book discusses two moral panics that appeared in the media in late apartheid South Africa: the Satanism scare and the so-called epidemic of white family murder. The analysis of these symptoms of social and political change reveals important truths about whiteness, gender, violence, history, nationalism and injustice in South Africa and beyond.

This book investigates Afrikaner anticommunism in South Africa in the twentieth century, focusing on the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). Following contemporary understandings of anticommunism as a fluid ideological stance, it demonstrates that the deeply held anticommunist convictions of ordinary twentieth-century Afrikaners is more than merely a natural result of global politics. It examines how the DRC, the institution with the widest reach and deepest influence in the everyday lives of Afrikaners, played a significant role in perpetuating an anticommunist imagination amongst twentieth-century Afrikaners. The text explores the critical role the DRC fulfilled in legitimising overt opposition to and suppression of ‘communism’ in all its perceived manifestations, including black dissent, whilst also creating an Afrikaner imagination in which the volk remained convinced of the ever- present communist threat, and of its own role as a bulwark against communism. The church’s moral standing in Afrikaner society also made it susceptible to right-wing opportunists gaining mainstream political clout, which this monograph also exposes and explains. It ultimately concludes that anticommunism functioned as a vehicle for nationalist unity (and uniformity), a paradigm for Afrikaner identity, and a legitimiser of the volk’s perceptions of its imagined moral high ground throughout the twentieth century. It will appeal to readers interested in anticommunism, Christian nationalism, right-wing networks, racism, and apartheid culture and society.

Conspiracy theories are a ubiquitous feature of our times. The Handbook of Conspiracy Theories and Contemporary Religion is the first reference work to offer a comprehensive, transnational overview of this phenomenon along with in-depth discussions of how conspiracy theories relate to religion(s). Bringing together experts from a wide range of disciplines, from psychology and philosophy to political science and the history of religions, the book sets the standard for the interdisciplinary study of religion and conspiracy theories.

This book examines the shifting moral and spiritual lives of white Afrikaners in South Africa after apartheid. The end of South Africa’s apartheid system of racial and spatial segregation sparked wide-reaching social change as social, cultural, spatial and racial boundaries were transgressed and transformed. This book investigates how Afrikaners have mediated the country’s shifting boundaries within the realm of religion. For instance, one in every three Afrikaners used these new freedoms to leave the traditional Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), often for an entirely new religious affiliation within the Pentecostal or Charismatic churches, or New Religious Movements such as Wiccan neopaganism. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the Western Cape area, the book investigates what spiritual life after racial totalitarianism means for the members of the ethnic group that constructed and maintained that very totalitarianism. Ultimately, the book asks how these new Afrikaner religious practices contribute to social solidarity and integration in a persistently segregated society, and what they can tell us about racial relations in the country today. This book will be of interest to scholars of religious studies, social and cultural anthropology and African studies.

This book explores local cultural discourses and practices relating to manifestations and experiences of the demonic, the spectral and the uncanny, probing into their effects on people’s domestic and intimate spheres of life. The chapters examine the uncanny in a cross-cultural manner, involving empirically rich case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Europe. They use an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to show how people are affected by their intimate interactions with spiritual beings. While several chapters focus on the tensions between public and private spheres that emerge in the context of spiritual encounters, others explore what kind of relationships between humans and demonic entities are imagined to exist and in what ways these imaginations can be interpreted as a commentary on people’s concerns and social realities. Offering a critical look at a form of spiritual experience that often lacks academic examination, this book will be of great use to scholars of Religious Studies who are interested in the occult and paranormal, as well as academics working in Anthropology, Sociology, African Studies, Latin American Studies, Gender Studies and Transcultural Psychology.

This book explores the relationship between race and class among middle-class Christians in South Africa. The book provides a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich study of middle-class Christians in contemporary South Africa, as they seek to live good lives and build a good society. Focused on the city of Cape Town, drawing upon ethnographic research in conservative and progressive multiracial Protestant churches, furnished with critical analysis of South African literature and popular culture, this timely study explores expressions of ambition and anxiety that are both spiritual and material. Building upon debates over middle-class identity and morality from sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, this book analyses congregational attempts at social unity through worship music and creative youth ministry, discussions on white privilege and shame, and the impact of middle-class black activism in South African churches and society. This book will be of interest to researchers of South African culture and society, religion, anthropology, and sociology.

South Africa's post-apartheid narrative is one of democracy and equality - but its flaws run deep, argues Ives S. Loukson. Disclosing prejudices about whiteness, homosexuality and democracy in the »staged society«, he claims the concept of relation as an adequate framework for the embodiment of »profane democracy« understood in Agambian terms. Its fluidity is equated to openness and transparency that are relevant dimensions for profane democracy. A demonstration of literary criticism practiced as a fecund interdisciplinary activity, Loukson's study lays the foundation for post-apartheid criticism different from post-colonial criticism.

With the heated discussion around #MeToo, journalistic reporting on domestic abuse, and the popularity of true crime documentaries, gendered media discourse around violence and harassment has never been more prominent. The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this important subject and is the first collection on media and violence to take a gendered, intersectional approach. Comprising over 50 chapters by a team of interdisciplinary and international contributors, the book is structured around the following parts: News Representing reality Gender-based violence online Feminist responses The media examples examined range from Australia to Zimbabwe and span print and online news, documentary film and television, podcasts, pornography, memoir, comedy, memes, influencer videos, and digital feminist protest. Types of violence considered include domestic abuse, "honour"-based violence, sexual violence and harassment, female genital mutilation/cutting, child sexual abuse, transphobic violence, and the aftermath of conflict. Good practice is considered in relation to both responsible news reporting and pedagogy. The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence is essential reading for students and researchers in Gender Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, and Criminology.

An examination of families and schools in South Africa, revealing how the marketisation of schooling works to uphold the privilege of whiteness.

Universities face the prospect of becoming redundant unless the way teaching and learning takes place changes. This book explores the idea of transformation and pedagogy, In particular, it will highlight how universities are transformed through a set of pedagogical interventions and stances that integrate a sense of moral and ethical purpose to learning. Actively integrating cultural pluralism in developing knowledge and understanding aspires to liberate the learner from existing power structures by fostering a desire to challenge and change the social system in which we live and connects the reality around us and its many problems to the knowledge generation process.