Summary: | Includes bibliographical references. === This dissertation explores the extent to which the post-apartheid democratic space in South Africa has allowed for the emergence of new identities for Afrikaans women beyond the normative Afrikaner nationalist volksmoeder [mother of the nation] ideal. The study interrogates Afrikaner subjectivities through the interpretive lens of ordentlikheid - an ethnicised respectability - at the intersections of gender, sexuality, class and race. Framed by the theoretical perspectives of Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, and Butler, the study employs discourse analysis across three phases: Firstly, an analysis of Sarie women's magazine, as an instrument of a culturally-sanctioned, normative discourse; secondly, an analysis of texts generated in focus group interviews with subjects who self-identify as women, white, heterosexual, middle-class and Afrikaans-speaking; and thirdly, an analysis of texts from individual in-depth interviews.
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