The everyday life of sexual politics: A feminist critical discourse analysis of herbalist pamphlets in Johannesburg

Megan Edwards, Tommaso M. Milani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract: This article investigates a corpus of herbalist pamphlets – fairly common, everyday texts found in (South) African cities – which promote the services of traditional healers and promise solutions to a plethora of ailments and life problems. The article's multi-pronged approach brings feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA), corpus linguistics (CS) and multimodal critical discourse studies (MCDS) into dialogue with each other. Encompassing both quantitative and qualitative components, this eclectic framework illustrates the ways in which dominant gendered discourses reproduce a patriarchal and heteronormative order by positioning men and women differently. This dominant form of gendered representation, however, co-exists with more resistant discourses which positively thematise same-sex desire. Essentially, the article demonstrates that herbalist pamphlets are key sites of ‘entanglement’ (Nuttall 2009) where complex identity nexuses of gender, sexuality, race, age and culture intersect and compete with each other within the larger regime of representation in South Africa.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)461-481
Number of pages21
JournalSouthern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Volume32
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Linguistics and Language

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