‘Ag sjeim, siestog, sorry’: Tracing shame’s affect through performance in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

In this study I investigate what performance as a medium can contribute to our understanding of shame's affect. Given the difficulty of defining and concretising affect according to set parameters and outcomes, critical and dynamic debates about its nature continue. Most recently, New Affect theorists such as Brian Massumi have explored the role of the body in affective meaning-making. Our current social context requires a critical engagement with the forms of affect in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the intangible structures of power and oppression, as well as of desire, interest and pleasure. My aim is to determine the ways in which performance – as a medium through which to navigate an often difficult, evasive and deeply subjective experience – can facilitate a knowledge of how bodies experience, relate to and process shame.