The affective afterlife of naked body protests

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the afterlife of naked body protests through an examination of interview and archival data from women who participated in various naked protests in South Africa. We engage the emotional outcomes that follow African women’s naked protests. We read black women’s naked body protests through the theoretical lenses of refusal and the affective economies of shame and psychic distress. By examining a data corpus of 16 interviews, archival video, podcasts and written content emanating from South Africa, we explore what occurs after naked protests. The experiences endured by the women protestors range from negative affects such as shaming to humiliation by protestors’ communities and psychological distress. The findings suggest that refusal is not counter to women’s experiences of psychological distress and shame – they co-exist. We demonstrate how affects travel in affective economies and stick to bodies in ways that disperse bad feelings and create productive openings for freedom. Finally, we contend that the affective afterlife of naked protests might be understood as an ongoing theorisation of the body long after the event of the actual protest.

Advocacy for personhood: integration of African Christian rituals and intimate care on the touched human body

“…The unclothed body was previously read in a nonsexual manner, but now it is sexualized. Thus, the naked body is seen as irrational, uncontainable, and outside of normative constructive reason and African modernity [15]. In some instances, nakedness may be used to express vulnerability as a method of confrontation resistance and as a conflict resolution [14].…”

“…The body is so valued in the Christian religion that Paul would call it the Temple of the Holy Spirit (Cf. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. He also used the metaphor of the body to teach about the unity that is supposed to exist within the Christian community (Cf.…”