Sexual Violence: Mythology, Infant Rape and the Limits of the Political

Abstract

In the three decades since French theorist René Girard first published his ‘Violence and the Sacred’ (1977) his insights into the nature of collective violence have made substantial contributions to a number of disciplines, including literary studies, cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and political theory. With the exception of a few texts, his theory has not seen many applications in the (post-colonial) African context. This paper explores the contributions his theory can make to the study of extreme forms of male sexual violence in post-apartheid South Africa. Theories about such violence generally favour explanations that emphasize domestic causality (‘cycles of violence’), the apartheid legacy of ‘lawnessness’ or post-apartheid socio-economic conditions. In addition there is also a substantial literature which interprets such violence in the more familiar terms of (a) masculinity (-ies) in crisis. Our aim in this theoretical article is to explore the usefulness of Girard's theory for understanding the relationship between such crises in masculine identity and two extreme forms of sexual violence, namely gang rape and infant rape.

Notes

With ‘the naked performativity of the violent genesis of patriarchal masculinity’ we have in mind something similar to what Derrida (1992) calls ‘the mystical foundations’ of law and authority.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leonhard Praeg

Associate Professor in Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa.

Michael Baillie

At the time of writing, temporary researcher for ‘Thinking Africa’, Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa. Email: [email protected].