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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 372

Part of Session 132: Re-writing and Engaging with Urban Spaces via Linguistic Landscape (Other abstracts in this session)

Spaces of fear, spaces of desire: language, gender and sexuality in Cape Town and Johannesburg

Authors: Milani, Tommaso (1); Williams, Quentin (2)
Submitted by: Milani, Tommaso (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)

Over the last few years, academic work on cityscapes has gained considerable momentum in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, showing the different and complex ways in which languages are employed in a variety of urban spaces. In this paper, we want to contribute to this growing body of academic work, focusing however on two aspects which have remained largely unexplored in the study of language in urban spaces, namely gender and sexuality. We will do so by analysing the ways in which a variety of social actors talk about two re-creational meeting points: Mzoli’s in Cape Town and Love & Revolution in Johannesburg. Through detailed analysis of interview data, photographs and other semiotic artifacts, we will offer a glimpse into the multilayeredness of two South African cities. More specifically, we will show that inhabiting non-normative gender and sexual identities can indeed be a potentially life-threatening behaviour in these cities; but we will also illustrate how these cities offer “queer” spaces where individuals can express themselves beyond the constraints of identity categories.