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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 754

Part of Session 193: Transcultural networks and neighborhoods (Other abstracts in this session)

Notice board disjuncture: Transnational cultural flows trapped in time

Authors: Peck, Amiena
Submitted by: Peck, Amiena (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)

The neighbourhood of Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa, has become home to a host of transnational cultural groups. Under apartheid law, Observatory’s neighbourhood was largely a white area within close reach to a white-only university and sporting amenities. Over time, Observatory’s become known as a ‘cosmopolitan’ place which appeals to tourists, immigrants and locals alike. The arrival and movement of transnational groups have reshaped the landscape and social practices in Observatory. One definable space in which notions of ‘community’, ‘locals’, ‘newcomers’ and ‘outsiders’ interplay and contrast constantly is found on Observatory’s two ‘community’ notice boards. On one notice board colour printed, typed, dated and ‘ordered’ English signs construct an aspirational ‘village-like’ (homogenous) image of the neighbourhood. On the second notice board, handwritten personalized signs suggest a ‘new’ transnational (heterogeneous) community with different resources at their disposal. Notices on these signs have a three week lifecycle and authors’ of these signs use creative, economical and linguistic ploys to signals both ‘foreignness’ as well as ‘legitimacy’ to the neighbourhood.

A distinctly hierarchical approach is not engendered as a priori when analyzing signs on the two notice boards. Instead signs on both of these notice boards are analyzed in relation to their construction of identity, language used, communicative purpose and agency. As the notices are largely written in English, centripetal and centrifugal tendencies towards English in the use of Standard or localized English are explored here. This article is also interested in the dialogic nature of these signs as well the different articulations of aspirations for the neighbourhood.

References:

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Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Higgins, C. (2009). English as a local language: Post-colonial identities and multilingual practices. Bristol: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.

Modan, G. (2007). Turf wars: discourse, diversity and the politics of place. Malden, M.A: Blackwell Publishing.

Vigouroux, C. (2005).'There are no whites in South Africa’: territoriality, language and identity among Francophone Africans in Cape Town. 16 Passage Gatbois, Paris. Language and Communication 25. Pgs 243-249.