dc.contributor.author |
Ratele, Kopano
|
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dc.date.accessioned |
2013-04-05T08:13:23Z |
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dc.date.available |
2013-04-05T08:13:23Z |
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dc.date.issued |
2011-12-21 |
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dc.identifier.citation |
Kopano Ratele (2011): Looks: Subjectivity as commodity, Agenda, 25:4, 92-103 |
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dc.identifier.citation |
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2011.630518 |
|
dc.identifier.citation |
Kopano Ratele (2011): Looks: Subjectivity as commodity, Agenda, 25:4, 92-103 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/10500/8869 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2011.630518 |
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dc.description.abstract |
Looking at, seeing, being looked at or being seen by certain people can afford libidinal excitation,1 but it also can
be a source of psychical2 displeasure. Reading a series of events, texts, and images, this Article traces why and
how we are excited or moved by the way we or others look. The Article argues that seeing or being seen by a
sexual object3 is an important source of libidinal pleasure around which a self and culture is built. Consequently,
in late racialised capitalist culture, looking, being looked at, and generally looks (and inevitably subjectivities),
cannot but become commodities, given that scopophilia4 lies behind the commodification of culture. The Article
employs two cases as emblematic of commoditisation in late global capitalist culture: a research fragment about
a father who disapproves of his dead son’s dress choices; and second, the media-conveyed controversy around
the athlete Caster Semenya. These are approached through constructionist and psychoanalytic registers, here
taken as complementary approaches to a critical project on sexualities and gender. The Article demonstrates that
the father seems to have looked upon his son as a man in the ‘wrong’ clothes, while Semenya is consciously or
otherwise constructed in the media to be a woman in the ‘‘wrong’’ body. These constructions are grounded in
the pleasure of looking or being looked at. |
en |
dc.description.uri |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2011.630518 |
|
dc.language.iso |
en |
en |
dc.publisher |
Routledge |
en |
dc.rights |
© 2011 Taylor & Francis; Unisa Press |
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dc.subject |
commodity |
en |
dc.subject |
look |
en |
dc.subject |
see |
en |
dc.subject |
semenya |
en |
dc.subject |
subjectivity |
en |
dc.title |
Looks: Subjectivity as commodity |
en |
dc.type |
Article |
en |