%0 Journal Article
%T Facing the sexual demon of colonial power: Decolonising sexual violence in South Africa
%A Azille Coetzee
%A Louise du Toit
%J European Journal of Women's Studies
%@ 1461-7420
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1350506817732589
%X In this article the authors discuss in broad strokes the work of two theorists, namely Nigerian sociologist Oy¨¨r¨®nk£¿£¿ Oy¨§w¨´m¨ª and Argentinian philosopher Maria Lugones to argue that a specific logic of sexualisation accompanied, permeated and coloured the colonial project of racialising the ¡®native¡¯. The sexual wound which to a great extent explains the abjection of the racialised body, is a key aspect of the colony and should therefore also be a central theme in any properly critical discourse on decolonisation in Africa. After drawing on Oy£¿w¨´m¨ª and Lugones to make their central argument, the authors apply this framework to the problem of sexual violence in South Africa. Understanding the nature of the sexual-racial wound of coloniality will not only ensure that the problem of sexual violence gets properly addressed as a central question of decolonisation, but will also suggest new ways of concretely addressing the problem. In particular, the dominant discourse needs to shift away from the ¡®emasculated man¡¯ trope and towards a critical feminist decoloniality which views the radical dehumanisation of native woman as key to colonial violence understood as a world-destructive
%K Decolonisation
%K Lugones
%K Oy£¿w¨´m¨ª
%K sexual violence
%K South Africa
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1350506817732589