Ruptures, aesthetics of nakedness and rage against sexual violence in South Africa

Citizenship generally refers to people’s legal status of a nation state obtained by birth or naturalization. T H Marshall linked citizenship to rights obtained in a linear fashion, first political rights, then civil rights and lastly social rights (now highly contested), contributing to citizenship as status or practice. The lived experience of the embodied citizen surpasses the notion of citizenship as merely status or practice. How people live their citizenship, how they feel about it and emotions caused by inclusion/exclusion or intersubjective experiences with others are embodied citizenship that can be spatial and performative, outside the realm of formal politics. Refusal and disruption of conditions of citizenship can lead to protest EU citizenship in a gender persepctiveagainst prevailing regimes of citizenship. The affective turn in citizenship studies shows that emotions are deeply involved in lived citizenship. This chapter shows that the lived experience of sexual violence in South Africa informs women’s citizenship in ways that can be considered “ruptures of citizenship”. These women are activist citizens in Isin’s terms, rather than active citizens, through exercising embodied citizenship of disruption and refusal. Acts of lived citizenship will be illustrated with #EndRapeCulture and transgender students’ refusal to be treated as though they are not citizens, showing how nakedness and rage inform acts of citizenship. The chapter also engages issues of solidarity in conditions of the refusal of citizenship.