Description
Contributing to the body of existing empirical studies of populist discourse promising emancipation of gender minorities, this study explores the emergence of gendered identities in populist political discourse in South Africa. In doing so, this paper draws upon the Laclauian approach to populism, defined by an understanding of populist politics as a political logic based on symbolic signifiers. The study examines the case of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa and the contradictions between public promises to emancipate gender minorities – a discourse reliant on the legacy of Winifred Madikizela-Mandela – the strictly controlled internal leadership of the party, and patriarchal party elites. In this way, the paper aims to contribute to Laclauian conceptions of populism with a distinctly sociologically-informed study of populist discourse as presented by the EFF on platforms such as X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. This study historicises the rapid surge and recent decline in support received by the EFF from 2013 to 2024 through an examination of gendered discourses, arguing these are not only informed, but reliant on defection from the liberation party in the South African context, lending new opposition parties emergent from factions within the African National Congress (ANC) the rights to use of liberation histories. This study thus examines the emergence of gender minorities as key subjects in the discourse of political parties run by patriarchal elites and bridges the gaps between theories of patriotic histories, liberation legacies and the forms of populist discourse emerging in post-Marikana South Africa through a thorough examination of the EFF’s use of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's legacy to portray ideals of gender emancipation.
