아프리카ㆍ중동

In July's People, Nadine Gordimer considers post-apartheid as a revolutionary ‘interregnum’ in the history of South Africa, and pays attention to a great diversity of ‘morbid symptoms’ in the post-apartheid era. The novel traces to the inner changes of Maureen and Bam, a liberal white couple who are shipwrecked in ‘homeland,’ which is one of black people's reservations and their servant July's hometown. In July's People, Gordimer examines the possibility of whites' coexistence with blacks in the post-apartheid era when the black power establishes a new social, political order. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the moments of rupture of Maureen's and Bam's identities in the perspective of ‘de-identification,’ which is one of main notions of Jacques Rancière. In Rancière's definition, an identity is something given by ‘police community,’ and ‘political subjectivation’ can be achieved by the process of dismantling the identity distributed by this ‘police community.’ From this perspective, this paper interprets Maureen's choice in the end of the novel as a step of becoming a ‘political subjectivation’ which the new political order demands South African whites in the post-apartheid era. Maureen's action can be interpreted as a kind of initiation in which she tries to throw herself into ‘July's people’ in ‘the age of July.’