Abstract

SERRANO-LOPEZ, Adriana María  and  MIRANDA-MORALES, Andrea. Once Upon a Time... the Rainbow Nation: Construction of a Myth of National Unity in the Postapartheid South Africa through the Execution of an Extended Ritual Device. Pap.polit. [online]. 2017, vol.22, n.2, pp.451-485. ISSN 0122-4409.  https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.papo22-2.enac.

The purpose of this article is to illustrate how, from an extended ritual device, social forces changed in the postapartheid South Africa, helping reconciliation and the consolidation of national unity. In addition, the paper studies how the story-telling of this device creates a foundational myth: the Rainbow Nation. This article is the research result of the Line “History, Culture and Political Philosophy” at the Faculty of Political Science and Government at the University of Rosario. It presents a political phenomenon, almost religious, departing from concepts and theories of anthropologists Marc Augé and Mircea Eliade. Based on secondary sources (videos, interviews, books, academic researches), the article shows how a sports event was applied as a ritual, which consolidated the social bases of the new political project of the South Africa postapartheid; and how from this ritual, a myth was built, a historical reference for the new nation. The article has an original approach insofar as it links anthropological concepts to analyze a political process; and illustrates the functioning and usefulness of rituals and myths in contemporaneity as well.

Keywords : ritual device; social cohesion; reconciliation; myth; rugby; South Africa.

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