FEELING THEIR WAY

Resumé

In a bid to step away from a history of apartheid centred on African and
Afrikaner nationalisms, the article redirects attention towards the white South African
English-speaking community. An analysis of the emotional practices employed in the South
African English-language press on Rhodesian unilateral independence in 1965 define the
emotion work these practices carry out. The article concludes that this emotion work creates
certain emotional narratives, which nuance a conventional view of the English-speaker as
“unknown” and his attitudes towards the racial dilemma in South Africa as aloof, thus
revealing a hitherto unprecedented proactivity in the English-speaker.