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All Outputs (10)

‘The day that fell off the calendar’: 16 June, South African newspapers, and the making of a national holiday, 1977–1996 (2016)
Journal Article
Johnson, R. E. (2016). ‘The day that fell off the calendar’: 16 June, South African newspapers, and the making of a national holiday, 1977–1996. Journal of Southern African Studies, 42(6), 1143-1160. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2016.1256145

This article explores the repertoire of commemorative activities that developed around the anniversary of the fatal 16 June 1976 Soweto schoolchildren’s march against the imposition of Afrikaans. It uses the coverage of 16 June commemorations from 19... Read More about ‘The day that fell off the calendar’: 16 June, South African newspapers, and the making of a national holiday, 1977–1996.

'The Speakership and Parliamentary Feminisation: The Emergence and Impact of First Female Speakers'; 'Disrupting Deliberation: Comparing Repertoires of Parliamentary Representation'; and ‘Pageantry as Politics: The State Opening of Parliaments’ (2014)
Book Chapter
Johnson, R., Armitage, F., & Spary, C. (2014). 'The Speakership and Parliamentary Feminisation: The Emergence and Impact of First Female Speakers'; 'Disrupting Deliberation: Comparing Repertoires of Parliamentary Representation'; and ‘Pageantry as Politics: The State Opening of Parliaments’. In R. Johnson, & S. Rai (Eds.), Democracy in Practice. Palgrave Macmillan

Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994 (2014)
Journal Article
Johnson, R. E. (2014). Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994. Politics & Gender, 10(4), 595-621. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x14000439

The aim of the article is to develop our understanding of the role bodies play in processes of institutional change. It does so through developing an approach to the politics of institutional newness that highlights the way in which raced and gendere... Read More about Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994.

Haunted by the Somatic Norm: South African Parliamentary Debates on Abortion in 1975 and 1996 (2014)
Journal Article
Johnson, R. E. (2014). Haunted by the Somatic Norm: South African Parliamentary Debates on Abortion in 1975 and 1996. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 39(2), 485-508. https://doi.org/10.1086/673126

This article uses the concept of an institutional somatic or bodily norm alongside the notion of haunting to suggest a new way of thinking about processes of institutional change. The article asks, is it an overwhelming presence of men that creates a... Read More about Haunted by the Somatic Norm: South African Parliamentary Debates on Abortion in 1975 and 1996.

Gendering Processes of Institutional Design: Activists at the Negotiating Table: Sheila Meintjes, Alice Brown and Valerie Oosterveld in Conversation with Laura McLeod and Rachel Johnson (2014)
Journal Article
Johnson, R., & McLeod, L. (2014). Gendering Processes of Institutional Design: Activists at the Negotiating Table: Sheila Meintjes, Alice Brown and Valerie Oosterveld in Conversation with Laura McLeod and Rachel Johnson. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 16(2), 354-369. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2014.918777

Disrupting the South African parliament: performing opposition 1994–2010 (2013)
Journal Article
Johnson, R. E. (2013). Disrupting the South African parliament: performing opposition 1994–2010. Democratization, 20(3), 478-500. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.786546

The article focuses on the most common form of institutionally punished disruption seen in South Africa's National Assembly since 1994: orders for individual MPs to withdraw from the chamber. The shifting dynamics of such “set-piece” dramatizations o... Read More about Disrupting the South African parliament: performing opposition 1994–2010.

‘The Girl About Town’: Discussions of Modernity and Female Youth in Drum Magazine, 1951–1970 (2009)
Journal Article
Johnson, R. E. (2009). ‘The Girl About Town’: Discussions of Modernity and Female Youth in Drum Magazine, 1951–1970. Social Dynamics, 35(1), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533950802666899

This article examines the trope of the ‘modern miss’ in Drum magazine 1951–1970 as a locus for debate over South African urban modernity. At the centre of Drum’s African urbanity was a debate between a progressive, positively ‘modern’ existence and a... Read More about ‘The Girl About Town’: Discussions of Modernity and Female Youth in Drum Magazine, 1951–1970.