- Title
- "I want to kill myself!": identity documents and mental health in the South African Daily Sun tabloid
- Creator
- Boshoff, Priscilla A
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- text
- Type
- book
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143549
- Identifier
- vital:38256
- Identifier
- ISBN
- Identifier
- https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description
- An Identity Document (ID) is needed by South Africans to study, apply for a pension or get married. However, Home Affairs, the state department responsible for issuing them, is poorly managed. The popular Daily Sun tabloid newspaper mediates for its five million working class readers the frustration caused by this incompetency in its “Horror Affairs” column. Readers tell their stories about (not) getting their IDs, stories often of suicide, depression and “giving up” on life. Using a Lacanian frame, and through a close reading of “Horror Affairs” texts, I argue that this tabloid plays a therapeutic role for its socially marginalised readers by mediating the “invisibility” engendered by the modernising state and its administrative technologies. Given the concern about high rates of mental health illness in South Africa, the research also demonstrates how popular culture forms can alert health care practitioners to issues which may otherwise go unnoticed.
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Boshoff, P., 2015. "I want to kill myself!" Identity documents and mental health in the South African Daily Sun tabloid. International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP). 9th Biennial Conference, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Rhodes University Proatia Statement (https://www.ru.ac.za//governance/proatia/)
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Collections
Boshoff, Priscilla A (Associate Prof)
RU School of Journalism and Media Studies
SDG 10. Reduced Inequalities
SDG 03. Good Health and Well-Being
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | I want to kill myself.pdf | 765 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |