Post-apartheid theory and post-apartheid black cinema: a dialectical critique of the artifice of commons in The Battle for Johannesburg (2010)

Post-apartheid theory and post-apartheid Black cinema may appear as separate knowledge routes. Yet, both share a common ground: explicating the epistemology of post-apartheid times and enunciating the cultural expressions of its conditions, respectively. They overlap in the discussions on, among others, post-apartheid cultures, psyches, materiality, and identities. In this article, I take the idea of commons in Johannesburg during the pre-2010 FIFA World Cup as a starting point for a dialectical critique of post-apartheid theory and post-apartheid cinema. I argue that the post-apartheid crisis of communing the city, an organic urban practice dissociable from apartheid rules, can be read as a social commentary on how the strictures of Black urban conurbation designate specificities of post-apartheid thinking. I use Rehad Desai’s film, The Battle for Johannesburg (2010), as the basis of my discussion.