From Nelson Mandela: A Gender Coded Semiotic Reading of a South African Tourist Necklace

Verónica E. Betancourt

Verónica E. Betancourt The Ohio State University

Abstract

In 1995, Nelson Mandela gave my grandmother a South African beaded necklace, which she then gave to me. Spurred by its unusual provenance, I analyzed the necklace as both a visually recognizable tourist good produced by indigenous South African women for a tourist market and as a beadwork gift enmeshed in, but not bound by, gendered codes of South African gift-giving practice. Further, I comparatively interpret the necklace within the visual culture of South Africa and the U.S. in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in order to discern the interplay of the necklace with the self-identified gender of those who perceive it. Through these lenses, complemented by self-reflexive narrative that investigates the process by which I made meaning of the necklace, I investigate how this necklace is a form of self-determination promoting women's global economies.

Author Biography

Verónica E. Betancourt, The Ohio State University

Verónica E. Betancourt is a doctoral candidate in Art Education at The Ohio State University, where she also earned her MA in Art Education. Betancourt holds a BA in Art History from Swarthmore College. She researches the intersection of Latina/o Studies and Museum Studies and works to improve visitor inclusion at art museums. Her research has been published in Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today and in Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies. She was a 2013 Latino Museum Studies Program Fellow for the Smithsonian Latino Center and her scholarship has been supported with grants and fellowships from the American Alliance of Museums, the Caucus on Social Theory in Art Education, and The Ohio State University. Betancourt has worked in both curatorial and education departments at institutions such as the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.

Betancourt welcomes scholarly conversation and collaboration and can be reached via her email betancourt.6@osu.edu or website www.veronicabetancourt.com.