Capital letters: material dissent and place name change in the 'new' South Africa, 2005-2006.

By: Swanepoel, Natalie. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3/4, p95-105, 11p

In 2005 the municipal council that oversees Pretoria (South Africa's administrative capital) voted to officially change the name of the city to Tshwane.This was met with sustained resistance from various interest groups within the city.This is emblematic of the extent to which place names are vested with historical, political, economic and symbolic value.In addition to protests lodged through official channels, such as the South African Geographical Names Council and parliament, dissent about the name change has largely taken the form of attempts to prevent the use of the new name in public spaces and fora (such as advertising, television, and road signs).This paper explores this material dissent with reference to the landscape of place name changes in South Africa and argues that the resistance has taken the form that it has because of a concerted attempt to prevent the 'performance' of the new name, since this would give the new name validity.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: GEOGRAPHIC names; GEOGRAPHY -- Terminology; TOPONYMY; PRETORIA (South Africa); SOUTH Africa; SOUTH Africa -- Description & travel

Note from the Editor.

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3/4, preceding p95-95, 1/2p

Information about theAnthropology Southern AfricaAnnual Conference held at the University of Johannesburg in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2009 is presented.The conference aimed to relay the significance of anthropological research.Recipient of the Monica Wilson Memorial Prize for the Best Student Paper was revealed in the name of Nina Botha of University of Pretoria.Election of the new council and office bearers of the association was also done.

Subjects: CONFERENCES & conventions; ANTHROPOLOGY -- Research; JOHANNESBURG (South Africa); SOUTH Africa; Convention and Trade Show Organizers; BOTHA, Nina

 

Silencing the past: historical and archaeological colonisation of the Southern San in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

By: Francis, Michael. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3/4, p106-116, 11p

The San of the Drakensberg are assumed to be extinct.Yet, there are Zulu-speaking people in the Drakensberg who still identify as San.These people and their claims both challenge the preconceived notions of what it means to be San in southern Africa and show the situational nature of ethnicity.The claims revolve around mutual ties and family genealogies that do not necessarily constitute a salient or 'complete' identity, but a process intimately tied with the history of the region and all its complexity, violence and changes.I show how people claim different ethnicities at different times, past and present, in order to respond to changing social and political conditions.By highlighting the situational nature of ethnicity, I fracture singular notions of ethnicity as seen in the image of the San as essentially Kalahari hunter-gatherers.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: SAN (African people); ZULU (African people); ETHNOLOGY -- South Africa; SOUTH Africans; ETHNIC relations; SOUTH Africa; SOUTH Africa -- Description & travel; SOUTH Africa -- Social conditions -- 1994-; SOCIAL conditions

 

An exposé ethnography of Zimbabwe's internally displaced ex-farm workers: Practical and ethical dilemmas.

By: Hartnack, Andrew. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3/4, p117-127, 11p

From 2000 onwards, Zimbabwe's often violent land invasions displaced at least 500 000 farm workers from white-owned commercial farms across the country.While studies subsequently conducted on the land invasions tended to focus on their impact on farm workers who remained on the farms, very little ethnographic research was conducted on the impact of displacement on those who were evicted from the farms.The lack of research on the post-displacement lives of the latter group can be attributed to the great practical, political and ethical difficulties faced by researchers in conducting such research in post-2000 Zimbabwe.And yet, in spite of these challenges, there remained a huge need for in-depth, ethnographic research on the post-displacement situations of evicted farm workers:an exposé ethnography that would ensure that the complexities of their experiences, the injustices they faced, and their responses were recorded and broadcast to those unfamiliar with their situation.However, for vulnerable populations of displaced people.particularly those living with the continued threat of persecution, such attentions and attempts to expose both what happened to them and the ways in which they now cope may not be entirely welcome.This brings into question the value of exposé ethnography and raises many ethical questions for anthropologists working in difficult research environments.This paper explores the practical, political and ethical challenges associated with conducting ethnographic research with one group of displaced farm workers in Zimbabwe.Ultimately, it explores the thin line between the need for exposé ethnography in unjust societies and the need to ensure that displaced populations are not brought into further danger by the unwanted attention such research might bring them.In so doing it raises wider questions relating to research with all types of mobile populations.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: AGRICULTURAL laborers; INTERNALLY displaced persons; VINEYARD laborers; PLANTATION workers; ZIMBABWE; ZIMBABWE -- Social conditions -- 1980-; SOCIAL conditions

 

Glaring invisibility: dressing the body of the female cleaner.

By: Naidu, Maheshvari. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2009, Vol. 32 Issue 3/4, p128-138, 11p

The paper explores how the uniform of a group of female cleaners appears to be more than an abstract object framed by the practical exegetics of work.The uniform is seen as acting as a material exercise of discretionary and disciplinary power of inscription, and as the paper shows, emerges as a mode by which the cleaners are homogenously objectified and plastically turned into 'subjects' (Foucault 1982).The paper shows too that while the single layered cleaners' uniform can be seen as disciplining the body and stripping down the complex multi-layers of their personality and attempting to naturalise their status as cleaners, the women's narratives reveal their attempts to destabilise this conscription, if only outside the spatial and organisational domain of the work space.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: CLEANING personnel; CLOTHING & dress; WOMEN cleaning personnel; DRESS codes; UNIFORMS; JANITORS; Janitorial Services; SYMBOLIC aspects; MORAL & ethical aspects