Archive

Shoveling sand or changing the nation?: transformation activism in Cape Town.Detail Only Available

By: Besteman, Catherine. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p85-94, 10p

The article focuses on transformation activism in Cape Town, South Africa. It discusses the activism involving replacing a society built on racial hierarchy and inequality with one based on multiculturalism and equal economic opportunity in Cape Town. It describes three projects that seek to transform community life in some of Cape Town's neighborhoods. These projects construct networks of human connection and democratic intimacy.

Subjects: ACTIVISM; SOCIAL movements; RACISM; MULTICULTURALISM; CAPE Town (South Africa); SOUTH Africa; SOCIAL hierarchies

Cattle and cattle colour terminology in South Africa.

By: Louwrens, Louis J.; Taljard, Elsabé. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p95-102, 8p

A comparison between cattle colour terminology found in the Khoikhoi languages and that found in South African Bantu languages brings noticeable similarities to light, leading to the assumption that both the cattle and the terms used to describe their characteristic features were acquired by the South Eastern Bantu-speakers through contact with Khoikhoi pastoralists. In this article we investigate the possibility that these terminological similarities are the result of mutual relatedness to a single progenitor set of terms, rather than of borrowing that took place in a restricted geographical area. To this end, three hypotheses are proposed, respectively termed the East African link-hypothesis, the Northern Botswana link-hypothesis and the Sudan link-hypothesis. We argue that the latter, pointing to a common Nilotic proto-source, represents the most plausible explanation for the origin of cattle colour terminology shared by amongst others, the South African Bantu and Khoikhoi languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: ANTHROPOLOGY; CATTLE; TERMS & phrases; KHOIKHOI language; BANTU languages; SOUTH Africa; Dual-Purpose Cattle Ranching and Farming; Cattle Feedlots

Racism as epithet in the context of post-apartheid's demographic parity goals.Detail Only Available

By: Spiegel, Andrew. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p103-113, 11p

Nearly twenty years after the capitulation of the apartheid state, South Africa's post-apartheid government continues to find it necessary to seek means to direct change in the demographic profile of the country's leading institutions towards a situation where it reflects the national demographic profile. Among those is legislation to achieve what is known as employment equity - which has been criticised for being a reverse form of racism. The article outlines some of the features of that legislation and various policies that have been introduced in order to realise its goals, considering some of the rhetoric that has followed in which those policies as well as their implementation have been described as racist. And it raises questions about how one should understand racism in such a context, arguing that racism is always historically situated and reflects power struggles through categorisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: RACISM; POST-apartheid era; EQUALITY -- Law & legislation; ANTHROPOLOGY; SOUTH Africa

Reconsidering displacement in southern Africa.

By: de Wet, Chris. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p114-122, 9p

In the light of developments in the southern African region over the last number of years, the paper argues for a reconsideration, and an extension, of the way in which the concept of `displacement' has conventionally been understood. It considers a range of different kinds of population movement, arguing that they are essentially interrelated, and that the more conventional distinction between voluntary and involuntary migration is becoming increasingly tenuous. In this regard, the paper shows how, in a number of different kinds of situations, people become 'disemplaced', ie for a range of socio-economic reasons, the ability of the area where people live, or with which they associate, to support or to sustain them progressively erodes under them. They are thus no longer able to remain socially or economically emplaced, and increasingly become unsettled, uprooted, 'disemplaced', having to keep moving around in order to survive. Such disemplacement gives rise to a situation where many people become permanently uprooted and thus, displaced - without having been forcibly moved in the first place. This two-stage process of disemplacement giving rise to displacement - which did not start out as displacement - has implications both for how we conceptuolise much of the displacement occurring in southern Africa, as well as for how we approach and deal with it in the policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: POPULATION; EMIGRATION & immigration; POPULATION geography; ANTHROPOLOGY; SOUTH Africa

Stakeholders and stickholders: power and paradigms in a South African development context.

By: Bologna, Sarah A.. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p123-130, 8p

The alluring vision that ecotourism can drive both rural development and ecological objectives has taken deep root in post-apartheid South Africa where severe economic inequalities persist as a result of dispossession and grossly restricted access to resources during the colonial and apartheid years. It has justified the establishment of ever growing numbers of public and private game reserves. However, anthropological fieldwork in and around Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West Province has revealed a less appealing story, one of marginalisation and exclusion of local residents. This was despite the rhetoric of the Reserve's managing agency which claimed that Madikwe was run on people-based conservation' principles. The discrepancy between rhetoric and practice revealed and emphasised a power imbalance within Madikwe's development initiative and highlighted how, regardless of extreme shifts in approach to development, there was a persistent reliance on paradigmatic models that were unable to accommodate the complexities of local lived realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects: STAKEHOLDERS; ECOTOURISM; POST-apartheid era; FIELD work (Research); SOUTH Africa

Consolidating developmental local government. Lessons from the South African experience.

By: Theron, Francois. Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, Vol. 31 Issue 3/4, p131-132, 2p

The article reviews the book "Consolidating Developmental Local Government. Lessons From the South African Experience," edited by M. Van Donk, M. Swilling, E. Pieterse and S. Parnell.

Subjects: BOOKS -- Reviews; LOCAL government; NONFICTION; CONSOLIDATING Developmental Local Government: Lessons From the South African Experience (Book); VAN Donk, M.; PARNELL, S.; SWILLING, M.; PIETERSE, E.