This thesis is a cattle-centred history of colonialism in southern Africa, principally from 1652 until the 1980s. It opts out of the conventional human-centred approach to historical scholarship.... Show moreThis thesis is a cattle-centred history of colonialism in southern Africa, principally from 1652 until the 1980s. It opts out of the conventional human-centred approach to historical scholarship. This thesis is located within the broader animal history genre but innovates in that cattle are presented as experiential, sentient subjects in a sustained way. It views colonialism from within an animal-centred paradigm. The thesis explores impacts of colonialism in southern Africa in terms of how colonialism impacted cattle as groups and as individuals. Its primary question is: what are some of the major impacts of colonialism on cattle’s experiences in southern Africa? It is a sustained investigation of how cattle were subjectively impacted by colonialism. Four major impacts of colonialism are isolated and investigated. These are oxen’s wagon labour, disease epidemics and veterinary and state responses to the epidemics, the development of industrial slaughterhouses, and the development of modern colonial cattle breeding regimes. The geographical scope is regional, including present-day Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. The core finding is that colonialism had transformative impacts on cattle history and cattle’s experiences in the region. Show less
Why has Africa not been doing so well and what is the way forward? This book starts with the analysis of Vansina and Prah: the old cultural traditions in Africa have been destroyed in colonial... Show moreWhy has Africa not been doing so well and what is the way forward? This book starts with the analysis of Vansina and Prah: the old cultural traditions in Africa have been destroyed in colonial times; new ones are currently taking shape, based in part in African languages. The book uses cross-cultural psychology to show that such new cultural traditions are indeed forming in Africa. However, almost all African countries currently use a former colonial language in secondary and higher education. The book demonstrates that if more and more people get educated, this system will no longer scale. Over the next decade, more and more African countries will have to make a transition towards increased use of African languages. The book proposes a distinction between discerned and designed languages. All over the world, designed languages are made to serve speakers of several discerned languages. This could and should happen in Africa as well. The book contains a number of brief case studies, showing how in fact such a transition is practically possible. In future, African countries will be able to achieve success in their educational systems by using a small number of languages as medium of instruction. Such a transition will also help to form the new cultural traditions that are already taking shape on the continent. Show less
Dijk, R.A. van; Kirsch, T.G.; Duarte dos Santos, F. 2021
The introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists... Show moreThe introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists in political fields are borrowing from religious registers of discourse and practice, while conversely, activists in the religious domain are adopting discourses and practices originating in the political domain. We suggest that this religiopolitical activism is simultaneously the product of a climate of profound social change and an important transformative force within it. In order to do justice to the complex dynamics of southern African religiopolitical activism in its manifold manifestations, we draw on the concept of ‘family resemblances’. This allows us to examine how the boundaries between religious and political registers are made the object of situated social negotiations. The family resemblances explored in this special issue range from religiopolitical activists’ habitus and their communication strategies via religious leaders’ self-positionings in relation to the political, to the creation of specific religiopolitical spaces. Show less
Nature conservation in southern Africa has always been characterised by an interplay between Capital, specific understandings of Morality, and forms of Militarism, that are all dependent upon the... Show moreNature conservation in southern Africa has always been characterised by an interplay between Capital, specific understandings of Morality, and forms of Militarism, that are all dependent upon the shared subservience and marginalization of animals and certain groups of people in society. Although the subjectivity of people has been rendered visible in earlier publications on histories of conservation in southern Africa, the subjectivity of animals is hardly ever seriously considered or explicitly dealt with. In this edited volume the subjectivity and sentience of animals is explicitly included. The contributors argue that the shared human and animal marginalisation and agency in nature conservation in southern Africa (and beyond) could and should be further explored under the label of `sentient conservation'. Contributors are Malcolm Draper, Vupenyu Dzingirai, Jan-Bart Gewald, Michael Glover, Paul Hebinck, Tarito Kamuti, Lindiwe Mangwanya, Albert Manhamo, Dhoya Snijders, Marja Spierenburg, Sandra Swart, Harry Wels. Show less
In this lecture I describe and expand upon a painting by Thomas Baines that depicts Amaxhosa migrant labourers leaving the Cape Colony in 1848. It is my belief that what is depicted in this... Show moreIn this lecture I describe and expand upon a painting by Thomas Baines that depicts Amaxhosa migrant labourers leaving the Cape Colony in 1848. It is my belief that what is depicted in this painting is representative of what happened in Southern Africa as a whole between 1650 and the present. I use the painting as a lens through which to look and think about the sub-continent's past and present. I do this by examining the painting in terms of what it tells us about the movement of people, goods and ideas in Southern Africa. In investigating the manner in which people have sought to acquire what they desire, often in the face of constraints - be they environmental, geographical or political - coupled with their ideas with regard to the manner in which the world functions, I seek to throw light on fundamental processes that determine Southern Africa's human history. What happened in the Eastern Cape was a precursor to events further afield. Focussing on the painting, the body of this lecture is divided into three parts that consider the movement and control of people, goods and ideas in Southern Africa's historical past. Bearing in mind the admonition not to be antiquarian in the pursuit of historical meaning, I seek to begin with the material objects of everyday life and then place them in a socio-cultural setting and study them through time. In keeping with this approach, I shy away from a belief in the number-crunching capacities of computers for although they may well throw up interesting anomalies with regard to the import of goods, they cannot tell us what the symbolic value and social or cultural context of these goods was, let alone the wide variety of meanings in terms of age, seniority, gender and race that people attached to such goods. The acquisition of material goods transformed the material cultures of the societies involved. Over time there has been a convergence of desires, consumption and the use of material objects within Southern Africa. These material objects only gain meaning when placed within the socio-cultural context in which they are used. In conclusion I argue that Southern Africa is a single whole, albeit with different accents. What ties Southern Africa together besides culturally informed deep structure is labour, economic institutions and the consumptive practises of its population. The economic institutions established in the past two centuries, be they mining companies, labour recruiting agencies, retail chains or trade and border agreements bind Southern Africa together. With slight regional variations and dependent on their class position, Southern Africans work for money, for the same employers, eat the same foods and aspire to the same material goods. In these terms, there is more that binds Southern Africans together than divides them. Show less
Dwelling in Tourism highlights how marginalised Bushmen people are in the middle of a struggle between traditional en modern forces. Tourism, as an important element of conservation strategies, is... Show moreDwelling in Tourism highlights how marginalised Bushmen people are in the middle of a struggle between traditional en modern forces. Tourism, as an important element of conservation strategies, is a phenomenon built on both, and therefore reveals those struggles and shows how the marginalised status of Bushmen is interwoven with relations of power and myths. Seen from the dwelling perspective as the main theoretical starting point, many tourism environments in four case studies are described, three in Namibia and one in South Africa. All too often Bushmen are considered natural ecologists in need of protection, while in reality they are participants of modernisation with their own agency. Show less
Until recently, observers were generally unaware of the Islamic presence in southern Africa. It was assumed that Islam, in its southern spread, stopped somewhere around Lake Malawi. Little was... Show moreUntil recently, observers were generally unaware of the Islamic presence in southern Africa. It was assumed that Islam, in its southern spread, stopped somewhere around Lake Malawi. Little was known about the arrival of Muslims in the slave hulls of colonialism and during nineteenth-century international trade in sugar, gold and British manufactured goods. This obscurity changed dramatically when groups of Muslims joined anti-apartheid demonstrations in the 1980s, which the international media beamed across the world. Since then, Islam has taken its small but influential place in the media mosaic of southern Africa. In some cases Muslims are important social and political leaders in the region, emerging as champions of dramatic campaigns. Show less
Gerold-Scheepers, J.F.A.; Binsbergen, W.M.J. van 1978
In the more sophisticated studies on migration in tropical Africa aiming at explanation of migratory phenomena the major distinctions have been those between structural and methodological... Show moreIn the more sophisticated studies on migration in tropical Africa aiming at explanation of migratory phenomena the major distinctions have been those between structural and methodological-individualist approaches, and, within the structural approach, between recent marxism on the one hand and structural-functionalism on the other, the latter having dominated the social-scientific study of African migration since the 1950s. The A's discuss the structural approach, in both its marxist and non-marxist versions, in the light of the question linking migration and rural development: does migration foster rural development by bringing about an optimal distribution of human resources, or, on the contrary, does migration constitute a drain on the labour and material resources of rural areas? They concentrate on anthropological and sociological studies. Sections: Introduction - The structural-functionalist approach - Marxist approaches - Conclusion. Show less
Introduction to a volume of papers delivered during the 1977 conference of the Afrika-Studiecentrum in Leiden with the theme of 'Migration and rural development in Tropical Africa'. The... Show moreIntroduction to a volume of papers delivered during the 1977 conference of the Afrika-Studiecentrum in Leiden with the theme of 'Migration and rural development in Tropical Africa'. The geographical coverage of this volume includes West- and Southern Africa, bu does not extend to East or Central Africa. Th papers discuss the main problems of migration in Tropical Africa, namely: 1. The definition of migration, 2. Description of migration streams, 3. Forces behind migration; structure versus individual motivation. 4. The nature of the sectors between which migration takes place, 5. The historical processes by which these different sectors have emerged. 6. The political and economic processes by which the differences between sectors are perpetuated, 7. The social processes by which the different sectors are connected, 8. Migration and rural development. The A's in part 3 end with the general problem that relates to the subjective appreciation of contemporary African conditions, among researchers. Show less
Economists have long neglected changes in labour use in the different sectors. They were primarily interested in the 'most growth inducing production factors' of which capital formation was... Show moreEconomists have long neglected changes in labour use in the different sectors. They were primarily interested in the 'most growth inducing production factors' of which capital formation was thought to be the most effective. However, the record of groving urban unemployment and growing imbalances in ruralurban income and job opportunities has forced economists to reconsider their rigid adjustment models of efficient allocation of the production factors between sectors leading to, in the end, equal seetoral marginal productivities. This paper provides a description of the changes in the approach and the interpretation of labour transfers between sectors and regions (which is in fact what labour migration is about) in economic development theory. Furthermore the A. determines whether these academic studies have led to a more effective migration policy as pursued by the governments of the underdeveloped countries. Show less
