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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Exploiting Phumelele Nene: Post Modernism, Intellectual Work and Ordinary Lives |
Author: | Sitas, Ari |
Year: | 1995 |
Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
Issue: | 27 |
Pages: | 74-87 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | social research women farmers Bibliography/Research Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://d.lib.msu.edu/tran/266/OBJ/download |
Abstract: | Postmodernism has opened up a space and has provided the language for minorities, usually of 'colour', in advanced capitalist countries to develop a policy of identity and 'postcoloniality'. It has, also, in important ways enriched the critique mounted by feminism against patriarchy. At the same time, however, postmodernism has failed, and will continue to fail as long as its focus renders invisible concrete materialities. Perhaps the litmus test of postmodernism's cognitive and practical potential can be felt if its limitations are traced in what is supposed to be its raison d'être: the voice of a unique, singular 'subaltern', black woman. The author starts from the irreducible voice of a marginalized black woman/mother/peasant, Phumelele Nene, in KwaZulu's countryside (South Africa) and shows that the weaknesses of postmodernism are related to its apodeictic power and the 'status of failure' in intellectual work. Bibliogr. |