Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Today We Have Naming of Parts: The Work of the Anthropologists in Southern Africa |
Author: | Kuper, Adam |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Anthropology Southern Africa |
Volume: | 25 |
Issue: | 1-2 |
Pages: | 7-16 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | ethnic classification universities anthropology Anthropology and Archaeology Education and Oral Traditions Ethnic and Race Relations Bibliography/Research |
Abstract: | South African anthropology was divided into two schools through the second half of the twentieth century. One, associated with the Afrikaans-language universities, was generally favourable to apartheid. The other, associated with some of the English-language universities, was opposed to segregation and racial discrimination. The first school focused on culture, tradition, and ethnicity, while the other was committed to the study of South Africa as a single, rapidly changing society. This opposition has sometimes been exaggerated, and it was most significant during the period of high apartheid in the 1960s and 1970s. However, both schools were engaged in debates about the very objects of anthropological research, and in particular about the nature of the 'racial' and 'tribal' groups in South Africa. These issues were politically of great significance, obliging all anthropologists to confront crucial principles underlying government policy. This paper traces the history of these debates on the classification of the peoples of southern Africa. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |