The Intellectual Traditions of Black South African Women
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UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE FROM ORALITY TO LITERACY: THE INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By SANDRA CAROLE DICKINSON Norman, Oklahoma 2003 UMI Number: 3109055 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3109055 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by SANDRA CAROLE DICKINSON 2003 All Rights Reserved FROM ORALITY TO LITERACY: THE INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN A Dissertation APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY y Cathg6 ip L. Hobbs W C. Mai^ ' V / r / ___ 'Susan L. Kates / Vincent B. Leitch ' Betty J. Harris1 t j ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The genesis of this project occurred in a discussion on the exclusion of women horn the Western Aetorical tradition in Kathleen Welch's classical rhetoric seminar. I began to think about my native South Ahica and my complete lack of knowledge about black women's writing. Despite having left South A&ica in the early 1970s, I still 6 el deeply connected to this beautiful country with its troubled past. This dissertation would probably never have reached conviction without the unwavering support of Catherine Hobbs, whose interest in global women's literacy convinced her that my idea of researching black women's literacy in South Ahica was a necessary and worthwhile project. Her he^fiil suggestions and continual encouragement have kept me motivated. I am also grateAil to Susan Kates for her enthusiasm 6 r my topic and her guidance. Her stimulating seminars have contributed immeasurably to my intellectual development. My thanks to David Mair who graciously agreed to join my committee Allowing the untimely death of Michael Flanigan. David is an outstanding mentor of graduate students in the English Department and my two years as his assistant have been the highlight of my graduate training. Vincent Leitch's insightful and constructive critiques of my draAs have caused me to rethink and reshape my entire project and I have learned a great deal 6om him about the process of writing a manuscript of this length. Betty Harris has served an important role on my committee as I have benefited Aom her expertise on South AAica acquired through many years of research in the country. She reintroduced IV me to my homeland in the summer o f 2002 v^en we traveled together to Johannesburg and Cape Town. On a personal note, I would like to acknowledge the love and support of my daughter Samantha who was horn in Johannesburg. Having retained her South AMcan citizenship, she continues to express pride in her roots and has listened patiently as I have told her about my project. Her thought&d comments and penetrating questions about South A&ica, combined with her interest in literacy studies gained as a special education teacher, have brought us closer. To my husband Sancho, I can never adequately express my thanks 6)r his commitment to me. Without his hnancial and emotional support during the many years I have been in graduate school, this endeavor would not have been remotely possible. And, hnally, I would hke to dedicate this dissertation to the memory of Emily Tsangane and Anna Gumede. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE The Intellectual Legacy of the Oral Traditions ........................................................ 18 CHAPTER TWO Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Struggle 6 r Literacy ................................. 72 CHAPTER THREE A Century of Writing Instruction: Colonizing the Composition Classroom 133 CHAPTER FOUR Critical Literacy in Action: Women Writing What They L ik e .............................. 202 CHAPTER FIVE The Politics of Sponsorship: Manuscripts, Mentors, and Marketing ...................... 253 VI ABSTRACT Black women in South Africa have a long history of intellectualism as evidenced by their e^gertise as oral performers, rehearsing and revitalizing vibrant storytelling traditions that have been inherited by matnlineal right for centuries. This ancient rhetorical tradition has played an integral role in their emergence as aspiring writers in the aftermath of the Soweto rebellion of 1976. While their arrival on the literary scene is typically characterized as a breaking of the silence, their mqiertise as social commentators and community activists has roots in Ahican patriarchal organization in which private and public spheres are delineated along gendered lines. Black women's growing public presence in the Black Consciousness Movement that launched an orchestrated assault on apartheid is less a result of their incorporation in mass education and Western epistemology than a resourcehil return to their rhetorical roots. Chapter one e^glores the oral traditions as sites of resistance to patriarchy and the provision of opportunities 6)r claiming agency and individual identities, strategies that have been essential6 )r anti-apartheid activism when learning to write. Chgg)ter two considers the impact that literacy has had on black women, beginning with its introduction by missionaries in the nineteenth century and continuing through the apartheid era. Reasons Ar black women's late arrival on the literary scene are discussed in relation to pedagogical practices and philosophical positions concerning the role of black women in a white dominated society. Chuter three examines a V ll century of conqwsition and grammar instruction in South AMca by analyzing a selection of textbooks used in schools 6om the standpoint of current composition and rhetorical theories. Chapter6 ur investigates the role of Freirean literacy initiatives in the black community as surreptitiously deployed in apartheid-era South Africa. The lack of in&rmation on literacy groups is addressed by textual analyses of reading material produced in literacy classes by black women learners Ar other students. Chapter fve considers the crucial yet dubious role of Wiite sponsorship in assisting black women writers to reach a wider, predominantly Western audience. vm Introduction In South Ahica, a land historically divided along racial, ethnic, linguistic, and gendered lines. Western culture was until recently perArce the dominant culture, achieving its hegemonic status as a result of colonialism and the imposition of the colonizer's culture on the colonized. Rich and complex A&ican oral traditions that have been cherished and nurtured Ar centuries could not con^)ete m status with the literate culture of the Westen^rs. And, inevitably, the proliAration and promotion of Western culture m the colonies has been overwhelmingly slanted to reflect the deeds, duties, and desires of white men, Ar the colonial mentality is maniAstly predicated on masculine ideals and challenges, that is, on the military, economic, political, social, cultural, and religious conquest of an mdigenous population and the taming of an exotic and Aequently inhospitable terrain. The presence of white women m the colonies has always been a necessary, although decidedly secondary. Auction of the "civilizing" mission. Anne McClinAck points out that while "European men, by the close of Ae nineteenth century, owned and managed 85 percent of the earth's surAce, the crucial but concealed relation between gender and imperialism has, until very recently, been unacknowledged or shrugged ofTasa Ait acconçli of nature" (5-6).^ White women, if not exactly ^ Surprisingly, it was a Wiite South A&ican woman, Olive Schreiner, who attenpted to raise awareness o f the "parasitic" role o f white women in the colonial contexL While not re&rring ^peci&cally to her native country in Pfbmon oW Zafw (a Aminist tract that became the bible o f the wmnen's movement in Britain soon aâer its publication in 1911% she condemned the practice of the "extensive employment of the labor o f slaves, or o f subject races or classes" by the "dominant race or class" to the extent that the "physical toil on the part o f its own female membas has become unnecessary." By not attributing in contented with their allotted supporting roles in the colonial context, have been largely conq)licit and conqilacent with this arrangement. Complacency inevitably enables and encourages silence, h)r the g^thy it Asters removes the key ingredient of personal motivation and excuses the enabled 6om exercising a keen sense of civic duty and the development and deployment of a critical conscience.^ As McClintock insists, "white women were not the h^less onlookers of empire, but were ambiguously con^licit both as colonizers and colonized, privileged and restricted, acted upon and acting" (6 )/ Unlike white women, who had the luxury of selectively ignoring, overlooking, or condoning the mounting abuses of white privilege they witnessed hom their protected position, black women in South A&ica have not consciously elected to any meaningW manner to society, these spoiled women emerge as (he "efkte wife, ctmcubine or prostitute. ^A%ited on and tended Igr (he labor o f others" (78-80). ^ The ceremonial burial o f Sarah Bartmann in South A&ica on August 9,2002, International Women's Day, is onblematic of (he treatment of black women by Wiite men in (he colw ial txmflicL Bartmann, known as (he "HottentcX Venus," was strutted around England and France as a sexual &eak due to die size o f her buttocks and genitalia.