DOCSLIB.ORG

Anthropology at the Dawn of Apartheid Radcliff E-Brown and Malinowski’S South African Engagements, 1919–1934

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Anthropology at the Dawn of Apartheid Radcliff E-Brown and Malinowski’S South African Engagements, 1919–1934 FORUM Anthropology at the dawn of apartheid Radcliff e-Brown and Malinowski’s South African engagements, 1919–1934 Isak Niehaus Abstract: In this article, I focus on diff erent strategies of anthropological engage- ment with government and potential funders. I do so by considering the diverse nature of Alfred Radcliff e-Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski’s encounters with South African authorities, between 1919 and 1934. I suggest that Radcliff e-Brown saw South Africa as an integrated society in which segregation was impossible, and advocated the sympathetic scientifi c understanding of cultural diff erence within this context. By contrast, Malinowski was committed to a romantic vision of holis- tic cultures, collaborated directly with colonial authorities, and argued for a policy of eff ective cultural and territorial segregation. Th e strategies had important long- term consequences and costs, calculable only from the privileged vantage point of history. Keywords: ethics, history of anthropology, Malinowski, Radcliff e-Brown, South Africa A host of ethical obligations pertain to the con- Recent changes in the academic landscape duct of anthropologists toward research par- threaten to disrupt this balance of obligations. ticipants, funders, government, the broader Th e British government previously funded uni- discipline, and the wider public. Existing ethi- versity departments through a system of block cal guidelines posit that anthropologists should grants. Currently, anthropologists depend upon strive to uphold the principle of informed con- student fees and grants based on impact assess- sent, meet all obligations toward funders, be ments for salaries, and upon the priorities of pri- honest and candid in our relations with col- vate corporations and public bodies, such as the leagues and government, and communicate our Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), fi ndings to the benefi t of the widest possible for research funds (Fardon 2011). H. Guther- community. Where there are confl icts of inter- son warns that for a discipline that has “recon- est, the concerns of research participants should structed itself around critical theory” the eff ects carry the greatest weight (ASA 2013).1 could be “intellectually deadly.” He argues that Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 77 (2017): 103–117 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2017.770109 104 | Isak Niehaus few classical texts would have been of interest ment over the employment of cheaper African to funders such as BAE Systems or Bristol-My- laborers. During the national elections of 1924, ers Squibb (2011: 2) It would also be erroneous J. B. M Hertzog’s National Party defeated Jan to assume that the interests of potential funders Smuts’s South African Party. Hertzog entrenched neatly align with those of research participants the “color bar” and ensured favorable employ- and the broader public. Under these conditions, ment for whites in all state-run enterprises. He doing ethical anthropology requires strategic also sought to counter urbanization by retribal- navigation and negotiating a nearly impossible izing Africans, bolstering chieft aincy, and devel- balance between the competing interests of dif- oping the reserves. In 1933, during the Great De- ferent stakeholders (Meskell and Pels 2005). pression, Hertzog and Smuts’s parties merged to In this article, I contemplate how experiences form a “fusion” government. Th is government during the early 1900s can inform present-day removed Africans from the voter’s roll and still dilemmas. At the time, as H. Kuklik (1991) pursued segregationist policies. Elements within shows, anthropology lacked any clear institu- government were, nonetheless, receptive of lib- tional base, and demonstrations of the disci- eral opinion. pline’s utility assumed overriding importance. I look beyond the theories for which Radcliff e- I focus specifi cally on Alfred Radcliff e-Brown’s Brown and Malinowski are best remembered, and Bronislaw Malinowski’s engagements with toward the complex political and institutional South Africa from 1919 to 1934.2 Th ese are in- engagement of their work. As cosmopolitan Eu- sightful because of the preeminent status of these ropean intellectuals, they were united in their anthropologists, and because of the high stakes rejection of social evolutionist dogma. Yet they involved. As Max Gluckman (1975) points out, diff ered vastly in their political commitments, arguments about human diff erence possess spe- their understandings of the South African land- cial salience in a country where government has scape, and in the way they engaged with gov- pursued harsh racial and ethnic discrimination. ernment. During his tenure at the University of During this time the “native question” as- Cape Town, from 1921 to 1925, Radcliff e-Brown sumed cardinal importance in the country. Th e sought to promote scientifi c, sympathetic under- Union of South Africa was constituted in 1910, standing of cultural diff erence within an inte- following colonial conquest and the South Af- grated society. His strategy was akin to contem- rican war. Very few Africans held voting rights, porary attempts to “popularize anthropology” and land alienation was extreme. By 1919, Afri- (Erikson 2006), and speak truth to power, from a cans were legally prohibited from acquiring land position of analytical independence. Since 1926 outside native reserves, which comprised only 8 Malinowski mentored several South African an- percent of the country’s land surface. Yet more thropologists, and in 1934 he visited the country than a million African labor tenants resided on to address an important educational conference. white-owned farms, and over 200,000 African Malinowski’s utilitarian vision of science led men worked in the Witwatersrand mines, which him to collaborate more closely with colonial produced 40 percent of the world’s gold (Bein- authorities in policy formation, and his roman- hart 1994: 98). Even larger numbers of African tic, holistic vision of diff erent cultures led him factory workers resided in the rapidly growing to propagate segregationist polices. urban slum yards and locations. Popular discon- From the privileged vantage point of history, tent about land and labor issues oft en culminated it is possible to ascertain the diff erent long-term in violence. In 1921 police killed 200 members impacts of these strategies. I suggest that Ma- of a religious sect who refused to pay taxes and linowski’s strategy of collaborative engagement vacate state land at Bulhoek (Edgar 1988). Th e off ered greater immediate advantages than Rad- next year, 230 people died during violent con- cliff e-Brown’s one of analytical independence, frontations between white miners and govern- but it also bore long-term costs. In retrospect, Anthropology at the dawn of apartheid | 105 it is apparent that Radcliff e-Brown’s work in- of his mentors. He explicitly rejected the doc- formed liberal activism against racial segrega- trine that certain customs were survivals from tion, whereas Malinowski’s arguments provided earlier times, without contemporary signifi - intellectual legitimacy to the discriminatory sys- cance. Th e doctrine, he argued, prejudges the tems of the Bantu Education Act and, ultimately, utility of customs and does not explain people’s to apartheid. conservatism (Radcliff e-Brown [1913a] 1976). Drawing on philosophies of the Enlightenment (Barnard 1992) and on Durkheim’s sociology, Alfred Radcliff e-Brown, 1920–1926 Radcliff e-Brown developed an alternative ap- proach, focused on the synchronic analysis of Radcliff e-Brown’s intellectual biography pro- social structure. Th is is apparent in his attempt vides evidence of a critical, independent mind- to correlate totemic beliefs with diff erent mar- set. Born in Birmingham in 1881, his upbring- riage systems (Radcliff e-Brown 1913b). ing was far from privileged. Aft er his father’s In 1914 Radcliff e-Brown and Malinowski death in 1886, his maternal grandparents took both attended a meeting of the British Associ- care of him, while his mother worked as a com- ation for the Advancement of Science in Aus- panion (A. Kuper 1983: 37). As a young man, tralia, where they seemed to form an alliance Radcliff e-Brown was infl uenced by the social against historical diff usionist theories. Th e out- reformer Havelock Ellis, and by the Russian an- break of World War I prevented their return to archist thinker Pyotr Kropotkin. He met Kro- Europe. For the next fi ve years, Radcliff e-Brown potkin in Kent to discuss the ills of England. taught English at a prestigious Sydney grammar Kropotkin reportedly advised him fi rst to try school, and became director of education in the to understand social life before attempting to Kingdom of Tonga. In 1918 he also served as change it, and to begin by studying “primitive” a volunteer in Fiji, where British ships had in- societies before investigating more complex ones, troduced a ravaging infl uenza epidemic. Th ese such as England (Langham 1981: 371). experiences reinforced his critical views of colo- Radcliff e-Brown proceeded to read moral and nial authorities (Campbell 2014: 98, 108). mental sciences at Cambridge, and then com- Radcliff e-Brown contracted tuberculosis in pleted a postgraduate diploma in anthropol- the Pacifi c and, on medical advice, decided to ogy under Alfred Haddon and W. H. R. Rivers join his brother, Herbert, in South Africa, where (Stocking 1995: 307). As student, he earned the the latter worked as a mining engineer (Stocking nickname “Anarchy Brown.” His fi eldwork in 1995: 305). Here Radcliff e-Brown taught English the Andaman Islands (1906–1908) and in West- and psychology at diff erent colleges in Johan- ern Australia (1910–1911) was modeled on the nesburg, and worked as curator at the Transvaal approaches that his mentors had devised during Museum in Pretoria. On his request, Haddon the Torres Straits expedition. He aimed to recon- wrote to South Africa’s then prime minister, struct precolonial ways of life, and relied greatly Jan Smuts, to plead for the establishment of an on the memories of his informants (A.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rep.Ort Resumes
    REP.ORT RESUMES ED 010 471 48 LANGUAGE AND AREA STUDY PROGRAMSIN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES. BY MOSES, LARRY OUR. OF INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH, WASHINGTON, 0.Ce REPORT NUMBER NDEA VI -34 PUB DATE 64 EDRS PRICEMF40.27HC $7.08 177P. DESCRIPTORS *LANGUAGE PROGRAMS, *AREA STUDIES, *HIGHER EDUCATION, GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS, COURSES, *NATIONAL SURVEYS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AFRICA, ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, NEAR EAST, WESTERN EUROPE, SOVIET UNION, EASTERN EUROPE . LANGUAGE AND AREA STUDY PROGRAMS OFFERED IN 1964 BY UNITED STATES INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION ARE LISTEDFOR THE AREAS OF (1) AFRICA, (2) ASIA,(3) LATIN AMERICA, (4) NEAR EAST,(5) SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE, AND (6) WESTERN EUROPE. INSTITUTIONS OFFERING BOTH GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS IN LANGUAGE AND AREA STUDIESARE ALPHABETIZED BY AREA CATEGORY, AND PROGRAM INFORMATIONON EACH INSTITUTION IS PRESENTED, INCLUDINGFACULTY, DEGREES OFFERED, REGIONAL FOCUS, LANGUAGE COURSES,AREA COURSES, LIBRARY FACILITIES, AND.UNIQUE PROGRAMFEATURES. (LP) -,...- r-4 U.,$. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION AND WELFARE I.: 3 4/ N- , . Office of Education Th,0 document has been. reproducedexactly as received from the petson or organization originating it. Pointsof View or opinions CD st4ted do not necessarily representofficial Office of EdUcirtion?' ri pdpition or policy. CD c.3 LANGUAGEAND AREA "Ai STUDYPROGRAMS IN AMERICAN VERSITIES EXTERNAL RESEARCHSTAFF DEPARTMENT OF STATE 1964 ti This directory was supported in part by contract withtheU.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
    [Show full text]
  • FUGITIVE QUEENS: Amakhosikazi and the Continuous Evolution Of
    FUGITIVE QUEENS: Amakhosikazi and the Continuous Evolution of Gender and Power in KwaZulu-Natal (1816-1889) by CAELLAGH D. MORRISSEY A THESIS Presented to the Department of History and International Studies and the Robert D. Clark Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Science December 2015 An Abstract of the Thesis of Caellagh Morrissey for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Department of History and International Studies to be taken December 2015 Title: Fugitive Queens: Amakhosikazi and the Evolution of Gender and Power in KwaZulu-Natal (1816-1889) Professor Lindsay F. Braun Amakhosikazi (elite women) played a vital role within the social, economic, and political reality of the Zulu pre-colonial state. However, histories have largely categorized them as accessory to the lives of powerful men. Through close readings of oral traditions, travelogues, and government documentation, this paper discusses the spaces in which the amakhosikazi exhibited power, and tracks changes in the social position of queen mothers, as well as some members of related groups of elite women, from the early years of the Zulu chiefdom in the 1750s up until the 1887 annexation by Britain and their crucial intervention in royal matters in 1889. The amakhosika=i can be seen operating in a complex social space wherein individual women accessed power through association to political clans, biological and economic reproduction, manipulation, and spiritual influence. Women's access to male power sources changed through both internal political shifts and external pressures. but generally increased in the first half of the 1800s, and the declined over time and with the fracturing of Zulu hegemony.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 American Anthropology in Africa and Afro-America
    1 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY IN AFRICA AND AFRO-AMERICA: THE EARLY DAYS OF NORTHWESTERN’S PROGRAM OF AFRICAN STUDIES Simon Ottenberg PAS Working Papers Number 16 ISSN Print 1949-0283 ISSN Online 1949-0291 Edited by David Easterbrook, George and Mary LeCron Foster Curator Melville J Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University Program of African Studies Northwestern University 620 Library Place Evanston, Illinois 60208-4110 U.S.A © 2009 by Simon Ottenberg. All Rights Reserved. 2 © 2009 Simon Ottenberg All rights reserved. No part of the following papers may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Program of African Studies, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles & reviews. 3 American Anthropology in Africa and Afro-America: The Early Days of Northwestern’s Program of African Studies Simon Ottenberg1 As a world power after World War II, some U.S. government officials and private foundations realized how little we knew of Africa, though allied troops had been engaged in North Africa and transported through West Africa. And the Cold War was leading to growing USSR influence in Africa. “It was sometimes said in the 1940s that the few African experts in the United States could hold a convention in a telephone booth.”2 Through funding from the Carnegie and Ford foundations and later from Fulbright awards and other government agencies, in 1948, Northwestern University became the first major African Studies Program, in the United States with support from the Carnegie Foundation. Multiple reasons for the choice were the pre-war research in Dahomey of Melville J.
    [Show full text]
  • Euromosaic III Touches Upon Vital Interests of Individuals and Their Living Conditions
    Research Centre on Multilingualism at the KU Brussel E U R O M O S A I C III Presence of Regional and Minority Language Groups in the New Member States * * * * * C O N T E N T S Preface INTRODUCTION 1. Methodology 1.1 Data sources 5 1.2 Structure 5 1.3 Inclusion of languages 6 1.4 Working languages and translation 7 2. Regional or Minority Languages in the New Member States 2.1 Linguistic overview 8 2.2 Statistic and language use 9 2.3 Historical and geographical aspects 11 2.4 Statehood and beyond 12 INDIVIDUAL REPORTS Cyprus Country profile and languages 16 Bibliography 28 The Czech Republic Country profile 30 German 37 Polish 44 Romani 51 Slovak 59 Other languages 65 Bibliography 73 Estonia Country profile 79 Russian 88 Other languages 99 Bibliography 108 Hungary Country profile 111 Croatian 127 German 132 Romani 138 Romanian 143 Serbian 148 Slovak 152 Slovenian 156 Other languages 160 Bibliography 164 i Latvia Country profile 167 Belorussian 176 Polish 180 Russian 184 Ukrainian 189 Other languages 193 Bibliography 198 Lithuania Country profile 200 Polish 207 Russian 212 Other languages 217 Bibliography 225 Malta Country profile and linguistic situation 227 Poland Country profile 237 Belorussian 244 German 248 Kashubian 255 Lithuanian 261 Ruthenian/Lemkish 264 Ukrainian 268 Other languages 273 Bibliography 277 Slovakia Country profile 278 German 285 Hungarian 290 Romani 298 Other languages 305 Bibliography 313 Slovenia Country profile 316 Hungarian 323 Italian 328 Romani 334 Other languages 337 Bibliography 339 ii PREFACE i The European Union has been called the “modern Babel”, a statement that bears witness to the multitude of languages and cultures whose number has remarkably increased after the enlargement of the Union in May of 2004.
    [Show full text]
  • Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski
    Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski Gunter Senft Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen 1. Biographical sketch "...he had an artists power to create with great integrative capacity a world of his own ... and he had the true scientist's intuitive discrimination between relevant and adventitious fundamental and secondary issues", this kind epitaph, which Malinowski formulated in his obituary for Sir James George Frazer a year before he himself died, could equally apply to Malinowski, as Raymond Firth (1981: 137) so rightly empha­ sized in one of his articles on his teacher and colleague. Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most important anthropologists of the 20th century, is generally recognized as one of the founders of social anthropology, transforming 19th century speculative anthro­ pology into a field-oriented science that is based on empirical research. Malinowski is principally associated with his field research of the Mailu and especially of the Tro- briand Islanders in what is now Papua New Guinea, and his masterpieces on Trobri- and ethnography continue "to enthrall each generation of anthropologists through its intensity, rich detail, and penetrating revelations" (Weiner 1987: xiv). Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski (nicknamed Bronek & Bronio) was born in Cracow (then Austrian Galicia, now Poland) on 7 April 1884 as the only child of Jozefa (nee Lacka) and Lucjan Malinowski. His father (1839-1898) was professor of Slavonic philology at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow and was well known not only as a philologist but also as an ethnographer specialized in Polish dialects and Silesian folklore and ethnol­ ogy. He died of a heart attack at the age of 58 when his son (who was to die in the same way at the same age) was only 14.
    [Show full text]
  • Man and Culture : an Evaluation of the Work of Bronislaw Malinowski
    <r\ MAN AND CULTURE Contributors J. R. FIRTH RAYMOND FIRTH MEYER FORTES H. IAN HOGBIN PHYLLIS KABERRY E. R. LEACH LUCY MAIR S. F. NADEL TALCOTT PARSONS RALPH PIDDINGTON AUDREY I. RICHARDS I. SCHAPERA At the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 1939 at Chicago Photograph by Leslie A. White Man and Culture AN EVALUATION OF THE WORK OF BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI EDITED BY RAYMOND FIRTH Routledge & Kegan Paul LONDON First published ig^y by Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited Broadway House, 68-y4 Carter Lane London, E.C.4 (g) Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited ig^y Printed in Great Britain by Lowe & Brydone {Printers) Limited London, N.W.io Second impression ip3g Second impression with corrections ig6o GN msLFsi Contents EDITOR S NOTE VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii REFERENCES viii Introduction: Malinowski as Scientist and as Man i RAYMOND FIRTH The Concept of Culture in Malinowski's Work 15 AUDREY I. RICHARDS MalinowskVs Theory of Needs 33 RALPH PIDDINGTON Malinowski and the Theory of Social Systems 53 TALCOTT PARSONS Malinowski's Contribution to Field-work Methods and the Writing of Ethnography 71 PHYLLIS KABERRY Ethnographic Analysis and Language with Reference to Malinowski's Views 93 J. R. FIRTH The Epistemological Background to MalinowskVs Empiricism 119 E. R. LEACH MalinowskVs Theories of Law 139 I, SCHAPERA Malinowski and the Study of Kinship 157 MEYER FORTES Malinowski on Magic and Religion 189 S. F. NADEL The Place of Malinowski in the History of Economic Anthro- pology 209 RAYMOND FIRTH Malinowski and the Study of Social Change 229 LUCY MAIR Anthropology as Public Service and MalinowskVs Contribution to it 245 H.
    [Show full text]
  • Isaac Schapera: a Bibliography
    The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, vo1.12, nos.1 & 2 (1998) Isaac Schapera: a bibliography Suzette Heald Department of Sociology, University of Botswana, Abstract The extraordinary record of published scholarship by Isaac Schapera stretches from 1923 right up to date, with publications forthcoming in 1999. This bibliography covers almost two hundred titles. His main subject of interest up to 1930 was the Khoesan of South Africa. Thereafter he published on the Tswana of Botswana, beginning with studies of Kgatla society and literature, and moving into general Tswana law and society by the time of his classic Handbookof Tswana Law and Custom in 1938, commissioned by the Bechuanaland Protectorate colonial administration. In the 1940s he produced many studies of Tswana land tenure and history, including unpublished official reports. From the 1950s he definitively edited 19th century source materials on the Tswana, notably the unpublished papers of David Livingstone, and continued producing his own original studies at a prodigious rate into the 1970s. Important latter studies have been in the field of indigenous law and government, many in the Journalof African Law,founded in his honour. Introduction This bibliography has been compiled to honour Isaac Schapera, born 23rd June 1905, and to introduce new generations of scholars to the full range of his work by providing an updated and accessible listing.
    [Show full text]
  • Redalyc.Ethnography As Tradition in Africa
    Etnográfica ISSN: 0873-6561 [email protected] Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia Portugal de Pina-Cabral, João Ethnography as tradition in Africa Etnográfica, vol. 15, núm. 2, junio, 2011, pp. 379-394 Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia Lisboa, Portugal Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=372339167008 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Etnográfica vol. 15 (2) (2011) Miscelânea ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ João de Pina-Cabral Ethnography as tradition in Africa ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Aviso O conteúdo deste website está sujeito à legislação francesa sobre a propriedade intelectual e é propriedade exclusiva do editor. Os trabalhos disponibilizados neste website podem ser consultados e reproduzidos em papel ou suporte digital desde que
    [Show full text]
  • Notes and References
    Notes and References Introduction 1. M. Legassick, 'South Africa: Forced Labour, Industrialization and Racial Differentiation', in R. Harris (ed.) The Political Economy of Africa (Massachusetts, 1975), p. 250. 2. H. Wolpe, 'Capitalism and Cheap Labour-Power in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid', in Economy and Society, I, 4, 1972. 3. M. Lacey, Working for Boroko. The Origins of a Coercive Labour System in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1981). 4. S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependencein South Africa. Class, Nationalism. and the State in Twentieth-Century Natal (Baltimore and Johannesburg, 1986), p. 38. 5. M. Legassick, 'The Making of South African "Native Policy", 1903-1923: The Origins of "Segregation" , (seminar paper, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London University, 1973), p. 1. 6. It should be noted that to say that segregation provided the political and social conditions for the long-term reproduction of capitalism as a system begs several questions. How long is the long-term? Is capitalism a single system, or does it make more sense to speak of capitalism as embracing varying systems of accumulation, all of which involve different degrees of exploitation? 7. S. Marks, 'Natal, the Zulu Royal Family and the Ideology of Segre­ gation' , in Journal of Southern African Studies (Henceforth JSAS), IV, 2, 1978, 177. 8. J. W. Cell, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge, 1982), p.3. 9. P. B. Rich, White Power and the Liberal Conscience. Racial Segregation and South African Liberalism 1921--60 (Johannesburg and Manchester, 1984). 10. G. H. Nicholls, South Africa in My Time (London, 1961), p.
    [Show full text]
  • The Missionary Career and Spiritual Odyssey of Otto Witt
    THE MISSIONARY CAREER AND ·sPIRITUAL ODYSSEY OF OTfO WI'IT by FREDERICK HALE submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF'PHILOSOPHY in the subject RELIGIOUS STUDIES atthe UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN PROMOTER: PROFF.SSOR JOHN W. DE GRUCHY JULY 1991 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. SUMMARY This thesis is a theological and historical study of the Swedish missionary and evangelist Peter Otto Helger Witt (1848-1923), who served as the Church of Sweden Mission's fjrst missionary and as such launched its work a.mongst the Zulu people of Southern Africa in the 1870S before growing disillusioned with his national Lutheran tradition and, after following a tortUOl;JS spiritual path through generally increasing theological subjectivity, eventually becoming a loosely affiliated Pentecostal evangelist in Scandinavia. Undoubtedly owing to the embarrassment he caused the Church of Sweden Mission by resigning from it while it was in a formative stage, but also to tension between him and its leaders, Witt has never received his due in the historiography of Swedish missions. For that matter, his role in Scandinavian nonconformist religious movements for nearly a third of a ) century beginning in the early 1890S is a largely untold chapter in the ecclesiastical history of the region.
    [Show full text]
  • Intellectual Roots of Key Anthropologists
    SELECTIONS FROM ASSESSING CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Robert Borofsky, editor (1994) New York: McGraw-Hill FREDRIK BARTH is currently Research Fellow under the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. He has previously taught at the universities of Oslo and Bergen, and as a visitor at various American departments of anthropology. He has carried out research in a number of areas, starting in the Middle East with a focus on tribal politics and ecology. His best known works from this period are: Political Leadership among Swat Pathans (1959), Nomads of South Persia (1961), Models of Social Organization (1964), and the edited work Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969). Later, he has also done fieldwork in New Guinea and Southeast Asia, and among his publications are Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea (1975) and Cosmologies in the Making (1987). A monograph entitled Balinese Worlds will appear in 1993. "After a wartime childhood in Norway, I started at the University of Chicago with an interest in paleontology and human evolution. But the active and rich teaching program of Fred Eggan, Sol Tax, Robert Redfield and others broadened my intellectual horizon and led, after an interlude on a dig in Iraq with Bob Braidwood, to my choice of social anthropology as the focus of my work. My foundations derived indirectly from Radcliffe-Brown, who had taught my teachers during the 1930s. "Like many of my Chicago cohort, I went on to further studies in England. I chose the L.S.E. Autobiographies: 2 and developed a life-long association with Raymond Firth and, even more importantly, with Edmund Leach, whom I later followed to Cambridge for my Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Solomon T. Plaatje (1876-1932) in South African Society
    THE ROLE OF SOLOMON T. PLAATJE (1876-1932) IN SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY by Brian Peel Willan Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London November 1979 ProQuest Number: 11010557 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010557 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 i ABSTRACT Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was born to Tswana, Christian, parents in 1876, and grew up on a mission station near Kimberley. After first working as a post office messenger, in 1898 he moved to Mafeking to become a court interpreter, and served in this capacity during the famous siege. In 1902 he became editor of an English/Tswana newspaper, Koranta ea Becoana, and established his reputation as a journalist and spokesman for his people. Shortly after Union in 1910 he moved to Kimberley and became editor of another newspaper, Tsala ea Becoana, and was then prominently involved in the founding of the South African Native National Congress, becoming its first Secretary.
    [Show full text]