REMI CALLEJA (CLLREM001) 2019 Connecting at the Intersection Conversing Identities on a Street Corner in Cape Town In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Anthropology Faculty of the Humanities UniversityUniversity ofof Cape CapeTown Town This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature: Date: 1/11/2019 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. University of Cape Town Table of Contents Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... i Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ ii Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 I – Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 18 II – Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 28 III – Ethics ................................................................................................................................... 39 IV – At the Corner ....................................................................................................................... 40 V – We are the KhoeSan ............................................................................................................. 58 VI – Why am I a Rastaman? ........................................................................................................ 74 VII - Healing Nations, Introducing the Occupation. ................................................................... 93 VIII - I Man a de Bush Doctor ................................................................................................... 110 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 124 Limitations and Takeaways ....................................................................................................... 126 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 129 Annex: Pictures from the field experience .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. Acknowledgments First, I deeply thank Simon, Jo, Gad, and Naphtali, for their time, patience, and crucial con- tribution. The four healers shaped and nurtured the research. Without the group of young men, this work would not have been possible. I also thank additional contributors, such as Zeb, Rambo, Tank, Denver, Carlo, and Bradley, who contributed to the development and articulation of the various steps of the enterprise. I thank Dr. Marlon Swai for his help and supervision throughout the process. He permitted me to expand my understandings, deepen my approaches, and open my interpretations. His teachings, ad- vises, and the discussions we shared contributed to shaping my framework of thought and analysis. The entire UCT Anthropology Department also played an important role in the articulation of the work, especially Francis Nyamnjoh, Fiona Ross, and Lesley Green who contributed to my develop- ment as an anthropologist and researcher through their courses. Asonzeh Ukah’s teachings on African religions also had an important influence on the conceptual framing of the work. Finally, I thank my family and friends for their involvement, help, and fruitful comments. Without their support, I could not have achieved the research. i Abstract The research proposes to unpack the process of identity negotiation among a group of Cape Bush doctors, as well as to reflect on my own negotiation. During the time spent together, these claimants of a KhoeSan identity presented a permeating Rastafari sense of belonging and reconnected with their Indigenous identity through their work with herbs. The research participants challenged hegemonic perspectives on identity, culture, health, and respectability. They carried out their practices and beliefs within an urban environment represented by the space of the street corner. A central relational ontology emerged throughout the research, em- phasizing the multiple underlying connections and interdependencies that structure their worldview and deeply influencing my personal development. The negotiation of their identity was shaped by constant processes of re-appropriation, adaptation, and re-composition and contributed to bridging historical, cultural, and social gaps imposed by years of colonisation, oppression, and marginalisation. I argue in this research that understanding the production of identity through a dynamic and fluid framework of knowledge participates to foster reinter- pretations of agency, power, wealth, and marginality. To contend with the plurality of crisis we face in the contemporary moment, We must learn from these alternative worldviews. ii Naphtali was standing in front of me, visibly excited to tell about his weekend and how he found the precious Red Carrots. ‘I was in Plettenberg Bay, my lord. I went there with my woman. You know, even when she was pregnant, she would come with me and help to find medicine. She would dig, my brother, with the baby inside her, she would dig better than anyone and pull out roots, herbs, plants, everything...’ He recalled. ‘Now look, we are in the mountain over there and, at some point, I feel something. You see, my feet are connected, my toes are one with the roots underneath, I can feel the energy, the power, and I know where the plants are. It's like if the soil is speaking through my feet, through my body, then, I know. So now, I tell the others “there!”’ he said pointing an imaginary spot in the concrete of the road. ‘So, everyone digs, my lord, and do you know what we find? A big Red Carrot, huge my King. Yo, we found a lot of medicine that day.’ Jo showed his respect, his hands symbolizing the Trinity, the Solomon seal, imitating the gesture made by Emperor Haile Selassie I, ‘Respect, my King.’ Then, he completed Naphtali's words. ‘Now, let me explain to you, Remi. We are the Indigenous people; we are the people from the Earth. In the mountain, we can feel the ancestors, they are all around, they guide us. That's why we must know where we come from, not deny our origins and who we are but embrace it. I'm telling you, Remi, you have to connect, to feel the relations all around, to open yourself and feel what is there.’ Introduction ‘I'm telling you, Remi, you have to connect, to feel the relations all around, to open yourself…’ advised Jo. But why connecting? Why this emphasis on relations? Our world is in a constant situation of motion, hosting movements of goods, people, and ideas. Therefore, contacts, exchanges, and borrowings structure global as well as personal developments. We compose and re-compose our identities through multiple connections. We dynamically and fluidly negotiate who we are as individuals and as members of a group. We need to connect to exist. That must be acknowledged and promoted. Throughout my Honours’ research on the ‘reactivation’ of the KhoeSan identity in the Western Cape today I have observed the great variety of ways to express that specific belonging among the claimants. This Master’s thesis contends with the KhoeSan identity reclamation as a tumultuous set of responses to socio-political conditions and transitions that, although is often called a resurgence, reclamation, or reactivation, has been in continuum since the founding of the colony and way before 1 as I argue along with the likes of Barnard (1988), Biesele (1993), Haacke (2002), Lewis-Williams (1984), or Low (2004)… I understand these reclamations and actualizations of Indigeneity in the present moment to be a necessary and prescient response to the current conditions that we face. I am genuinely captivated by the profound respect and dignity that Indigenous communities present and I was called to write particularly about the plurality of socio/political/spiritual/cultural/natural resources that they are able to wield. More specifically, I propose to concentrate on the process of identity negotiation1 among a group of young men who identify as Bush doctor or traditional healers. They ‘work herbs’, healing nations on a bustling four-way intersection in the heart of urban Cape Town. Juggling with boundaries and categorisations, these claimants2 of an Indigenous identity are also experiencing a powerful Rastafari belonging and draw from various additional heritages. They connect. After Naphtali’s recollection of his weekend, he, alongside Jo, Simon, and Gad, continued their daily life, working herbs, exchanging with passers-by, and sharing knowledge. Remi, who stood out through his clothing, skin tone, and eventual behaviour was standing among the four