Ideological Contestation and Disciplinary Associations: an autoethnographic analysis

Abstract: An autoethnographic and self-reflexive theorised analysis of aspects of the South African Communication Association reveals that its internal tensions mimicked wider contradictions both during and after apartheid. The historical role played by the Association is critically examined in relation to issues of governance and naming, and with regard to its shaping of the South African scholarly community as it negotiated different paradigms, different constituencies and different historical-political- economic contexts. The analysis is embedded in a critique of neoliberalism and how this condition has impacted management procedures of the Association

Rethinking the researcher-researched relationship : research participants as prodsumers

Abstract: This article critically examines the conventional researcher-researched relationship that empowers the researcher over the researched. The orthodoxy of objectivity – claimed to locate the researchers as neutral observer ‒ is here argued to be a power relation that has an excluding effect where subject communities are concerned. By means of an archaeological case study that included mapping and interpretation of ancient rock engravings we offer a new way of negotiating interpretations. This new way involved four members from a Bushman community who helped us navigate spiritual, ontological and environmental dimensions in making sense of rock art

Assessing beneficiary communities’ participation in HIV/AIDS communication through community radio: X-K FM as a case study

Abstract: This article reports on a study conducted on a ‘beneficiary’ community’s participation in HIV/AIDS communication through a community radio station. The aim was to understand the community’s presence and access to dialogue on HIV/AIDS, as practiced by their community radio station. The research underpinning the article focused on a community radio station based in Platfontein, Kimberley, in South Africa. X-K FM is a community radio station and its primary target audience is !Xun and Khwe people. The station is the only formal communication channel that targets these communities in their respective mother tongues. The researchers attempted to understand civil voices’ participation in and access to the strategies of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support and treatment. The article is underpinned by Jürgen Habermas’s theory of structural transformation of the public sphere. Research data was gathered using semi-structured interviews. The article concludes that the radio station has provided some avenues to facilitate the process of ‘beneficiary’ community participation in HIV/AIDS communication

Public self‐expression : decolonising researcher‐researched relationships

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstrac

Simulacral, genealogical, auratic and representational failure: Bushman authenticity as methodological collapse

This article engages with the concept of authenticity as deployed in anthropology. The first section critiques authenticity as a simple reference to cultural purity, a traditional isomorphism or historical verisimilitude or as an ‘ethnographic authenticity’. Demarcation of authenticity must take into account philosophical literature that argues that authenticity is an existential question of the ‘modern’ era. Thus, authenticity is offered to us as individuals as a remedy for the maladies of modernity: alienation, anomie and alterity. Authenticity is then discussed as a question of value within an economy of cultural politics that often draws on simulacra, creating cultural relics of dubious origin. The final section discusses various methodological failures and problematiques that are highlighted by the concern for, and scrutiny of, authenticity. The first is the simulacral failure. The subjects of anthropology are mostly real flesh-and-blood people-on-the-ground with real needs. In contrast is the simulacral subject, the brand, the tourist image, the media image or the ever-familiar hyper-real bushmen. Lastly, the article considers what Spivak calls ‘withholding’ – a resistance to authentic representation by the Other. Resistance suggests a need for a radically altered engagement with the Other that includes both a deepening, and an awareness, of anthropology as a process of common ontological unfolding

Intercultural communication. A Southern view on the way head: culture, terrorism and spirituality

Abstract

Cultural tourism and identity: rethinking indigeneity

Studies of cultural tourism and indigenous identity are fraught with questions concerning exploitation, entitlement, ownership and authenticity. Unease with the idea of leveraging a group identity for commercial gain is ever-present. This anthology articulates some of these debates from a multitude of standpoints. It assimilates the perspectives of members of indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, tourism practitioners and academic researchers who participated in an action research project that aims to link research to development outcomes. The book's authors weave together discordant voices to create a dialogue of sorts, an endeavour to reconcile the divergent needs of the stakeholders in a way that is mutually beneficial. Although this book focuses on the ?Khomani Bushmen and the Zulu communities of Southern Africa, the issues raised are ubiquitous to the cultural tourism industry anywhere.</p

Cultural tourism and identity: rethinking indigeneity

Studies of cultural tourism and indigenous identity are fraught with questions concerning exploitation, entitlement, ownership and authenticity. Unease with the idea of leveraging a group identity for commercial gain is ever-present. This anthology articulates some of these debates from a multitude of standpoints. It assimilates the perspectives of members of indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, tourism practitioners and academic researchers who participated in an action research project that aims to link research to development outcomes. The book's authors weave together discordant voices to create a dialogue of sorts, an endeavour to reconcile the divergent needs of the stakeholders in a way that is mutually beneficial. Although this book focuses on the ?Khomani Bushmen and the Zulu communities of Southern Africa, the issues raised are ubiquitous to the cultural tourism industry anywhere.ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Weerstand teen teksgebonde navorsing: ’n bydrae tot ’n omgekeerde benadering tot kultuurstudie

Resisting text-bound research: Towards a reversed approach to cultural studies In this article an argument is developed for a reversed approach of cultural studies in discussing problems regarding fieldwork, academic access and accountability. We also argue for an empirical space in cultural studies, for a greater acknowledgement of fieldwork done by Third-World scholars vis-á-vis seminal theory development in the Western world. The article discusses relationships between observers and the observed in terms of dependency, inclusions/exclusions, and borders and othering. We reflexively analyse tensions and contradictions set in motion by the writing of articles on observer-observed relationships within both the San communities themselves and among researchers and development and other agencies working in one of these areas. Issues addressed relate to the ownership of information, the relationship between the local/particular and the national/general policy, and on how to ensure informal discussions around the campfire as well as involvement of, and general access to the written product by a-literate and non-English-speaking communities. Methodologically this article builds on two earlier studies, based on six years of fieldwork research in the Kalahari among three San communities in Namibia, Botswana and the Northern Cape

Film and trauma: Africa speaks to itself through truth and reconciliation films

Films made by Africans on wars, gender oppression, slavery, and trauma project not only confrontations between individual filmmakers and their subjects, but they also reveal the confrontations between individuals and groups and the collective structures which shape, control, and direct their lives. How these collective structures become a story as foreground is an important aspect of the cinematic signification process. The resulting films place and role in trauma mediation cannot be taken lightly nor can it be generalized. Following Ann Kaplan and Ban Wangâs book Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations (2004, p. 9), we observe regional films roles as cure, shock treatment, very minimally as voyeurism, and of course as witnessing. These films become facilitating agents for the mobilization of a non-conventional resources such as social awareness, solidarity, dedication, commitment, a to serve a historical sense of duty. This paper will examine the relations between the individual, his/her community, and society in general. A cognate concern is with how African films reveal formal signs conditioned by structures of social organization, cultural affinity, and immediate conditions of interaction. We also consider cinemas relationship to historical referents and memory while figuring out the specific modes of address, all of which contribute to the growing cinematic expressions in Africa