More than any other people, the Bushmen - like the Aborigines on the Australian continent - have epitomized the sub-human other in South African historiography. My primary concern in this study will be to interrogate the representations that gave rise to such entrenched notions of Bushman alterity, and the consequences these have had for Bushman lives. Through an assessment of the writings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travellers, missionaries, settlers, colonial officials and scholars, I shall examine understandings of ‘otherness’ and ‘difference’, and the ways in which alterity discourse opened up a space for the ensuing colonial policies of genocide and subjugation against the Bushmen. By allowing the Bushman ‘voices’ to talk back - through an exploration of verbal and visual forms of Bushman creative expression - I hope to present a more balanced sense of Bushman ‘identity’, and expose the fundamental intolerance of difference that lies at the heart of alterity discourse. I shall conclude the thesis with a problematization of contemporary trends of representation, an examination of how these often inadvertently continue the process of othering, and a consideration of their repercussions for present-day Bushman lives. Aside from the obvious relevance of such a study to an understanding of both the destructive events and representations of history, and the current traumatic circumstances of Bushman lives, the questions that this thesis raises can be seen to have more far-reaching implications. In a country such as South Africa, with its long history of segregation and discrimination, issues of otherness and difference take on a particularly compelling resonance. It seems crucial - especially at this point in our national progress - to interrogate our historical attitudes towards otherness, and posit more constructive ways of approaching difference, that allow others their distinct identity, without either demonizing or collapsing such difference; or, to phrase it in Homi Bhabha’s question: “How can the human world live its difference? how [sic] can a human being live Other-wise?” (1994:122). / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

Proceeding from the premise that the meaning of performances flows from contextual, textual, and nonverbal elements, this dissertation explores layers of meaning arising from performances of selected South African struggle songs, poems and plays. In particular, it focuses on performances of the Mayibuye Cultural Group which functioned as an adaptive mechanism in the changing sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s, and on contemporary performances. The analysis of the songs, poems and play underscores the importance of nonverbal elements for the interpretation of performances, and proposes that performances functioned as debate and as a discursive presence in the public sphere. In particular, the performances glorified a masculine conception of the struggle and of South African society which highlighted the fragile gender politics in South Africa, and functioned as a vibrant mechanism for the expression of sanctioned criticism especially for the marginalised and for those at the fringes of power. / Anthropology / M.A. (Anthropology)

Proceeding from the premise that the meaning of performances flows from contextual, textual, and nonverbal elements, this dissertation explores layers of meaning arising from performances of selected South African struggle songs, poems and plays. In particular, it focuses on performances of the Mayibuye Cultural Group which functioned as an adaptive mechanism in the changing sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s, and on contemporary performances. The analysis of the songs, poems and play underscores the importance of nonverbal elements for the interpretation of performances, and proposes that performances functioned as debate and as a discursive presence in the public sphere. In particular, the performances glorified a masculine conception of the struggle and of South African society which highlighted the fragile gender politics in South Africa, and functioned as a vibrant mechanism for the expression of sanctioned criticism especially for the marginalised and for those at the fringes of power. / Anthropology / M.A. (Anthropology)