The Long Conversation' the Enduring Salience of Nineteenth-Century Missionary/Colonial Encounters in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3597796 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zolani Ngwane (0009-0000-4275-0481, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 65-75 |
| Publication date | 2001-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Interventions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13698010020027029 |
| OpenAlex | W1979967608 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 10 |
This essay argues that the work of Jean and John Comaroff on the early nineteenth-century missionary encounters in southern Africa, particularly their notion of 'long conversation,' remains very relevant to post-apartheid issues in South Africa. To this effect I offer a reading of three ethnographic snapshots from my fieldwork at the University of Fort Hare, to show that post-apartheid conversations over the transformation of social institutions continue to draw their symbols from the nineteenth-century models studied by the Comaroffs. The essay also raises questions that the new context of late twentieth-century South Africa imposes on the analytical scheme of the Comaroffs, ending with implications of using their concept of conversation in the present. Keywords: Jean JohnComaroffLongConversation MemoryPost-APARTHEIDSouth AfricaRitualSouth AfricanUniversitiesUniversityFort Hare
Archaeology · Colonialism · Conversation · Ethnography · Political science · Sociology · African cultural and philosophical studies · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Psychology · South African History and Culture
Ethnography and the Historical Imagination
Writing from History
Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance
For and Against the Comaroffs
The Dog, the Rabbit and the Reluctant Historians
Of Muffled Southern Tswana and Overwhelming Missionaries
South Africa and the Pitfalls of Postmodernism
Postcolonial Politics and Discourses of Democracy in Southern Africa
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2016 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |