Paradigms lost? paradigms regained
Working-class autobiography in South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4603852 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas Thale (Linda Vista University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 613-622 |
| Publication date | 1995-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057079508708469 |
| OpenAlex | W1969589853 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 8 |
This article will examine the continuities and variations in four autobiographies representing different epochs in the development of worker organisations in South Africa: Clements Kadalie's My Life and the ICU (1970), Naboth Mokgatle's The Autobiography of an Unknown South African (1971), Emma Mashinini's Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life (1989) and Alfred Qabula's Cruel Beyond Belief (1989).’ These four texts have received but scant attention from literary critics in South Africa. This paper is therefore an intervention to ‘retrieve’ these texts from the margins of discourses on South African literature. My argument will be that the autobiographers’ positions as activists constitute their primary narrative identity. The recreation of other identities, such as childhood, ethnicity, family and the construction of historical narratives, will be demonstrated to ensue from this primary preoccupation of the autobiographers; they negotiate their subject positions from what is reconcilable with their identities as trade unionists cum activists. The primary identity is itself also contingent on the writer's location at the moment of writing
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Biography · Ethnic group · Life writing · Literature · Narrative · Negotiation · Political science · Recreation · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · South African History and Culture
Black politics in South Africa since 1945
The Autobiography of an Unknown South African
The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa
On retaining and on recognising changes in the genre ‘autobiography’
Ten tips for terrific videotapes
Not quite history’
Autobiography and the 'power of writing
The Autobiography of an Unknown South African
| Citations per year | 0.14 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1997 - 2024 (28) |
| Highly cited | No |