scholarly journals Ubuntu and the body: A perspective from theological anthropology as embodied sensing

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob J.S. Meiring

The author asks whether the notion of ubuntu truly exists within contemporary South African society and how the experiencing of South Africans� embodiment can be connected to ubuntu � especially amongst black people. The notion of ubuntu is briefly explored within law and theology. The author has recently proposed a model for a contemporary theological anthropology as �embodied sensing� which functions within the intimate relationship of the lived body, experiencing in a concrete life-world, language, and the �more than�. It is from this perspective that the notion of ubuntu is explored.

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Wright

This paper sets out to formulate some of the economic reasons for the continuing dominance of English in the boardrooms, government forums, parastatals and laboratories of South Africa, to consider whether this situation is likely to change, and to assess the extent to which such a state of affairs is at odds with South Africa’s new language policy. The historical reasons for the dominance of English in this sphere are well known: the language’s imperial history, its status as a world language, its role as a medium for political opposition during the apartheid conflict, and the accumulation of capital and economic influence by English-speakers from the mid-nineteenth century onward. However, the day-to-day economic basis for the continuing dominance of English at the apex of South African society has hardly been considered.


Author(s):  
Vaughn Rajah

This article demonstrates that the Marikana tragedy was not a departure from the norm, but a continuation of state and corporate behaviour that has oppressed black South Africans for hundreds of years. This will be done through an analysis of the historically discriminatory socio-economic patterns of South African society, and how they subjugate the poor by limiting their access to legal and physical protection. These trends portray a history of commodification of the legal system. I discuss a notable documentary on the massacre, Miners Shot Down, and examine its depiction of the causes and effects of the events. The film provides no mention of the historical context of the killings, nor does it comment on many of the factors contributing to the massacre. Despite this, it succeeded in bringing the events to the attention of the broader public. I analyse the notions of justice, the rule of law and their application in South Africa as well as norms in the nation’s legal culture. Additionally, I examine the Farlam Commission, and how its procedures and conclusions hindered the course of justice in the context of our democracy. Ultimately, I demonstrate how the Marikana massacre was not a change in dynamic, but a reminder of a past we have never truly escaped.


2020 ◽  
Vol 189 ◽  
pp. 03031
Author(s):  
Xiangting Chen

-In this article he examines the social identity crisis of White South Africans in Nadine Gordimer’s “The Conservationist”. Gordimer describes the psychology, social deformities and human distortions of the repressed white people in post-colonial South Africa. At that time, white South Africans were tortured by colonial guilt and racial contradictions. While recognizing the culture of their European ancestors, they wanted to integrate into the black South African society. This paper analyzes the decline of South African white identity and the phenomenon of white exodus from the perspective of the protagonist’s thoughts and behaviors, and combines the political and social problems during those days.


Literator ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.H. Gagiano

Using three fairly recently published South African texts – David B. Coplan’s In the Time of Cannibals – The Word Music of South Africa’s Basotho Migrants (1994); A.H.M. Scholtz’s Vatmaar – ’n Lewendagge verhaal van ’n tyd wat nie meer is nie (1995) in its English translation, A Place Called Vatmaar (2000) and Mongane (Wally) Serote’s Come and Hope with Me (1994) – this essay looks at the role such texts can play to give public expression to the voices of formerly silenced communities. The essay contends that the deep fissures in South African society require intense efforts in order to make those isolated from one another mutually intelligible. All South Africans need to broaden their cultural vocabularies. This is where texts such as novels and those containing the oral art of neglected communities can function as ‘translations’, and have profound social importance. It can be predicted that rehistoricising writings and culturally recontextualising teaching practices will continue to be required in this country, but also texts that contain the vision of a shared South African future.


2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella D. Potgieter

Pastoral care is a biblical mandate to the Church to be involved in the lives of God’s people. A key metaphor used by Jesus to describe his pastoral role was that of a shepherd. Thus, to be God’s shepherds and instruments of healing and transformation in God’s world is an imperative to all people, clergy and laity alike. The brokenness in South African society is strikingly apparent, exacerbated by the effects of exceptionally high criminal behaviour as statistics show. The demand for pastoral care and assistance with various personal problems is on the increase, with many non-church goers turning to churches for help. Also apparent in South Africa is the acute shortage of trained individuals to offer care and counselling. The task of offering care is not the sole responsibility of clergy, as all are called to be shepherds and caregivers. The importance and urgency in training church-based counselling teams cannot be overstated. More so in that we are becoming increasingly aware that not only are individuals in need of care, but whole communities are struggling with trauma and life’s challenges, and often do not know whom to turn to. In pursuance of the realisation that pastoral care is the function and duty of all Christians, this article will delineate in particular an explanation of lay counselling, reasons for its importance including biblical foundations, where and how ordinary South Africans can get involved, and will propose certain models and approaches for getting started. These models will not be discussed in depth, but present an opportunity for the next. Teams for these models consist of professional counsellors, but ought not to be restricted to a select few, as all are called to this special ministry and can be trained for the task, which will include on-going supervision and mentoring. The overall purpose of this article is to highlight the urgency of training lay counsellors and some recommendations will be made how to apply it, in an attempt to be faithful to the biblical mandate and examples set by Jesus Christ.


2002 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scarlett Cornelissen ◽  
Steffen Horstmeier

In apartheid South African society, racial and ethnic identities were institutionally imposed. The end of apartheid has brought about the need for new identities to be created among South Africans, and for South Africans to forge a new relationship with their society and country. With this objective in mind, the national government is engaged in a process of nation-building. But in post-apartheid South African society, sub-national identities are also strongly coming to the fore. This is an empirical study of established and emerging identities in the Western Cape province, and the processes whereby these are constructed. The investigation shows two parallel flows of identity construction in the Western Cape: on the one hand, political leaders in the province attempt to foster an autonomous provincial identity; on the other, residents of the province show little evidence of strong political identities linked to the Western Cape. Instead, social identities are being constructed around residents’ local neighbourhoods and long-existing ethnic, class and racial identities. Rather than the social cohesion sought by the post-apartheid South African government, these identities point to persistent social polarisation.


Author(s):  
Malesela Edward Montle

Prior to the dispensation of democracy in South Africa, the country was presided by a system of apartheid that perpetuated colonial policies that discriminated against non-white (South) Africans. Nevertheless, the democratic jurisdiction dethroned and succeeded the apartheid regime in 1994. This galvanised South Africa to undergo a political transition from segregation (autocracy) to peace, equality and unity (democracy). The political emancipation engineered a shift of identity and also made a clarion call for South Africans to subscribe to a democratic identity branded by oneness and harmony. However, as South Africa sought to redress herself, it unearthed appalling remnants of the apartheid past. Twenty-seven years since democracy took reigns in South Africa, the country is still haunted by the horrors of the past. It is the apartheid government that has bred hegemonic delinquencies that encumber the South African society from extricating herself from discriminatory identities such as racial tension, division, inequality and socio-economic crises. This qualitative study sought to scrutinise the vestiges of apartheid in South Africa. It has hinged on the literary appreciation of Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow, which reflects on the menace that the enduring legacies of apartheid pose to livelihoods in the democratic period. Mpe’s post-apartheid novel is chosen for this study by virtue of its exposure and protest against apartheid influence in the newly reconstructed democratic South African society. Scholarly attention has been satisfactorily paid to the implementation of socio-economic transformation in the country, however, there seems to be an inadequate scholarship to explore the pretexts or the genesis of socio-economic transformation setbacks, which this study aims to unmask.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshepo Lephakga

This article examines colonial institutionalisation of poverty amongst colonised and conquered blacks in South Africa. Colonialism divided the world in two:  the centre, which is occupied by Europeans, and the periphery, which is occupied by non-Europeans. This division institutionalised poverty amongst the colonised to maintain the supremacist status of the coloniser and the colonial status of the colonised as non-beings. Colonial apartheid, following the colonial epistemological foundation(s) and justification(s) of the centre imposing itself on the periphery, strived to make black people go through social death, which became a necessity fed into the colonial thinking that those in the periphery are lesser beings. Social death was engineered and maintained through the impoverishment of black people. Poverty and colonial dependency syndrome were institutionalised following the systematic institutionalisation of the social creation of race. A number of scholars have noted that race is a social creation with real consequences. It is thus not surprising that the painful history of South Africa resulted in the impoverishment of the majority of the people in the country. Following its long historical institutionalisation, poverty resulted in poor black people internalising oppression and doubting their humanness. This paper contends that colonial apartheid is the cause of a vast inequality in the South African society, including social institutionalised poverty among the blacks in South Africa.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Sofle de Smet ◽  
Marieke Breyne

On the 16th of August 2012 34 Lonmin miners lost their lives at Marikana in South Africa. Marikana bears witness to the socio-economic inequality and precarious work and living conditions in South Africa’s new globalized state. Two site-specific contemporary performances Mari and Kana (2015) and lqhiya Emnyama (The black cloth, 2015) voice this sad event in a remarkable way. In this article we critically reflect on the performances’ avenues of creating transformative encounters between performers, spectators and the performance sites in South African society. Both performances invoke for the audience members a remarkable awareness of the performance site as the spectator is obliged to navigate him- or herself in a politically induced public landscape in Cape Town’s Company Garden. We concur that Mari and Kana and Iqhiya Emnyama both elicit a profound reflection on the daily life struggle of mourning women against inhumanity and socioeconomic inequality in a neoliberal South Africa. Unsettling the dominant focus on resilient subjects, the omnipresence of women’s vulnerability in the two performances nurtures a rethinking process on structural justice. In doing so, we more closely analyse the performances’ intention to subvert the constructed category of ‘the mourning South African woman’ via multiple representations of mourning precedents as cultural elements. We conclude that both performances entail unique driving forces that question existing power systems that impact on SA and the problematic structural injustice at the heart of the massacre.


Author(s):  
Mpedi Madue

South Africa plays a crucial role in the development of the African continent, especially in the South African Development Community. Hence, South Africa’s foreign and migration policies shape the perceptions of both its citizens and those of neighbouring states. Since 1994, South Africa has continued to attract the highest number of migrants in the region. The widespread perceptions among South Africans that there are “floods” of illegal immigrants, stealing their jobs and depleting social and economic resources, is a course for concern. Undoubtedly, the South African society is under pressure to effectively respond to the sporadic eruptions of xenophobic attacks on African foreign nationals. This article argues that the missteps of South Africa’s foreign and migration policies partially contribute towards fuelling xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals. The findings of this article suggest that South Africa is not as committed to rooting out xenophobia as it would have us believe.


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