tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/khoisan-24304/articles
KhoiSan – The Conversation
2024-02-12T14:14:08Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221767
2024-02-12T14:14:08Z
2024-02-12T14:14:08Z
The San people of southern Africa: where ethics codes for researching indigenous people could fail them
<p>There is a long and often complicated history of researchers studying Indigenous people. In 1999, the education scholar Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, in her book <a href="https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Decolonizing_Methodologies/Nad7afStdr8C?hl=en&gbpv=0">Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples</a>, emphasised the colonial character of much research. She warned that it</p>
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<p>brings with it a new wave of exploration, discovery, exploitation and appropriation.</p>
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<p>Well into the <a href="https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Anthropology_and_the_Bushman/bUUHEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0;%20https://www.google.nl/books/edition/The_Bushman_Myth/BPZKDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0;%20https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Ethnologists_in_Camouflage/qGhezwEACAAJ?hl=nl">20th century</a>, researchers depicted groups like the Indigenous San of southern Africa in a racist fashion, fixating on their physical characteristics and writing of their “savage” or “primitive” state. </p>
<p>Historically, many researchers did not care about their study participants’ consent or agency, or how they could benefit from the research, for instance through improving their position in society. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-im-righting-the-wrongs-of-my-early-research-and-sharing-my-scientific-data-with-local-communities-191713">Why I'm righting the wrongs of my early research and sharing my scientific data with local communities </a>
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<p>This has gradually shifted over the past 50 years. Global organisations such as the Ethical Research Partnership <a href="https://trust-project.eu/">TRUST</a>, the <a href="https://americananthro.org/about/policies/statement-on-ethics/">American Anthropological Association</a> and most, if not all, credible academic institutions, have created ethical rules and guidelines to protect vulnerable populations from exploitation and promote their role in research.</p>
<p>But, as I and a group of fellow ethnographers, together with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/San">San people</a> from all over southern Africa, show in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02101-0">a recent paper</a>, such ethical guidelines have flaws. </p>
<p>Today there are <a href="https://peabody.harvard.edu/video-traces-and-tracks-journeys-san#:%7E:text=But%20just%20to%20give%20you,%2C%20Botswana%2C%20and%20South%20Africa.">about 130,000 San people</a> in Angola, Botswana, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6096/">Namibia</a>, South Africa and Zimbabwe. They were historically nomadic hunter gatherers; in the past century or so their lives have become more settled, based on agriculture and wage labour.</p>
<p>The pitfalls we identified in the guidelines manifest mainly in three ways: by oppressing vulnerable groups; by being ambiguous about potential benefits to the participants; and by being difficult to follow in practice.</p>
<h2>Three issues</h2>
<p>There are several reasons why ethical conduct in scientific research is so important. Ethical rules are there to prevent what’s known as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01423-6">“ethics dumping”</a>, in which unethical research practices are used in lower-income countries that would not normally be allowed elsewhere. They also guard against <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01423-6">“helicopter research”</a>, when scientists from high-income countries conduct their research without involving local scientists or communities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-ubuntu-can-deepen-how-research-is-done-190076">African ubuntu can deepen how research is done</a>
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<p>In 2017 a <a href="https://trust-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/San-Code-of-RESEARCH-Ethics-Booklet-final.pdf">code of conduct</a> was created by academics and San leaders working with and for the South African San Institute, the South African San Council and TRUST. The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02101-0">paper</a> discussed in this article, as well as <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hgr.2023.4">one other</a>, analysed problems with this code and similar instruments, and individual contracts unique to a particular piece of research.</p>
<p>These were:</p>
<p><strong>1. Oppression of opinions:</strong> Authorities (often NGOs) sometimes want to push their agenda by keeping unwelcome ideas out of the research. In South Africa, a colleague of mine encountered dubious gatekeepers who claimed to represent the community she hoped to study and who wanted to dictate whom she could interview.</p>
<p>An instrument intended to promote ethical research was used to exclude particular people, or their ideas. </p>
<p><strong>2. An over-emphasis on immediate benefits:</strong> Most codes of conduct and contracts include a clause that research must be “beneficial”. This ignores the essence of what most scientific research is: fundamental and not applied. Fundamental knowledge is not immediately practical but it is crucial to make research potentially beneficial. </p>
<p>I have worked on <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3197/np.2019.230104">research</a> about a land claim by the San in northern Namibia. Knowledge similar to the sort reflected in my research <a href="https://doi.org/10.3366/ajicl.2020.0339">has helped San groups</a> in other parts of southern Africa <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BieseleJu/1000">regain or retain land</a>. Will my research do the same? I have no idea, because that takes time – the research doesn’t instantly benefit the participants.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-steps-every-researcher-should-take-to-ensure-participants-are-not-harmed-and-are-fully-heard-191430">Five steps every researcher should take to ensure participants are not harmed and are fully heard</a>
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<p>A focus on benefits also ignores different interests and perceptions within communities. A benefit for some may be detrimental to others. For instance, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280233612_Local_impacts_of_community-based_tourism_in_southern_Africa">research</a> can support wildlife management and the creation of tourism jobs for some. But these activities may constrain other livelihoods in the same community. In a <a href="https://journals.lww.com/coas/fulltext/2017/15020/ju__hoansi_lodging_in_a_namibian_conservancy_.2.aspx">Namibian case study</a>, some San complained about restrictions on hunting, small-scale farming, or keeping livestock. </p>
<p><strong>3. Practical limitations:</strong> In southern Africa it is often unclear in advance whom you need to contact to discuss and sign something, and what the legal status of codes and contracts is. In our experiences, e-mails often go unanswered. Many local San do not even know – or, in some cases, care – that these instruments exist. For most, researchers’ needs and aims are not a priority in their ordinary lives. </p>
<p>In such cases research codes and contracts mainly legitimise the researchers’ and gatekeepers’ role in research, but not necessarily that of the people being studied. </p>
<p>This is not an exhaustive list of potential issues. Others include the imposition of a red tape culture, illiteracy among participants and a lack of clear consequences if researchers behave unethically even after signing a contract.</p>
<h2>Paper is no panacea</h2>
<p>We are not opposed to instruments that can empower research participants, but they are not a panacea. Researchers need to scrutinise such codes’ inherent and complex challenges. They also need to put collaboration at the heart of their work.</p>
<p>Examples of such scrutiny and collaboration already exist. Some San groups, such as the <a href="https://anadjeh.wordpress.com/">||Ana-Djeh San Trust</a>, have created initiatives to increase their participation in research, including community training to raise awareness about research. In such cases they like to collaborate with researchers they trust, normally because they have been in contact with them for many years already. Such trust is at the heart of good collaborations and is, we would argue, much more important than paper agreements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stasja Koot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There are several reasons why ethical conduct in scientific research is so important.
Stasja Koot, Assistant Professor, Wageningen University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207551
2023-07-13T15:25:19Z
2023-07-13T15:25:19Z
San and Khoe skeletons: how a South African university sought to restore dignity and redress the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536517/original/file-20230710-23-mw77lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C144%2C2326%2C2008&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A facial reconstruction of one of the Sutherland Nine, a woman named Saartje.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reconstruction by Dr Kathryn Smith/Professor Caroline Wilkinson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been nearly 100 years since the skeletonised remains of nine people were removed from their graves on a farm near the town of Sutherland in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. They were donated to the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) anatomy department by Carel Gert Coetzee, who had unearthed them and was a medical student at the university.</p>
<p>The remains belonged to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan">San and Khoekhoe people</a>, two groups indigenous to South Africa. Their families were not consulted about the removal and donation. </p>
<p>This, sadly, was not unusual for the time. Anatomy departments and museums around the world <a href="http://www.northern-cape.gov.za/index.php/component/content/article?id=769:reburial-of-mr-and-mrs-klaas-and-trooi-pienaar">collected</a> human skeletal remains during the colonial era and into the first half of the 20th century. They were displayed in museums or studied for scientific purposes, often with <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-and-race-in-south-africa-lessons-from-old-bones-in-boxes-179774">a racial lens</a> depicting indigenous people as primitive and inferior. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-and-race-in-south-africa-lessons-from-old-bones-in-boxes-179774">Science and race in South Africa: lessons from 'old bones in boxes'</a>
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<p>I am an associate professor in what is today the Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology. In 2017, after encouragement by other museums and universities in South Africa, I completed an archival record review with the aim to identify remains that had been unethically obtained. That was when I came across the Sutherland collection; and immediately realised that, as UCT, we had a moral and ethical duty to return them to their community. </p>
<p>A public participation advisor Doreen Februarie was appointed to approach the community. Myself and UCT’s senior leadership represented by DVC Professor Loretta Feris thought they would merely request the return of the remains for reburial. They did – but first, the descendent families asked the university to study the remains with a view to learning more about their ancestors’ lives. </p>
<p>We recently <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284785">presented</a> those research results in a single, large, multi-authored publication. </p>
<p>We traced historical records, conducted archaeological field work, analysed the physical remains and conducted biomolecular analyses. Facial reconstructions were completed for eight of the nine people – now known as the Sutherland Nine. </p>
<p>The Sutherland example may set a global precedent for a process of restitution and restorative justice in combination with community-driven science. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197607695.013.29?">My hope</a> is that more curators and custodians of human skeletal remains elsewhere in the world will attempt to redress some of the wrongs of the past.</p>
<h2>Beginning the process</h2>
<p>To ensure that we reached the right people in Sutherland, a public participation advisor was chosen to lead a process with the community. By then, I had studied the archival records related to the donation; these revealed names and two surnames. The community elected those carrying the same surnames as their representatives.</p>
<p>People were shocked and dismayed at the situation. But they also wanted to know who the nine had been and how their remains came to be at the university. </p>
<p>Our answers were limited. When I realised in 2017 that they had been unethically obtained, the department placed a moratorium on studying them. The community requested that this be lifted: they wanted the remains studied to understand the people and the situation. Once this was done they wanted the remains returned so the nine could be reburied properly. </p>
<p>As our research unfolded, we decided to present the results in a single publication. The more common approach would have been to publish several individual papers, focusing on the science. We decided instead to tell the story of the Nine with science as the background. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scholars-have-created-global-guidelines-for-ancient-dna-research-169284">Why scholars have created global guidelines for ancient DNA research</a>
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<p>We obtained informed consent from the community at every step of the process. The family members wrote in their own words what research they wanted and why, along with their restrictions on data use. For instance, they didn’t want any photos of the actual bones to be published – only digital renderings could be used. They also asked that the DNA sequences obtained from each of the Nine be kept private after scientific verification through peer review. And if anyone wants to conduct future research they must approach the families to begin a new process. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536520/original/file-20230710-21-2lt3b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Members of the descendent community viewing the facial reconstructions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je’nine May</span></span>
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<p>The families of the nine were also asked whether they wanted to be listed as authors in the eventual publications. Collectively, they chose formal acknowledgement in lieu of authorship. </p>
<h2>Hard lives</h2>
<p>It is impossible to summarise all our research findings here. Overall, though, we found that life was physically hard and violent for the Sutherland Nine. One died as recently as 1913; the remaining seven died in the 1870s or 1880s. </p>
<p>When the late professor of anatomy MR Drennan took delivery of the remains in the 1920s, he also noted what little the donor knew about the people’s lives. Most adults were identified by first names (Cornelius, Klaas, Saartje, Jannetje, Voetje, Totje). For two, surnames were also specified – Cornelius Abraham and Klaas Stuurman. </p>
<p>The descendent families have collaborated with the National San Council to rename the unnamed individuals.</p>
<p>The younger boy child (four to six years of age) has been named G!ae, from the N/uu language; it translates to “springbok” – an animal symbolising the San’s pride in their culture and future prosperity. The older girl child (six to eight years of age) has been named Saa, which translates to “eland”, a sacred and spiritual animal in San culture. </p>
<p>The ninth individual did not live at the same time as the others. He was an unnamed adult said by the donor to have been buried 40 years earlier near Sutherland, although the precise burial location was unrecorded. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284785">We used</a> radiocarbon dating to show that he actually died about 700 years ago.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that this individual was directly related to the other eight, but his remains came to the institution from the same donor. He has been named Igue We, meaning “blessing”, to symbolise acceptance and blessing by San ancestors for his reburial. </p>
<h2>Painful legacy</h2>
<p>The principal message of this collaborative approach is how community-driven research can benefit processes of restitution when grappling with painful legacy collections. </p>
<p>The reburial of the remains in Sutherland is likely to take place later this year, though no date has yet been set.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Gibbon receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa and for this research also from National Geographic.</span></em></p>
Hopefully more curators and custodians of repositories of human skeletal remains will attempt to redress some of the wrongs of the past.
Victoria Gibbon, Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology, Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200937
2023-03-23T09:46:45Z
2023-03-23T09:46:45Z
Bowscapes review: album celebrates new traditions in South Africa’s ancient bow music
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514190/original/file-20230308-26-zg13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late musician Madosini playing the umrhube mouthbow.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/new-practices-reinvent-traditions-in-bow-music-56095">Musical bows</a> are among the oldest instruments in southern Africa. Musicologists think the “ping” a bowstring makes when an arrow is released <a href="https://oxfordre.com/anthropology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.001.0001/acrefore-9780190854584-e-561;jsessionid=89EDD8E587584910643F9A48478BD544?rskey=PoaaPK&result=101">inspired early hunters</a> (as far back as the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan">Khoi and San</a> nations) to use it for music-making in ritual and, later, other contexts.</p>
<p>The passing, in 2022, of South Africa’s bow virtuoso <a href="https://theconversation.com/madosini-a-south-african-national-treasure-whose-music-kept-a-rich-history-alive-197736">Latozi “Madosini” Mpahleni</a> reminded South Africans of traditional bow music’s significance in the region’s intangible cultural heritage.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An album cover with the words " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514185/original/file-20230308-20-3e9k33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Africa Open</span></span>
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<p>When you pluck, strike or stroke the string of a musical bow, you get not only one note but extra sounds (called overtones), created by the air vibrating around it. Using various techniques – such as adding a gourd resonator, or placing the end of the bow in their mouths – bow players can amplify and manipulate those sounds to shape complex music. </p>
<p>The work of veteran and younger bow musicians, scholars and audiences all keep these traditions alive and stimulate new repertoire. But the fascination bow music holds for the international New Music community (modern, innovative concert composers), and the options for using electronic composing techniques with bow sounds, have been less documented. </p>
<p>Now a new compilation CD, Bow Project 2: Bowscapes, brings that impact to the fore. Released by the <a href="https://aoinstitute.ac.za">Africa Open Institute</a> for Music Innovation and Research at Stellenbosch University, its 21 newly-composed electronic tracks illustrate how heritage and innovation can interact in “traditional” music. And how composers, whether inside or outside its communities of origin, should treat it. </p>
<h2>Tribute to Jürgen Bräuninger</h2>
<p>Bowscapes is a tribute to the late German-born, South African-based composer and music professor <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/south-african-musical-composer-professor-juergen-braeuninger-dies-22832424">Jürgen Bräuninger</a>, who died in 2019. Bräuninger advocated innovation in composing and playing. When I interviewed some of the composers who had contributed tracks to the album for this review, it became clear how influential working with him had been.</p>
<p>South African composer <a href="https://www.njabulophungula.com">Njabulo Phungula</a>, a former student of Bräuninger, recalls:</p>
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<p>Jürgen would encourage me to be more ‘curious’ in my musical explorations … much of my recent music has to do with creating seemingly incompatible musical ideas and contexts in which they make sense, appealing to that curiosity.</p>
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<p>A longtime collaborator, Netherlands-based <a href="https://luchoutkamp.nl">Luc Houtcamp</a>, with musician and bow scholar <a href="https://soa.ukzn.ac.za/staff-profile/music/sazi-dlamini/">Sazi Dlamini</a> and poet <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/prof-ari-sitas">Ari Sitas</a>, created their work because, says Sitas, “We owed it to Jürgen.”</p>
<p>South African composer <a href="http://www.michaelblake.co.za/biography">Michael Blake</a>, professor at Africa Open, co-ordinated the album as well as contributing a track. He had helmed the first <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2989/18121004.2016.1267950">Bow Project</a> album in 2010, a collection of mostly string quartet works honouring the musicianship of traditional bow master the late <a href="https://iamtranscriptions.org/performers/mrs-nofinishi-dywili/">NoFinishi Dywili</a>. To that, Bräuninger contributed the only electronic soundscape, Tsiki’s Got a Headache, which opens this new recording. Blake told me that after Bräuninger’s death he was looking for a way to honour him: </p>
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<p>I thought back to that ‘bowscape’, as he called it, and started imagining a whole CD … of new ones.</p>
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<p>Blake contacted composers across the world, sending South African bow samples on request. In the end, he had 21 short electronic pieces, half from South Africa and half from places as diverse as Mozambique, Nigeria, Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, the Faroe Islands and more. </p>
<h2>Bow music and struggle music</h2>
<p>On the CD, those two groups of composers sit on either side of an extended centrepiece: Walking Song by Dlamini, Houtcamp and Sitas. Its lyrics are based on verses from <a href="https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/anti-apartheid-struggle-south-africa-1912-1992/">struggle era</a> trade unionist and poet <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/alfred-temba-qabula">Alfred Temba Qabula</a>. </p>
<p>Walking Song pays homage to two traditions: bow music and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-struggle-songs-against-apartheid-come-from-a-long-tradition-of-resistance-192425">struggle music</a>. Diverse musicians, including accomplished bow players, used music as part of their activism against apartheid, as individuals or in trade union and political party choirs and theatre groups.</p>
<p>Sitas explains that the three were determined that:</p>
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<p>We were not going to use the bow as a decoration or quotation – we were going to compose with it.</p>
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<p>He sought permission from Qabula’s daughter to add contemporary allusions to the poem.</p>
<h2>Composing with bow</h2>
<p>Those processes indicate what went into making the album. Contributors acknowledged bow music as a legitimate compositional language, not an exotic ornament to be <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/12471/chapter-abstract/162875150?redirectedFrom=fulltext">appropriated</a>. Conversations about who “owns” and has the right to work with traditional music have been an important part of the decolonisation debate. South African composer, performer and scholar <a href="https://www.neosong.net">Neo Muyanga</a>, who made the track uNontoUzavunywa, reflects that borrowing is unavoidable, because cultural workers have always drawn from older music to convey new and sometimes subversive messages. But “it’s important to announce our sources and pay homage to them in every way possible.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/348757103" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Bow Project.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Muyanga’s work flips the gender message of a song from another bow maestro, <a href="https://herri.org.za/1/michael-blake/">Mantombi Matotiyana</a>. He says that when she first came across that song, “all power and ownership were invariably presumed to vest in the man”.</p>
<p>Phungula’s track Montage layers and contrasts the isolation of studio electronic composing with “an element that contained a multitude of sounds” – a family wedding recording he had made some years earlier. It invokes the spirit of community music-making in which bow traditions are rooted. </p>
<p>In many such communities, women (such as Madosini, Dyiwili and Matotiyana) remain the leading composers and performers. Three women composers feature on the album: London-born <a href="https://www.galinajuritz.com">Galina Juritz</a>, <a href="https://www.christinaoorebeek.com">Christina Oorebeek</a> from the US and South African <a href="http://www.carastacey.com">Cara Stacey</a>. </p>
<h2>Experimentation</h2>
<p>Stacey, herself a bow player, here applies guitar effects to the instrument: “Bows were earlier; guitars came in and replaced them. I liked the idea of flipping that and replacing the guitar … with bows.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-practices-reinvent-traditions-in-bow-music-56095">New practices reinvent traditions in bow music</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But her cyclical track, Rounds, also interrogates the stereotype that “tradition” and its exponents are “static or fixed in any way. My experience from my research in Eswatini and with different bow players is that they’re keen to experiment. They already do experiment – and did in the past.”</p>
<p>Blake relishes the album’s diversity of approaches, languages and sounds. In the community of music-makers he’s drawn together, Bowscapes reflects both the community roots of bow music and the collaborative processes Bräuninger fostered. </p>
<p><em>The CD is available from <a href="https://aoinstitute.ac.za">Africa Open</a> and will soon be available as a download</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Composers are keeping bow music alive through electronic music and other experiments.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199192
2023-02-09T13:57:47Z
2023-02-09T13:57:47Z
500-year-old horn container discovered in South Africa sheds light on pre-colonial Khoisan medicines
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508067/original/file-20230203-4002-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both the Khoi and the San believed in a mythical animal, resembling a cow, whose horns were thought to have medicinal attributes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodger Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2020, a chance discovery near the small South African hamlet of Misgund in the Eastern Cape unearthed an unusual parcel – a gift to science. The parcel turned out to be a 500-year-old cow horn, capped with a leather lid and carefully wrapped in grass and the leafy scales of a <a href="https://pza.sanbi.org/boophone-disticha">Bushman poison bulb</a> (<em>Boophane disticha</em>). Inside the horn were the solidified remnants of a once-liquid substance.</p>
<p>Thanks to chemical analyses, we now know that the horn was a medicine container. It is the earliest known object of its kind from anywhere in southern Africa and offers the first insights into pre-colonial medicines in this part of the world.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I conducted <a href="https://sajs.co.za/article/view/13011">chemical analyses of the contents</a>. We identified several secondary plant metabolites, the most abundant of which were mono-methyl inositol and lupeol. Both of these compounds, and indeed all of those identified, have known medicinal properties.</p>
<p>This remarkable find is the oldest example in southern Africa, of which we are aware, of two or more plant ingredients being purposefully combined into a container to form a medicinal recipe. Several museums in South Africa house examples of medicine horns collected during the 19th and 20th centuries – but none has ever been found in an archaeological context. </p>
<h2>Various plant uses</h2>
<p>The medicine container was found in a painted rock shelter. A radio carbon date of the horn container places the parcel at around AD 1461-1630. Although the rock shelter contains several San paintings, we do not know if they are the same age as the horn container. At this time the area was occupied by both San hunter-gatherers and Khoi pastoralists; both believed in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3889185?origin=crossref">mythical animal</a>, resembling a domestic cow, whose horns were considered to have medicinal attributes. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508065/original/file-20230203-26-7qjkit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The site location.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Earth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People have exploited the pharmacological properties of plants for at least the last 200,000 years. The descendants of these communities still live in Southern Africa today. During the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Mesolithic">Middle Stone Age</a> (which started about 300,000 years ago and ended between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago), people burnt certain aromatic leaves to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc7239">fumigate their sleeping areas</a>. Plant extracts also seem to have been the main component of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312005511?via%3Dihub">glues and adhesives</a> and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1204213109">hunting poisons</a> around this time.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-closer-to-learning-when-humans-first-daubed-arrows-with-poison-75566">We're closer to learning when humans first daubed arrows with poison</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But not much is known about traditional medicines from the pre-colonial era of southern Africa. What information there is derives mainly from early traveller accounts and modern ethnographic studies. The horn offered us a chance to learn a little more about traditional knowledge of medicine and pharmacology during this early period. </p>
<p>The descendants of these communities still live in southern Africa today.</p>
<h2>Medical and spiritual applications</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=153&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508334/original/file-20230206-15-urxszt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The contents of the parcel were slowly revealed as it was unwrapped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodger Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The main compounds present in the container, mono-methyl inositol and lupeol, are still found today in a variety of known medicinal plants in the Eastern Cape. They have a wide range of recorded medicinal applications, including the control of blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and treatment of fevers, inflammation and urinary tract infections. They can also be applied topically to treat infections – rubbing ointment into cuts in the skin is one of the ways the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abs/medicine-dance-of-the-kung-bushmen1/E4066082D71D58305B0725A4297F4F4D">San</a> are known to have administered certain medicines.</p>
<p>Both mono-methyl inositol and lupeol are pharmacologically safe compounds. This means that they can be ingested without the risk of overdose. Both compounds stimulate the production of dopamine in the brain; mono-methyl inositol is used to <a href="https://journals.lww.com/psychopharmacology/Abstract/2001/06000/Double_Blind,_Controlled,_Crossover_Trial_of.14.aspx">treat anxiety</a>, and plants containing lupeol are used as <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/medicinal-poisonous-plants-southern-eastern-africa/">aphrodisiacs</a>.</p>
<p>For the Khoi and San people, not all medicines were meant to treat physiological illnesses. Healers were specialised individuals whose task was to treat both physical and spiritual ailments. Indeed, one of the principal functions of traditional medicine, both in the past and today, is to treat <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40462576">supernatural bewitchment</a>. Medicine and culture remain intimately entwined and <a href="https://www.africabib.org/rec.php?RID=183047389">traditional medicine</a>, which is highly adaptive, continues to play an important role in much of Africa as a primary health service.</p>
<h2>A treasured possession</h2>
<p>We cannot know exactly what the medicine stored in the horn was used for, how it was administered or who precisely used it. But it was clearly a treasured possession, judging by the way it was carefully wrapped and deposited in the rock shelter. Its owner evidently intended to retrieve it but never returned. </p>
<p>The absence of any evidence of long-term occupation of the shelter means that the medicine horn is an isolated, chance discovery. Nevertheless, this is a find that sheds new light on traditional medicines used in the Eastern Cape 500 years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Bradfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The medicine container was found in a painted rock shelter. A radio carbon date of the horn container places it at around AD 1461-1630.
Justin Bradfield, Associate professor, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194372
2022-12-11T08:07:50Z
2022-12-11T08:07:50Z
When did humans first start to speak? How language evolved in Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499312/original/file-20221206-5419-8iau2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Descendants of the indigenous San people in the Kalahari Desert.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Lafforgue/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>When did humans first begin to speak, which speech sounds were uttered first, and when did language evolve from those humble beginnings? These questions have long fascinated people, especially in tracing the evolution of modern humans and what makes us different from other animals. George Poulos has spent most of his academic career researching the phonetic and linguistic structures of African languages. In his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/ORIGINS-HUMAN-SPEECH-LANGUAGE/dp/B096ZZ3YKR/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">latest book</a>, On the Origins of Human Speech and Language, he proposes new timelines for the origins of language. We asked him about his findings.</em></p>
<h2>When and where did human speech evolve?</h2>
<p>Research carried out for this <a href="https://www.amazon.com/ORIGINS-HUMAN-SPEECH-LANGUAGE/dp/B096ZZ3YKR/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">study</a> indicates that the first speech sounds were uttered about 70,000 years ago, and not hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, as is sometimes claimed in the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw3916">literature</a>. </p>
<p>While my research has been primarily based on phonetic (speech sounds) and linguistic (language) analyses, it has also taken into account other disciplines, like palaeoanthropology (the study of human evolution), archaeology (analysing fossils and other remains), anatomy (the body) and genetics (the study of genes). </p>
<p>The transformation of <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Homo-sapiens">Homo sapiens</a></em> (modern humans) from a “non-speaking” to a “speaking” species happened at about the same time as our hunter-gatherer ancestors <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/incredible-human-journey-9781408810910/">migrated</a> out of Africa. </p>
<p>When those early adventurers migrated beyond the African continent, they took with them the greatest gift ever acquired by our species – the ability to produce speech sounds, enabled by the creation of a “speech” gene. It was that ability, more than anything else, that catapulted them into a world in which they would dominate all other species. </p>
<h2>Which speech sounds were first uttered?</h2>
<p>The very first speech sounds ever produced were not just random involuntary sounds. Underlying these speech sounds was a fledgling network that connected certain areas of the brain to different parts of the vocal tract. Various anatomical and environmental factors contributed to <em>Homo sapiens’</em> ability to produce speech sounds for the first time ever. </p>
<p>Another interesting factor was an apparent change in the <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Human+Brain+Evolution:+The+Influence+of+Freshwater+and+Marine+Food+Resources-p-9780470452684">diet</a> of our early ancestors and the possible effect it might have had on the human brain. The change to what was essentially a marine diet rich in omega 3 fatty acids occurred when those early humans migrated from the interior to the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-sea-saved-humanity-2012-12-07/">coastlines</a> of the continent. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499319/original/file-20221206-16-59tzsq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Poulos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The vocal tract developed gradually over a long period, and the different stages in its development determined the types of sounds that could be produced. At the time of the “out of Africa” migration, the only part of the vocal tract that was <a href="https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/49-2/Lieberman.pdf">physiologically developed</a> to produce speech sounds was the oral cavity (mouth area).</p>
<p>The only speech sound that could be produced entirely in the mouth at the time was the so-called “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/ORIGINS-HUMAN-SPEECH-LANGUAGE/dp/B096ZZ3YKR/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">click</a>” sound. The airstream could be controlled within the mouth. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6WO5XabD-s">Clicks</a> are the only known speech sounds that behave in this manner. They still occur today in a few African languages – predominantly in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoisan">Khoisan</a> languages spoken in parts of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. </p>
<p>Clicks occur in less than 1% of the languages of the world. They also occur in a few isolated instances in East Africa and in certain languages of South Africa that adopted the clicks when they came into contact with the Khoisan. Clicks have also been noted in one instance outside the African continent, in an extinct ceremonial language register known as Damin in Australia. </p>
<p>An example of a click speech sound is the so-called “kiss” (or bilabial) click where the lips are brought together, and the back part of the tongue is raised against the back of the mouth. The lips are then sucked slightly inwards, and when released a click sound is produced.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram of the human head showing the mouth and three stages of sound being produced." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499301/original/file-20221206-3886-zfofy1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The production of the alveolar click.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy George Poulos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My research suggests that the “kiss” click was probably the first speech sound ever produced by <em>Homo sapiens</em>. As time moved on, the various parts of the tongue became more and more manoeuvrable, making it possible for other click sounds to be produced in the mouth as well. </p>
<h2>So, when did the other speech sounds evolve?</h2>
<p>This study demonstrates that the production of all the other human speech sounds (the other consonants, as well as all the vowels) began to take place from approximately 50,000 years ago. This was dependent on the gradual development of a <a href="https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/49-2/Lieberman.pdf">well-proportioned vocal tract</a> which included the mouth, the area behind the mouth (the pharynx), the nasal passages, and the all-important larynx with its vocal cords. Three airstream mechanisms evolved for the production of all speech sounds, and they evolved gradually in successive stages. </p>
<h2>How did humans communicate before clicks?</h2>
<p>Before this, the only sounds humans could produce were the so-called “vocalisations” or vocal calls. Those were imitations or mimics of various actions or sounds that humans were exposed to in their environment. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-ever-dictionary-of-south-africas-kaaps-language-has-launched-why-it-matters-165485">The first-ever dictionary of South Africa's Kaaps language has launched - why it matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>They may have also been involuntary sounds which expressed various emotions or the involuntary sounds made when yawning, sneezing etcetera. These must not be confused with the very intricate mechanisms that are involved in the production of the speech sounds which form the foundations of what we recognise today as human language. </p>
<h2>And the use of full grammatical language?</h2>
<p>As the different speech sounds evolved, they combined in various ways to form syllables and words. And these in turn combined with each other in different ways to generate the structural types of grammatical sentences that characterise modern languages.</p>
<p>The initial ability to produce speech sounds was the spark that led to the gradual evolution of language. Grammatical language did not evolve overnight. There was no “single silver bullet” that generated language. </p>
<p>The indication is that human language was a fairly late acquisition of <em>Homo sapiens</em>. It is argued in this study that language, as we know it today, probably began to emerge about 20,000 years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in traditional hunting clothing crouches to apply paint with his finger on a boy child's cheeks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499987/original/file-20221209-24-mesb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A San elder paints a child’s face.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hoberman/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We observed earlier that the first speech sounds were uttered by the ancestors of the speakers of present-day Khoisan languages. In the light of this observation, it would be reasonable to assume that they had a head start in being the first to speak a grammatical language as well. </p>
<p>To date there is no substantial phonetic or linguistic evidence to indicate that other species such as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Neanderthal">Neanderthals</a> could have ever spoken a grammatical language. They did not have the <a href="https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/49-2/Lieberman.pdf">required vocal tract dimensions</a> for speech sound production, let alone the morphological and syntactic structures that were required for grammatical language. </p>
<h2>Why does this all matter?</h2>
<p>The utterance of the very first speech sounds about 70,000 years ago was the beginning of a journey that was to lead to the evolution of human language. </p>
<p>Language has provided the medium of communication that has played a pivotal role in the momentous developments that have taken place from the earliest known “written” records that we have access to (some 5,500 years ago), to the highly sophisticated technological advances that we are witnessing today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Poulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The first speech sounds were uttered about 70,000 years ago and not hundreds of thousands of years ago as is sometimes claimed.
George Poulos, Professor Emeritus, University of South Africa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166940
2022-04-19T12:20:59Z
2022-04-19T12:20:59Z
How a South African community’s request for its genetic data raises questions about ethical and equitable research
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447331/original/file-20220218-43570-jbyp9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2941%2C1959&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many researchers are interested in the genetic history of the Khoe-San.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Al-Hindi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientists believe Africa is where <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/cradle-of-modern-human-life-found-in-botswana-maybe">modern humans first emerged</a>. For the past decade, our team of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sDUNh9UAAAAJ&hl=en">genetic</a> <a href="http://hennlab.ucdavis.edu/dana-al-hindi.html">researchers</a> from the <a href="http://hennlab.ucdavis.edu/">Henn Lab</a> have worked among the Khoe-San and self-identified “<a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/What%27s-in-a-name-Racial-categorisations-under-and-Posel/81e1ad38d1f37b37fe1cddd8a81081b378242217">Coloured</a>” communities in South Africa, which comprise multiple ethnic groups in the region, requesting DNA and generating genetic data to help unravel the history and prehistory of southern Africans and their relationship to populations around the world. </p>
<p>While we have learned a great deal from these communities, we have been unable to fulfill a common request: providing them their individual genetic ancestry results. In our attempts to overcome the logistical challenges of providing this information, we’ve grappled with the common question of how to ensure an equitable balance of benefits between researchers and the community they study. What we’ve found is that there is no easy answer. </p>
<h2>The history of the Khoe-San</h2>
<p>Community member requests to see their genetic results came as no surprise. Many South African groups were stripped of their identities and collapsed into one overarching racial category known as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-9524(03)00007-X">Coloured</a>” during the early 1900s. Early <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/35209">European colonizers</a> initially used this term to refer to indigenous Khoekhoe and San groups long before it was codified by the apartheid government in 1948. It persists today as an ethnic category, broadly encompassing Khoe-San groups, various East African, Indian and Southeast Asian populations brought by the slave trade, and people of mixed ancestry. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.116.187369">We</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1227721">other</a> research groups have shown that some Coloured communities are largely descendants of the Khoe and San peoples. Other ancestries present in Coloured communities are from Bantu-speaking populations that migrated into the region from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddaa274">western Africa</a> around 1,500 years ago and from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-0746-1">Europe</a> a little under 400 years ago. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-020-0746-1">Asian ancestry</a> is also present as a result of the aforementioned slave trade.</p>
<p>The Khoe and San are considered the most <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1017511108">genetically diverse</a> human populations currently known, meaning they have a large amount of genetic differences within and between each community. Though they are distinct groups, they share genetic similarities with each other. As a result, geneticists collectively refer to them as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/464487a">Khoe-San</a>, using a hyphen to acknowledge their cultural distinction.</p>
<p>Today, few people identify as Khoe or San in South Africa. Rather, many people call themselves Coloured, though they are deeply aware of the term’s racist legacy. </p>
<h2>Logistical challenges and potential risks</h2>
<p>In our 12 years of fieldwork, we have returned to South Africa on a nearly annual basis to update community-level genetic results. At each visit, most of our participants ask about their personal genetic ancestry results. </p>
<p>But there are several hurdles we face in trying to fulfill their requests. For one, we need to be able to translate scientifically complex data into an accessible and digestible form, a skill that researchers are not always equipped with. Additionally, we must work within restrictions set by <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/healthsciences/rdsd/Documents/Ethics/DoH%202015%20Ethics%20in%20Health%20Research%20-%20Principles,%20Processes%20and%20Structures%202nd%20Ed.pdf">the local government</a>, which is mediated by the Health Research Ethics Committee at our collaborators’ academic institution, as well as restrictions set by the <a href="http://trust-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/San-Code-of-RESEARCH-Ethics-Booklet-final.pdf">South African San Council</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Enrolled research participant holding the spitkit during saliva collection" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449876/original/file-20220303-4451-15ykg4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers extracted DNA from saliva samples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dana Al-Hindi</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525077/">potential risks</a> to the participant. Group-level results provide a protective blanket from potential legal or social issues that can arise from individual ancestry results. For example, a participant may learn that their biological father is not who they believed they were, which could sow conflict in the family and unease for the participant. More generally, the participant faces the social risk of being included or excluded from different communities depending on the outcome of the results.</p>
<p>We discussed these potential problems with past participants and found that most community members care little about the risks. Our participants have consistently viewed the option to receive their personal ancestry results as a benefit of taking part in research. They simply want to know who their forefathers were.</p>
<h2>Helicopter research and exploitation</h2>
<p>To fulfill these requests, we’ve partnered with <a href="https://www.23andme.com/">23andMe Inc.</a>, a U.S.-based company that provides at-home genetic testing. One of us previously worked for 23andMe on its ancestry team and continues to maintain a relationship with scientists at the company. When 23andMe launched a <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/23andmes-populations-collaborations/">program in 2018</a> to improve genetic data on underrepresented communities in biomedical and genetic research, we were excited to see an emphasis on local partnerships and community grants. We submitted a successful application, and 23andMe has provided us with funding to conduct this research.</p>
<p>As academic researchers, we don’t always have the right expertise on how to best communicate personal results. Nor do we often have the funds to successfully execute this task. Research grants do not typically provide support for community development, and graduate and postdoctoral researchers lack protected time to do this on top of their other responsibilities. 23andMe, on the other hand, already has the resources and the experience to accessibly communicate personal genomic results to lay people, because that’s its commercial product. Thus, collaborations with for-profit organizations is not uncommon. Along with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.07.478793">23andMe</a>, academic researchers have also worked with genetic testing companies <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommywilliams1/2020/02/29/meet-54gene-changing-the-landscape-of-global-dna-by-including-africa/?sh=6a92cbc55abd">54gene</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/variantbio/variant-bio-launches-new-partnership-on-kidney-disease-in-south-africa-ef3657fb4f3d">Variant Bio</a>.</p>
<p>With approval from the research ethics committee of the local university we work with, 23andMe will fund the expenses of our fieldwork and a community grant, in addition to processing our DNA samples in exchange for data access. They plan to use the data to improve African ancestry results for their customers and for their own research projects. </p>
<p>The company made <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-04/23andme-to-use-dna-tests-to-make-cancer-drugs">over US$50 million</a> in 2021, and its plans to use the genetic data it has accumulated from its customers to develop pharmaceuticals has not been without <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/opinion/23andme-dna.html">controversy</a> in the U.S. The samples collected in our partnership with 23andMe, however, would not be used to develop new drugs. While our research focuses primarily on broadening scientific knowledge, and 23andMe does make an effort to follow an <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-research/an-ethical-framework-for-international-research/">ethical framework</a> for collaborations like these, our developing partnership has heightened our concerns about exploitation and what’s known as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01795-1">helicopter research</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists conduct helicopter research when they collect data from developing countries and marginalized communities with little to no involvement from local researchers and community members. Helicopter research also occurs when researchers take data out of the country they collected it from without either providing benefit to or sharing the results with the community.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HOBlWaH-Owo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Informed consent is not enough to prevent research from being exploitative.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>San communities are <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/san-people-south-africa-issue-code-ethics-researchers-180962615/">no strangers</a> to helicopter research. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3123-5_6">hoodia</a> is a cactus San communities use to suppress appetite during long hunts or famine. Pharmaceutical companies researched and patented this cultural knowledge in 1995 to develop and sell an anti-obesity pill, initially all without San recognition or involvement. If the San were acknowledged at all, they were referred to as a <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742175/reinventing-hoodia/">population that no longer existed</a>. After several legal disputes, the San were promised benefits from any production that came out of the project. Though they received <a href="https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/hoodia.htm">some compensation</a>, it was a fraction of the value they funneled toward the research and <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295742175/reinventing-hoodia/">nowhere near what was promised</a>.</p>
<p>This has been a recurring issue for the Khoe and San communities, most recently involving the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03374-x">rooibos tea industry</a>. Companies conducted over a century of commercial rooibos farming benefiting from Khoe and San cultural knowledge before finally agreeing to pay 1.5% of what farmers make for unprocessed rooibos to the communities. Because of this, gaining approval from the local university’s ethics committee for our project has been difficult, and understandably so.</p>
<p>To build a more active and transparent relationship with the local community, we are working closely with 23andMe to develop an advisory board of members from local communities. We have held town halls and conducted interviews with locals to ask if they’d still be interested in being a part of this research project if a company became involved. The majority expressed little concern about 23andMe’s involvement and potentially profiting from their genetic information. But history has shown that for study participants around the globe, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180111000259">informed consent</a> has its limitations. It is still difficult to communicate and gauge whether participants, or the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/13/20978024/genetic-testing-dna-consequences-23andme-ancestry">millions of Americans</a> who have paid 23andMe for genetic testing, fully understand the full extent of the risks involved with giving away their genetic data, both to 23andMe and to us academic researchers.</p>
<p>The company has offered to provide small community grants to help meet local needs, and has also expanded our ability to “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/capacity-building">capacity-build</a>” – that is, to make sure that the knowledge and skills we gain are shared with local institutions. But the question remains whether there is an equitable balance of benefits. Other companies have already promised <a href="https://54gene.com/we-have-launched-a-trust-to-reinvest-5-of-proceeds-from-commercial-drug-discovery-programs-on-african-scientists-and-communities/">long-term benefits</a> by <a href="https://www.variantbio.com/faq">sharing equity and profit</a> with participating communities. Are individual ancestry results and community grants a sufficient and fair exchange against the profits the company will gain from this collaboration?</p>
<h2>Where does this leave us?</h2>
<p>Academic researchers are faced with navigating the many trade-offs that come with industry collaborations. While 23andMe’s participation provides a means to return individual results to the community, it also raises questions about sufficiently equitable benefits. Our research team, local collaborators and 23andMe are all concerned about how to best address the risk of helicopter research, coercion and any unknown risks that may arise from disclosing personal ancestry results. </p>
<p>In an ideal world, researchers would be able to return benefits to the community without involving nonacademic external parties. Integrating practices like returning results to communities within <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009277">research grant requirements</a> is one way to ensure that participants are also benefiting from research. Nonprofit small grants dedicated to returning results and community benefit are another. Until then, researchers will continue to make do with the limited resources they have.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to more accurately reflect how 23andMe will use the collected data.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Al-Hindi intends to use Dr. Henn's awarded funds from 23andMe Inc. to complete fieldwork and return of results to sampled communities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brenna Henn is a former employee of 23andMe, Inc. and retains shares in the organization. She has received funding from 23andMe to complete research described in this article. </span></em></p>
The South African Khoe-San communities are no strangers to exploitative research. One research team is trying to provide genetic ancestry results to community members. But they still face many challenges.
Dana Al-Hindi, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, University of California, Davis
Brenna Henn, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165485
2021-08-29T07:47:25Z
2021-08-29T07:47:25Z
The first-ever dictionary of South Africa’s Kaaps language has launched - why it matters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416938/original/file-20210819-25-1n0krmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Graffiti artist Falko Starr finishes a mural in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>It’s been in existence since the 1500s but the Kaaps language, synonymous with Cape Town in South Africa, has never had a dictionary until now. <a href="http://dwkaaps.co.za">The Trilingual Dictionary of Kaaps</a> has been <a href="https://www.uwc.ac.za/news-and-announcements/news/the-first-trilingual-dictionary-of-kaaps-launched">launched</a> by a collective of academic and community stakeholders – the <a href="https://www.uwc.ac.za/study/all-areas-of-study/centres/centre-for-multilingualism-and-diversities-research/overview">Centre</a> for Multilingualism and Diversities Research at the University of the Western Cape along with the hip hop-driven community NGO <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HealTheHoodZA/">Heal the Hood Project</a>. The dictionary – in Kaaps, English and Afrikaans – holds the promise of being a powerful democratic resource. Adam Haupt, director of the Centre for Film & Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, is involved in the project and tells us more.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>What is Kaaps and who uses the language?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.litnet.co.za/kaaps-is-the-future-of-afrikaans/">Kaaps</a> or Afrikaaps is a language created in settler colonial South Africa, developed by the 1500s. It took shape as a language during encounters between indigenous African (Khoi and San), South-East Asian, Dutch, Portuguese and English people. It could be argued that Kaaps predates the emergence of an early form of Kaaps-Hollands (the South African variety of Dutch that would help shape Afrikaans). Traders and sailors would have passed through this region well before formal colonisation commenced. Also consider migration and movement on the African continent itself. Every intercultural engagement would have created an opportunity for linguistic exchange and the negotiation of new meaning. </p>
<p>Today, Kaaps is most commonly used by largely working class speakers on the Cape Flats, an area in Cape Town where many disenfranchised people were forcibly moved by the apartheid government. It’s used across all online and offline contexts of socialisation, learning, commerce, politics and religion. And, because of language contact and the temporary and seasonal migration of speakers from the Western Cape, it is written and spoken across South Africa and beyond its borders. </p>
<p>It is important to acknowledge the agency of people from the global South in developing Kaaps – for example, the language was first taught in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/madrasah">madrassahs</a> (Islamic schools) and was written in Arabic script. This acknowledgement is imperative especially because Afrikaner nationalists appropriated Kaaps in later years. </p>
<p>For a great discussion of Kaaps and explanation of examples of words and phrases from this language, listen to <a href="https://www.capetalk.co.za/podcasts/613/the-morning-review-with-lester-kiewit-podcast/536517/first-trilingual-dictionary-in-kaaps-to-be-published">this conversation</a> between academic Quentin Williams and journalist Lester Kiewit.</p>
<h2>How did the dictionary come about?</h2>
<p>The dictionary project, which is still in its launch phase, is the result of ongoing collaborative work between a few key people. You might say it’s one outcome of our interest in <a href="https://www.uwc.ac.za/news-and-announcements/news/neva-again-quentin-williams-on-hip-hop-activism-and-academia-324">hip hop art, activism and education</a>. We are drawn to hip hop’s desire to validate black modes of speech. In a sense, this is what a dictionary will do for Kaaps.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/quentin-williams-392453">Quentin Williams</a>, a sociolinguist, leads the project. Emile Jansen, Tanswell Jansen and Shaquile Southgate serve on the editorial board on behalf of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HealTheHoodZA/">Heal the Hood</a> Project, which is an NGO that employs hip hop education in youth development initiatives. Emile also worked with hip hop and theatre practitioners on a production called <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpBHcR1_tU">Afrikaaps</a></em>, which affirmed Kaaps and narrated some of its history. Anthropologist <a href="https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/h-samy-alim/">H. Samy Alim</a> is the founding director of the <a href="https://ed.stanford.edu/spotlight/center-race-ethnicity-and-language-launches-new-website">Center</a> for Race, Ethnicity and Language at Stanford University and has assisted in funding the dictionary, with the Western Cape’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An album cover with the title 'Afrikaaps', an illustration of assorted cool looking young people with a mountain in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418052/original/file-20210826-15-1dmerfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">CD art from the musical Afrikaaps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Afrikaaps/Dylan Valley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’re in the process of training the core editorial board in the scientific area of lexicography, translation and transcription. This includes the archiving of the initial, structured corpus for the dictionary. We will write down definitions and determine meanings of old and new Kaaps words. This process will be subjected to a rigorous review and editing and stylistic process of the Kaaps words we will enter in the dictionary. The entries will include their history of origin, use and uptake. There will also be a translation from standard Afrikaans and English. </p>
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<h2>Who will use the dictionary?</h2>
<p>It will be a resource for its speakers and valuable to educators, students and researchers. It will impact the ways in which institutions, as loci of power, engage speakers of Kaaps. It would also be useful to journalists, publishers and editors keen to learn more about how to engage Kaaps speakers.</p>
<p>A Kaaps dictionary will validate it as a language in its own right. And it will validate the identities of the people who speak it. It will also assist in making visible the diverse cultural, linguistic, geographical and historical tributaries that contributed to the evolution of this language. </p>
<h2>Kaaps was relegated to a slang status of Afrikaans?</h2>
<p>Acknowledgement of Kaaps is imperative especially because Afrikaner nationalists appropriated Kaaps in order to create the dominant version of the language in the form of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Afrikaans-language">Afrikaans</a>. A ‘<em>suiwer</em>’ or ‘pure’ version, claiming a strong Dutch influence, Afrikaans was formally recognised as an official language of South Africa in 1925. This was part of the efforts to construct <a href="https://theconversation.com/afrikaner-identity-in-post-apartheid-south-africa-remains-stuck-in-whiteness-87471">white Afrikaner identity</a>, which shaped <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> based on a belief in white supremacy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afrikaner-identity-in-post-apartheid-south-africa-remains-stuck-in-whiteness-87471">Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid South Africa remains stuck in whiteness</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For example, think about the Kaaps tradition of <em>koesiesters</em> – fried dough confectionery – which was appropriated (taken without acknowledgement) and the treats were named <em>koeksisters</em> by white Afrikaners. They were claimed as a white Afrikaner tradition. The appropriation of Kaaps reveals a great deal about the extent to which race is socially and politically constructed. As I have said <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/static">elsewhere</a>, cultural appropriation is both an expression of unequal relations of power and is enabled by them.</p>
<p>When people think about Kaaps, they often think about it as ‘mixed’ or ‘impure’ (‘<em>onsuiwer</em>’). This relates to the ways in which they think about ‘racial’ identity. They often think about coloured identity as ‘mixed’, which implies that black and white identities are ‘pure’ and bounded; that they only become ‘mixed’ in ‘inter-racial’ sexual encounters. This mode of thinking is biologically essentialist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cape-towns-gayle-has-endured-and-been-adopted-by-straight-people-117336">How Cape Town's "Gayle" has endured -- and been adopted by straight people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Of course, geneticists now know that there is not sufficient genetic variation between the ‘races’ to justify biologically essentialist understandings. Enter cultural racism to reinforce the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-unpack-the-word-race-and-find-new-language-138379">concept of ‘race’</a>. It polices culture and insists on standard language varieties by denigrating often black modes of speech as ‘slang’ or marginal dialects.</p>
<h2>Can a dictionary help overturn stereotypes?</h2>
<p>Visibility and the politics of representation are key challenges for speakers of Kaaps – be it in the media, which has done a great job of lampooning and stereotyping speakers of Kaaps – or in these speakers’ engagement with governmental and educational institutions. If Kaaps is not recognised as a bona fide language, you will continue to see classroom scenarios where schoolkids are told explicitly that the way in which they speak is not ‘respectable’ and will not guarantee them success in their pursuit of careers. </p>
<p>This dictionary project, much like ones for other South African languages like isiXhosa, isiZulu or Sesotho, can be a great democratic resource for developing understanding in a country that continues to be racially divided and unequal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Haupt receives funding from UCT's University Research Committee and the National Research Foundation. He is affiliated with the University of Cape Town, Association for Cultural Studies, Global Hip Hop Studies Journal. Haupt is Professor and Director of the Centre for Film & Media Studies at UCT.</span></em></p>
It’s been in existence since the 1500s but the Kaaps language, synonymous with Cape Town, has never had a dictionary until now.
Adam Haupt, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159587
2021-05-04T13:17:40Z
2021-05-04T13:17:40Z
Tracking science: a way to include more people in producing knowledge
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396846/original/file-20210423-23-1rd5tk6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Karoha Langwane (right) teaching a tracker to collect data on a CyberTracker PDA/GPS device. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rolex/Eric Vandeville</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 18th and 19th centuries amateurs played an important role in the development of modern science. During the 20th century science became professionalised and institutionalised, making it increasingly difficult for independent researchers to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.03.017">participate</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, over the last two decades, a new approach to science developed. Citizen science involves large numbers of “ordinary” people participating to collect huge amounts of data – something that could not have been accomplished by academics alone. The earliest citizen science project of this type is probably the <a href="https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count">Christmas Bird Count</a>, run by the National Audubon Society in the US every year since 1900. Citizen scientists now participate in projects on climate change, invasive species, conservation biology, ecological restoration, water quality monitoring, population ecology and monitoring <a href="https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04705-170229">of all kinds</a>.</p>
<p>The term “citizen science” is intended to widen the network of people whose contribution to science is acknowledged. But the word “citizen” can be problematic. Terminology determines who can participate in science and how knowledge is developed. In some contexts, people may feel excluded by this <a href="http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.96">term</a>. </p>
<p>Typically, to be a <a href="https://www.oed.com">citizen</a> one has to be “a legally recognised subject or national of a state” or “an inhabitant of a city or town”. The legacies of colonialism may make this term inappropriate in a postcolonial society. Historically, indigenous communities often lost their land rights and were denied citizenship in newly established colonies. Today the term also excludes groups like migrants. </p>
<p>Legal citizenship is not relevant in many of the science projects in which everyone can participate. What’s relevant is collecting data over time and using it to generate knowledge. </p>
<p>Even the terms “indigenous” and “traditional” knowledge and “local knowledge expert/holder” can create problems. They usually refer to place-based knowledge gained through lived experience or oral tradition. Using these terms marks this knowledge as different from “science”. </p>
<p>As a diverse group, including inventors, researchers, academics and community workers from Europe, North America and Africa, as well as trackers and conservationists who represent several indigenous groups from southern Africa, we <a href="http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.284">propose</a> “tracking science” as a more inclusive term for everyone who contributes to scientific knowledge.</p>
<p>We believe using this term, where appropriate, could stimulate further debate on how the process of science, scientific thinking and knowledge creation – regardless of who participates in it – can empower people with or without academic credentials. It can help in making novel contributions to how we understand the world. </p>
<h2>Tracking as metaphor</h2>
<p>Most people recognise a track when they see one and the metaphorical meaning of the phrase “to keep track of” is commonly understood. Tracking is also widely used as a metaphor in science, from using geolocators to track bird movements through to “particle tracks” in physics and <a href="https://covidtracking.com">The COVID Tracking Project</a> to keep track of the current pandemic. </p>
<p>“Tracking science” is proposed as a metaphor that is inclusive and does not discriminate on the basis of gender or social-cultural origin. It is not meant to replace the term “citizen science”. Rather, it complements the term and spans most contributions to scientific knowledge regardless of origin.</p>
<p>Typically, “science” and “scientist” are associated with someone who has had academic training at a higher education institution. Tracking science <a href="https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.284">is defined</a> as a process that involves empirical observation, experimentation, and causal inference through scientific hypothetico-deductive reasoning. It includes the creation and testing of hypotheses and theories and making novel predictions. It also comprises critical discussion and peer review, with the purpose of producing scientific knowledge about the world, regardless of who participates.</p>
<p>Tracking science is defined not in terms of its participants, but as a process of knowledge production. Anyone can be included in the process. It expands scientific endeavour and exploration beyond academia, professional science and the participatory models of citizen science managed by academics.</p>
<h2>Conservation science and exclusion</h2>
<p>Conservation science is one area of science that can be made more inclusive through the concept of tracking science. It embraces everyone who participates in the generation of scientific knowledge.</p>
<p>Conservation and environmental sciences take place within a political context. In the past, communities have been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26396619?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">displaced</a> for the creation of protected areas. For example, in <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/khomani-san-land-claim">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343628228_The_Impact_of_Nature_Conservation_on_the_San_A_Case_Study_of_Etosha_National_Park">Namibia</a> people were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in the apartheid era for nature conservation. They have been excluded from the process of producing knowledge. Yet globally there is increasing recognition of the value of the scientific knowledge of indigenous communities to manage natural resources. <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol25/iss4/art11/">Fire management</a> in protected areas is an example.</p>
<p>The San people in the Kalahari in southern Africa are among those who have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01351-7">long used</a> fire to manage natural resources. Kalahari hunter-gatherers have also contributed to scientific reasoning through their <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/09/africa/louis-liebenberg-c2e-spc-int/index.html">practice</a> of tracking unseen animals and predicting their movements. In science, hypothetico-deductive reasoning is used to make predictions about patterns in nature. Scientific reasoning is a way of thinking that has ancient <a href="https://www.cybertracker.org/downloads/tracking/Liebenberg-2013-The-Origin-of-Science.pdf">roots</a>. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.4436/jass.95006">dates back</a> to the Stone Age or Paleolithic, long before the establishment of traditional institutions of higher learning like universities.</p>
<p>The term “tracking” extends far beyond its original context of hunter-gatherer animal tracking. Tracking science honours those whose ancestors practised scientific reasoning before it became institutionalised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glynis Joy Humphrey receives funding from the Southern African Science Service Centre (SASSCAL) and the African Origins Platform (AOP).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Liebenberg receives funding from the Frederick Mulder Foundation. He is the Executive Director of CyberTracker Conservation, a not-for-profit organisation who works with indigenous Kalahari San communities. </span></em></p>
The term “citizen science” is intended to widen the network of people whose contribution to science is acknowledged. But the word “citizen” can be problematic.
Glynis Joy Humphrey, Postdoctoral Fellow, Plant Conservation Unit (PCU), University of Cape Town
Louis Liebenberg, Associate of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156323
2021-04-13T14:41:25Z
2021-04-13T14:41:25Z
Law protecting interests of South African communities in mining deals falls short
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394765/original/file-20210413-19-1x6erzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The community of Xolobeni village, in the Eastern Cape, succeesfully challenged the mining of their land in the High Court in 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rogan Ward © Sunday Times.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The impact of mining operations on rural communities is a contentious issue in South Africa. There is also concern about the manner in which communities are consulted about mining on their land. </p>
<p>There is often tension between pursuing the economic benefits of mining, and protecting the socioeconomic and <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/SAHRC%20Mining%20communities%20report%20FINAL.pdf">cultural rights of people</a>. Some communities rely on the land to sustain themselves through agriculture, and for some their cultural identity is <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">tied to the land</a>. </p>
<p>South Africa has laws to safeguard the interests of communities in their dealings with mining companies. The <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act31of1996.pdf">Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act</a> of 1996 requires that communities provide “consent” before mining operations can start. The <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2004/05/28-of-2002-MINERAL-AND-PETROLEUM-RESOURCES-DEVELOPMENT-ACT_7-Dec-2014-to-date-1.pdf">Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act</a> of 2002 stipulates that there must be “meaningful consultation” between mining companies and communities. </p>
<p>As my <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/journals/PER/2020/22.html">research</a> on the case of the Xolobeni community in the Eastern Cape province shows, the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act does not provide the necessary protection to communities in the awarding of licences to mine their land. </p>
<p>I noted that the new <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286528-11act3of2019tradkhoisanleadership.pdf">Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act</a> might not provide more protection to communities either. And it could be open to abuse. If the basic level of trust between communities and traditional leaders is not present, then legislation will not remedy injustices that occur.</p>
<h2>Challenges to community engagement</h2>
<p>In November 2018, the <a href="https://geotargit.com/index.php?qcountry_code=ZA&qregion_code=05&qcity=Xolobeni">Xolobeni</a> community <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPPHC/2018/829.html">successfully challenged</a> the awarding of a licence to an Australian mining company to mine for titanium on their land.</p>
<p>The case concerned the level of consent required to obtain a mining right over property held by a community with informal land tenure. In South Africa communal land is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-giving-south-africans-title-deeds-isnt-the-panacea-for-land-reform-98106">collectively owned by the community</a> in terms of customary law and managed by the tribal authority.</p>
<p>The high court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPPHC/2018/829.html">ruled</a> that in the case of informal land right holders, consent by the community was a requirement for obtaining a mining licence. The court’s decision followed a decade-long battle. It had pitted the community against the mining company and the traditional leaders.</p>
<p>My research, based on official documents and published accounts from the community, showed that traditional leaders or community representatives did not adequately represent the interests of the community in this case.</p>
<p>They did not consult properly with the affected members of the community, and thereby failed to adequately represent their interests. </p>
<p>Another problem is the potential for corruption. As a <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">report</a> by a legislative review panel chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe has found, there have been instances where leaders consented to mining in exchange for <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/2017-10-10-report-identifies-opportunities-for-corruption-in-mining-approval-processes/">certain advantages</a>. </p>
<p>There is also no oversight measure to ensure that communities are actually consulted properly. </p>
<h2>The Traditional and Khoi San Leadership Act</h2>
<p>In a further attempt by the legislature to address the issue of community engagement, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286528-11act3of2019tradkhoisanleadership.pdf">Traditional and Khoi San Leadership Act</a> was passed in 2019. Section 24 of the Act regulates the conclusion of agreements between a traditional council and private entities. It supersedes provisions of all the other laws. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201911/4286528-11act3of2019tradkhoisanleadership.pdf">traditional council</a> is a body that administers the affairs of a rural community. It is made up of elected members of the community or traditional leaders or both. </p>
<p>The new Act doesn’t fix the problems that my research identified. Instead of placing the focus on community rights, the Act seems to reaffirm the absolute authority of traditional leaders over the community engagement process. The most affected voices within a community could once again be lost.</p>
<p>According to the Act, partnerships and agreements between mining companies and communities must benefit the communities and enjoy their majority support.</p>
<p>“Consent” by the entire community, as previously required by the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act, is no longer required. The decision should merely be supported by the majority. </p>
<p>It could be difficult to determine whether there is in fact majority support for a mine. The legislation doesn’t say how this majority will be determined.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02587203.2020.1867483?needAccess=true">According</a> to legal scholars Janine Ubink and Joanna Pickering:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Legislation regulating traditional leadership, for its part, centralises the powers of senior traditional leaders without incorporating crucial accountability mechanisms inherent in customary law. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is, therefore, necessary to find measures to ensure that the process of obtaining consent for mining operations is legitimate and fair. </p>
<p>For this to happen, the actions of mining companies should be monitored more effectively by independent third parties. This is to ensure that they do engage with affected community members in a manner that gives these people a voice. </p>
<h2>Solving the problem</h2>
<p>Government might have hoped to make the process of community engagement more transparent by regulating the way mining agreements should be reached in the Traditional and Khoi San Leadership Act. But it would be misguided to think that this will be possible.</p>
<p>The Act gives too much power to traditional leaders by giving them the right to control the engagement process and decide when a sufficient level of consent has been reached. </p>
<p>In order to resolve this problem, a few practical steps need to be taken by government, traditional leaders and mining companies. Firstly, communities need to be fully aware of their rights concerning community engagement and the process that has to be followed for companies to obtain consent to mine their lands. </p>
<p>Although there have been <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CER-Mining-and-your-Community-Final-web.pdf%5D%5Bhttps://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/LRC-2016_Mining_affected_communities_Eng.pdf">initiatives</a> by civil society to inform communities of their rights, much work remains to be done in this regard. Community leaders and mining companies can also contribute to such advocacy efforts.</p>
<p>Secondly, government needs to address the matter of traditional leaders abusing their authority. If traditional leaders cannot effectively fulfil the role of intermediary between communities and mining companies, then that responsibility should be delegated. This could be done by appointing an impartial third party.</p>
<p>In general, there is a need for more transparency and accountability regarding the awarding of mining licences. This could prevent corruption and ensure the protection of communities’ rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yolandi Meyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Traditional leaders do not adequately represent the interests of rural communities in dealing with mining companies.
Yolandi Meyer, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157177
2021-03-31T13:28:26Z
2021-03-31T13:28:26Z
An ancient San rock art mural in South Africa reveals new meaning
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of the ceiling paintings of the San people in the Drakensberg, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy © Stephen Townley Bassett</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The indigenous <a href="https://www.kalaharipeoples.org/the-san">San</a> communities of southern Africa were originally hunting and gathering peoples. One of the greatest testaments to San history is the rock art found throughout the subcontinent.</p>
<p>The oldest rock art in southern Africa is around <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jaa/8/2/article-p185_3.xml">30,000 years old</a> and is found on painted stone slabs from the <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/art-music/rock-art/apollo-11-plaque">Apollo 11</a> rock shelter in Namibia. Where our study took place – the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/985/">Maloti-Drakensberg</a> mountain massif of South Africa and Lesotho – rock paintings were made from about <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/earliest-directly-dated-rock-paintings-from-southern-africa-new-ams-radiocarbon-dates/B071E61BE2B9640E5B9A430E1464F980">3,000 years ago</a> right into the 1800s.</p>
<p>For decades, people thought that one guess about the art’s meaning was as good as another. However, this ignored the San themselves.</p>
<p>We can deepen our understanding if we try to view rock art in terms of San shamanistic beliefs and experiences. Advances in ethnography (literature produced by anthropologists who work with San people) help convey San worldview to rock art researchers.</p>
<p>By locating new sites – thousands are still to be found – and revisiting known ones in the light of developing insights, we can go much further than guessing. </p>
<h2>New insights from old images</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0067270X.2020.1868757">re-investigated</a> such a site in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg mountains. It was first described in the 1950s and is recorded as RSA CHI1. At first glance, the ceiling panel seems a confusing collection of paintings of antelopes and human figures, some of which are painted on top of others, in shades of earthy reds, yellow ochres and white.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The RSA CHI1 Rock shelter." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391743/original/file-20210325-21-1fdoksc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The RSA CHI1 rock shelter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rock Art Reseach Institute and www.sarada.co.za</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2009 and working under challenging circumstances, South African artist and author <a href="https://www.stb-rockart.co.za/">Stephen Townley Bassett</a> produced a documentary copy of the ceiling panel. It shows the art’s beauty and mystery. </p>
<p>When we looked at his copy, we found that the significance of some images on the site’s ceiling panel had been missed by other researchers. This allowed us to examine the meaning of these images more closely.</p>
<p>Importantly, our realisation was not a technological or methodological advance. Instead, it was a conceptual development that occurred by turning our attention to a well-known site and viewing it again in the light of everything we have learned so far about San rock art. </p>
<p>Our re-investigation allowed us to arrive at a new understanding of specific elements of San belief.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390094/original/file-20210317-21-povuk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of the ceiling painting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy © Stephen Townley Bassett</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Deeply religious art</h2>
<p>Two sources of San ethnography are especially important in rock art research and our understanding of the ceiling panel. In the 1870s, the German linguist Wilhelm Bleek and his co-worker and sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd interviewed a series of |Xam San people, some of whom had been brought from the Northern Cape to Cape Town as convicts. </p>
<p>Remarkably, <a href="http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/">Bleek and Lloyd</a> recorded over 12,000 pages of texts in the |Xam language, which is no longer spoken, and transliterated most of it line-by-line into English. Much of this material remains relevant to our understanding of the art. </p>
<p>More recently, in the twentieth century, a number of anthropologists worked with San groups in Namibia and Botswana with a focus on a range of topics from hunting and gathering to folklore and childcare. The <a href="https://www.kalaharipeoples.org/resources">Kalahari ethnography</a> compliments the Bleek and Lloyd archive.</p>
<p>We know from the ethnography that the San believe in a universe with spiritual realms above and below the level on which people live. Decades of research has shown that the rock art is deeply religious and situated conceptually in the same multilevel universe.</p>
<h2>Re-reading the ceiling</h2>
<p>In San rock art, the <a href="https://www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/eland">eland</a> is a connecting element. It is the most commonly depicted antelope in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg paintings. It features in several San rituals and was believed to be the creature with the most <em>!gi:</em> – the |Xam word for the invisible essence that lies at the heart of San belief and ritual. </p>
<p>At RSA CHI1, there are many depictions of eland, but we focused on the one with its head sharply raised. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391746/original/file-20210325-13-4y1zly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of the eland with the raised head.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Townley Bassett</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Depictions of this posture, though not common, recur in other sites. The eland’s raised head suggests that it is smelling something, most probably rain. Both smell and rain are supernaturally powerful in San thought. </p>
<p>The unique feature in this paintings is, however, the way in which a line runs up from an area of rough rock, breaking at the eland’s front legs, and then on to another area of rough rock. The painter, or painters, must have depicted the eland first and then added the line to develop the significance of its raised head. We argue that both the raised head and the line emphasise contact with the spirit realm, though in different ways.</p>
<p>The way in which the painted line emerges from and continues into areas of rough rock is comparable to the way in which numerous San images were painted to give the impression that they are entering and leaving the rock face via cracks, steps and other inequalities. But what lay behind the rock face?</p>
<h2>Behind the rock face</h2>
<p>We have noted already that the San universe is divided into different realms. Contact between these often interacting realms is sometimes depicted in the art by long lines that link images or sometimes appear to pass through the rock face. San shamans or medicine people (called <em>!gi:ten</em> in |Xam) move along or climb these ‘threads of light’ as they journey between realms to heal the sick, make rain and perform other tasks. The |Xam called these out-of-body journeys <em>|xãũ</em>. They obtained the power needed to accomplish them by summoning potency from strong things, such as the eland.</p>
<p>The inter-realm nature of the line is further evidenced by the three creatures depicted moving along it. The two moving upward are quadrupeds or four-legged animals: one is non-specifc and one has a tail and human arms. These images may depict the sort of bodily changes that <em>!gi:ten</em> say they experience during out-of-body journeys.</p>
<p>The faint white creature moving down the line was for us the climax of our work. It is clearly birdlike (<em>!gi:ten</em> often speak of flying). But closer inspection revealed that, though faint, it has a rhebok antelope head with two straight black horns, a black nose and mouth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rhebok therianthrope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391747/original/file-20210325-23-1cgkzj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of the rhebok-headed image moving down the line.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rock Art Reseach Institute and www.sarada.co.za</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also has two ‘wings’ emanating from its shoulders. In short, it is a hybrid form – part bird and part buck. In addition, it has two white lines coming out of the back of its neck. It was from this spot that <em>!gi:ten</em> expelled the sickness that they drew out of the bodies of sick people.</p>
<p>For many people, the detail and the complexity of the images at this site come as a surprise. Yet they are typical. San rock art ranks among the best in the world if we consider its beauty, its intricacy and the rich sources of explanation on which we can draw.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David M. Witelson is a PhD student at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. He has a bursary with the Rock Art Research Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lewis-Williams has received funding from a NRF A-grade grant. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Challis hold an NRF African Origins Platform Grant as well as a joint Wits/Edinburgh University seed fund. He is a member of the Bradshaw Foundation Rock Art Network and the Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pearce does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The team from Wits University returned to a well-known ceiling panel in the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains, armed with new knowledge about the beliefs of the San people who made the paintings.
David M. Witelson, PhD candidate, University of the Witwatersrand
David Lewis-Williams, Emeritus professor, University of the Witwatersrand
David Pearce, Associate professor, University of the Witwatersrand
Sam Challis, Senior research scientist, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140668
2020-06-12T16:46:52Z
2020-06-12T16:46:52Z
Constitutional Court ruling heralds changes to South Africa’s electoral system
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341530/original/file-20200612-153867-1on1m41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deaan Vivier/Netwerk24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ultimately, it took <a href="https://afternoonexpress.co.za/guests/princess-chantal-revell/3158">Chantal Revell</a>, a descendant of the Khoi and San royalty, to initiate a change in South Africa’s electoral system. This has been a contentious subject for almost 20 years. An official task team was set up to resolve it and it has gripped the attention of opposition parties, elevating the subject to an election campaign issue.</p>
<p>South Africa’s Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2020/11.html">has ruled</a> that the country’s Electoral Act is unconstitutional on the grounds that it doesn’t allow citizens to be elected to the national and provincial legislatures as independent candidates. The case was brought by the New Nation Movement. This civil society group argued that the act infringed on the right to exercise individual political choices. Chantal Revell was the second applicant in the case. </p>
<p>Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga’s verdict is possibly a defining moment. By enabling independent candidates to contest provincial and national elections it promises to change various aspects of South Africa’s life. The ability of independent candidates to stand in national elections offers a wide choice that could entice apathetic eligible voters into the process and attract others away from established parties. The primacy of individuals over parties, however, might also weaken associational life built upon civic values in favour of divisive identities. </p>
<h2>A hotbed of controversy</h2>
<p>The controversy around South Africa’s electoral stemmed from the <a href="http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/docs/Van-Zyl-Slabbert-Commission-on-Electoral-Reform-Report-2003.pdf">recommendations made by the electoral task team</a>, led by former opposition leader <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frederik-van-zyl-slabbert">Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert</a>, in January 2003. Previous elections were administered by interim legislation and permanent legislation was required in time for the next election in 2004. </p>
<p>The task team was mandated to probe whether the interim legislation, which prescribed voting for political parties – that is <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/Election-types/">proportional representation</a> – should be made permanent or revised.</p>
<p>Composed of various experts from government, South Africa’s electoral commission, the academy and the legal profession, the task team offered contrasting proposals. Most wanted the electoral system changed to a mixed one – providing for direct election of constituency representatives and for a political party. </p>
<p>Others wanted to retain the system of voting for parties, which then decide whom to send to parliament. Parliament adopted the minority proposal. Retaining the proportional representation system met all four principles that the constitution envisaged for an electoral system: fairness, inclusiveness, simplicity and accountability. </p>
<p>The majority view was unhappy that proportional representation fell short on enabling individual accountability. Nonetheless, it admitted that collective accountability was afforded through periodic elections.</p>
<p>Parliament was not the only interest group persuaded by the minority view. The public, too, was enamoured with voting for parties that decided who to send to parliament. Part of the electoral task team’s activities involved a public opinion survey undertaken by the Human Sciences Research Council. </p>
<p>The survey <a href="http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/docs/Van-Zyl-Slabbert-Commission-on-Electoral-Reform-Report-2003.pdf">showed</a> that between 74% and 81% of South Africans felt that the proportional representation system was fair. They thought it enabled equal representation and made sure that parliament was as inclusive as possible, especially in relation to gender and race.</p>
<p>But there was a feeling that members of parliament should be tied to particular constituencies. This was insignificant, though, in light of the general acceptance of the electoral system. </p>
<p>Consequently, there was hardly any popular outcry about the inappropriateness of the electoral system.</p>
<h2>The Zuma factor</h2>
<p>The brouhaha over the electoral system coincided with the election of Jacob Zuma as president <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/jacob-zuma-presidency-2009-2017-march">in 2009</a>. Implicated in corruption and fresh from a rape acquittal, Zuma was a perfect picture of notoriety. So long as parties provided a fairly acceptable slate of candidates, voters did not mind much that they didn’t elect them directly. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341538/original/file-20200612-153812-dis30z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Princess Chantal Revell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was the governing African National Congress’s (ANC’s) reaction to public disapproval of Zuma, and its consequent misuse of its parliamentary majority to stifle law enforcement agencies, that turned popular opinion against the proportional representation system. The ANC showed how powerless voters were under the system. It was also arrogant to the point of offending public sensibilities. </p>
<p>Zuma’s subsequent misconduct simply emboldened popular sentiment in favour of voters directly electing their own government leaders.</p>
<p>Enabling independent candidates to contest provincial and national elections promises to go some way towards this end. </p>
<h2>The impact</h2>
<p>One possible outcome is that a wider choice of contestants could reverse the declining interest in the electoral process.</p>
<p>For the 2019 election alone, for instance, more than 9 million eligible voters <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/NPEDashboard/app/dashboard.html">did not register to vote</a>. The 26,756,649 who registered represented only 74.6% of the total voting age population. Even among those who registered to vote, only 66% of them showed up to cast their ballot on the day. This was a significant drop in turn-out rate from 73.48% in the previous election. </p>
<p>New entrants into the electoral contest, therefore, could entice the uninterested eligible voters into the process.</p>
<p>As for the current parties, the entry of new contestants presents mixed fortunes. Their current voters could abandon them for new entrants. Some voters aren’t entirely happy with these parties, but vote for them because they lack alternatives. Electoral support for existing parties could drop. </p>
<p>Another possible outcome could be that parties that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-14-the-ancs-electoral-list-a-k-a-the-usual-suspects/">sneak dishonourable candidates onto their lists</a> could be forced to improve their nomination process. This could be the trigger the ANC needs to prioritise moral rectitude in the selection of party candidates. </p>
<p>But it’s uncertain whether this will happen.</p>
<p>Independents could potentially tilt the balance of power. But the extent of that shift is unclear. As a result of Madlanga’s ruling the country is likely to have a mixed ballot – constituency and proportional representation – in the next national election. </p>
<p>This would simply be a replication of what currently happens at the local government level. </p>
<p>Independents won’t be able to contest the proportional representation ballots. These can only be cast for political parties. This means independents, assuming the 400 parliamentary seats are shared equally between constituency and proportional representation, will only contest 200 seats. </p>
<p>It’s highly unlikely therefore that independents will ever be in the majority to elect a president among them. Because they contest both ballots, parties are the only ones that could possibly get majority support, enabling them to elect a president from their midst.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341532/original/file-20200612-153817-ptuhwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Porter/Fairfax Media via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not guaranteed, however, that voters will cast both proportional and constituency ballots. If a voter chooses a constituency candidate on strength of character, it is unlikely that the same voter would vote blindly on the proportional representation ballot. Unless the party has an equally credible list of leaders, it is unlikely to get the proportional representation ballot. </p>
<p>While voting for a trustworthy party candidate, voters can spoil the proportional representation ballot as a statement of disapproval against the candidates on the party list.</p>
<h2>Hurdles to clear</h2>
<p>What might protect established parties against competition from independents is the likelihood of poor organisational infrastructure, inexperience and money. Their success is not guaranteed.</p>
<p>Equally worth noting is that this new beginning may herald even more divisiveness in South African politics. Political parties often bring together diverse individuals around common values. They transcend primordial identities and promote overarching civic identities. The applicant who instigated this victory at the Constitutional Court, Chantal Revell, hopes to mobilise her ethnic group into political support. </p>
<p>Rather than worry, perhaps one should welcome Revell’s potential candidature as a test of the salience of ethnic politics in the Western Cape. This ruling portends multiple possibilities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mcebisi Ndletyana receives funding from the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. He is the author of the recently published book, Anatomy of the ANC in Power: Insights from Port Elizabeth, 1990 – 2019.</span></em></p>
South Africa’s Constitutional Court verdict is possibly a defining moment for South Africa’s electoral system.
Mcebisi Ndletyana, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127844
2019-12-02T14:11:21Z
2019-12-02T14:11:21Z
How art and technology helped bring faces of the dead to life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304076/original/file-20191127-112499-1cv5azx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Facial reconstruction is best known as a forensic tool that can help identify human remains and reconnect them with families for burial or memorialisation. The technique has a potent claim on our imaginations.</p>
<p>These images are usually produced when other identification methods have failed. It’s usually a last resort with very high stakes. This is perhaps why, when forensic depictions lead to recognition in spite of their own technical limitations, it can feel like a miracle, providing an essential, often long-awaited, piece of an investigative puzzle.</p>
<p>Facial reconstruction becomes most culturally visible when it is applied to <a href="http://archaeologicalmuseum.jhu.edu/the-collection/object-stories/who-am-i-remembering-the-dead-through-facial-reconstruction/the-facial-reconstruction-process/">archaeological research</a>. Depicting past people enables viewers to imagine them as individuals rather than specimens. The facial image becomes a powerful and complex medium, fostering connections between historical events and personal lifeways, and re-establishing a degree of personhood. </p>
<p>This research is facilitated by advances in imaging technologies, and benefits from interdisciplinary input. In turn, it creates new opportunities for the retrieval of previously unknown or suppressed knowledge that reshapes our understanding of the past.</p>
<p>What has become known as the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/features/sutherland/">Sutherland Reburial project</a> offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the objectives of recreating faces from skulls. The project involved creating facial depictions based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/skeletons-and-closets-how-one-university-reburied-the-dead-126607">human remains unethically acquired</a> by the <a href="https://www.uct.ac.za/">University of Cape Town</a> in the 1920s. </p>
<p>The project has become a platform to ventilate the unfinished business of human remains discovered from <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoikhoi">South Africa’s unpleasant past</a>. It has also set a precedent for repatriation and restitution initiatives. The most critical is the involvement of direct descendants with links to the farm where the majority of these remains were exhumed, and their specific request to “see the faces” of their ancestors. Giving us their permission with their instruction, they collaborated in producing scientific knowledge for the benefit of the source community in Sutherland.</p>
<p>The project has also demonstrated how science, art and technology converge in contemporary facial reconstruction and depiction.</p>
<h2>How it’s done</h2>
<p>At the start of May 2019, the project was undertaken by <a href="https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/institute-of-art-and-technology/expertise/face-lab">Face Lab</a>, recognised as an international leader in craniofacial research and analysis, with an entirely digital workflow. </p>
<p>Facial reconstruction interprets the details of the skull to recreate face shape through modelling of facial soft tissues, estimating the shape and size of facial features and using methods developed over a century of scientific and artistic collaboration. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304425/original/file-20191129-95250-l5foxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The human remains do not have to be handled by Face Lab, who work on scans of the remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12024-006-0007-9.pdf">Current methods</a> have shown that shape can be accurately recreated with less than 2mm of error for approximately 70% of the facial surface.</p>
<p>The surface details of a face, known here as “texture”, are a matter of interpretation. Eye and hair colour, skin tone, wrinkles, scars and other marks, and some aspects of the ear cannot be reliably predicted from the skull alone. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004224">Genetic phenotyping</a> is making some advances here, but not without <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/nyregion/dna-phenotyping-new-york-police.html">significant controversy</a>.</p>
<p>Yet these details are essential for creating a plausible face, so we must make a reasonable attempt, restricted by what can be justified by the available data. </p>
<p>In Face Lab, we refer to the final result as a “depiction” to distinguish between the process of recreating face shape – informed by anatomical standards that apply across all populations – and the highly interpretive process of adding surface details. The final depiction should employ visual strategies known to optimise recognition, but also infer ambiguity where necessary. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304424/original/file-20191129-95272-cnvu6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of the many faces reconstructed during projects at Face Lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our job is therefore to predict the “most likely” in-life appearance of an individual by attending as closely as possible to the specific, not the average. Producing the right sort of face, with the features in a certain proportional and spatial relationship to each other, determined by a skull’s own architecture, is what narrows the search for an unidentified victim in a forensic context. </p>
<p>Refining individualising detail – a gap between the upper teeth, prominent ears, a crooked nose or asymmetric eyes – increases the chances of successful recognition.</p>
<h2>In the lab</h2>
<p>Face Lab worked with 3D digital models of the Sutherland skulls produced from CT scans, which provided excellent surface detail along with internal information that refined feature prediction and allowed estimation of missing jawbones (mandibles). This was necessary for three individuals in this group. </p>
<p>Where bony fragments were missing or damaged, reassembly was a necessary first step. The more bone is absent, the more qualified the final result.</p>
<p>Face Lab employs a 3D modelling programme with a haptic (touch-sensitive) interface. This process non-destructively mimics a manual sculpting process, enabling optimal preservation of fragile or damaged bone by building up the soft tissues of the face in virtual clay. Rendering the various layers transparent to view the underlying skeletal structure at any time during the process enables continual evaluation.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304426/original/file-20191129-95207-ta9e52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of a woman called Saartje in the Sutherland Reburials Project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Face Lab LJMU/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304427/original/file-20191129-95215-1uzzgng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of the face of Cornelius Abraham in the Sutherland Reburials Project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Face Lab LJMU/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Extensive visual research guided our final presentation choices for the Sutherland faces. This was supported by information from within the team, including ancient DNA which confirmed biological sex in some cases, as well as kinship and geographical origins. </p>
<p>We chose to present these people as they most likely would have appeared at their approximate age at death. The environment in which they lived and their likely lifestyle – harsh weather, basic diet and physical labour – would have affected their appearance. Older adults would have likely had more heavily wrinkled skin than contemporary people of the same chronological age.</p>
<p>Clothing was suggested based on contemporaneous archival photographs taken in the same broad geographical area. Adding a sepia tint introduced an element of colour in keeping with 19th century photographic techniques and visually situates them in the period in which the majority lived. </p>
<p>They are historical interpretations produced with forensic fealty.</p>
<h2>Unnerving reality</h2>
<p>Presenting the images to the families evoked complex emotions, from intense curiosity to guarded apprehension. The level of realism was clearly unnerving, but ultimately compelling. </p>
<p>The faces were ciphers for a process of recognition that was about being seen and heard. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304423/original/file-20191129-95242-1p4tptq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Showing the families the facial reconstructions of their ancestors previously buried on Kruisrivier farm in Sutherland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a place where indigenous histories are conspicuously absent, the Sutherland families believe that having these stories brought to life in a tangible and dignified way fosters meaningful connections between the past and present, and for future generations.</p>
<p>Local heritage practices in South Africa have not taken advantage of what these techniques can deliver. The Sutherland Project is one model of what opening up institutional processes and analyses to those affected by historical crimes might look like. </p>
<p>Informed by how humanitarian values might contribute to historical redress initiatives, the Sutherland project poses ethical questions that have specific local expression but are globally relevant. </p>
<p>The biographies this process was able to reconstruct, embodied in these eight faces, are highly specific. But they stand for the experiences of many others over many decades, who have been lost to history, but from whom we have a great deal left to learn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Smith receives support for her doctoral research from the National Research Foundation. The Sutherland Reburial project was supported by the National Geographic Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Wilkinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Through science, art and technology, we are able to reconstruct the faces of the dead based on their remains. The researcher who did this work for descendants in Sutherland explains the process.
Kathryn Smith, Visual/forensic artist, PhD researcher, Liverpool John Moores University
Caroline Wilkinson, Professor at School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126607
2019-11-11T14:10:29Z
2019-11-11T14:10:29Z
Skeletons and closets: How one university reburied the dead
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300866/original/file-20191108-194675-mnznvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SutherlandReburials Jannetje</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This story begins with an archive audit at the University of Cape Town’s department of human biology. The audit reveals the remains of 11 human skeletons that had been unethically obtained and used for study many decades earlier. It becomes a stock-taking and place-making moment in the life of the department. A multi-disciplinary team of academics sets about rehumanising the San and Khoi remains, consulting with their ancestors – both past and present – and restoring dignity to the bones. Called the <a href="http://www.news.uct.ac.za/features/sutherland/">Sutherland Reburials Project</a>, the process enabled the university to attempt to provide an ethical model of redress and social justice through science. We asked the project’s Dr Victoria Gibbon to tell us more…</em></p>
<p><strong>How did you rediscover the skeletons and their attendant ethical dilemma?</strong></p>
<p>Globally, the historical unethical procurement and use of skeletal remains is something that haunts biological anthropology. In 2017, there were several South African initiatives to drive a process to distinguish between ethical and unethical procurement of human remains in universities and museums – and to discuss restitution. I returned to the University of Cape Town (UCT) and examined the Human Skeletal Repository records. Unfortunately, I found 11 individuals with known names or dates of deaths or which were known to the donor in life. The research suggested these remains should not be at the university.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2018 after a lengthy process of figuring out a way forward. With the university’s Office of Inclusivity and Change we have embarked on the initial phase of the restitution project. Of the 11 unethically procured sets of remains, nine are from the town of Sutherland in the Northern Cape. We decided to start there. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300874/original/file-20191108-194624-78w3pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sutherland in the Northern Cape, where the skeletal remains were from.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The records indicate that in the 1920s a farm owner dug up remains from the worker burial ground on a Kruisrivier farm and brought them to UCT. The records further indicate that some of these individuals had been hunter-gatherers who were captured and forced into labour on the farm. They state one was possibly murdered, others were elderly, and some died of illness.</p>
<p>My focus was to return them to their resting place because the way these people were brought to the university was wrong. I never imagined to what extent the Sutherland families would bring me on a journey with them to share knowledge from the past.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300869/original/file-20191108-194646-cclowz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visit to the farm in Sutherland where the remains had originally been buried.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>What was it that made this so particular in terms of a model to seek redress?</strong></p>
<p>I have reflected on why this process was so unique and positive. What did we do differently? My feeling is there are three key aspects which shifted power and blame. When I informed my seniors, the immediate response was to place a moratorium on access. To physically seal and remove these individuals from the repository and place the power to study and unseal in the hands of the families. </p>
<p>The second moment was when I was introduced to Deputy Vice Chancellor of Transformation Professor Loretta Feris. An environmental lawyer, she has a passion for social justice, and agreed to lead the project. Through her UCT publicly took responsibility for the injustice in 1920 and committed to addressing it through a meaningful process of restitution. </p>
<p>The third key was the inclusion of a public participation advisor, Doreen Februarie. She went into the community to locate relevant stakeholders and lay the foundation for the community engagement. She built trust for the start of our conversation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300868/original/file-20191108-194646-x68mj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visit by the UCT academics to Sutherland for one of a series of community engagements to find a way forward for the bones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>How was life breathed back into the stories of the bones?</strong></p>
<p>When we informed the community of descendants of the remains, it was painful and raised a lot of questions. They asked for as much information as possible. On behalf of the families I compiled an interdisciplinary team to answer the questions the families had asked. It was agreed that this would encompass the history (Professor Nigel Penn) and archaeology (Professor Simon Hall) of the original cemetery. Of the remains, it would include biological reports (myself and Dr Tinashe Mutsvangwa), stable isotope analysis (Professor Judith Sealy), DNA analyses (Dr Stephan Schiffels and PhD student Joscha Gertzinger) and facial reconstruction (Prof Caroline Wilkinson and PhD student Kathryn Smith). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300872/original/file-20191108-194665-1n81fze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Project member Kathryn Smith showing family the reconstructed facial images.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>How did the facial reconstructions enrich the project?</strong></p>
<p>The incredible scientific information has provided a story for each of these people’s lives. Facial reconstruction has brought them to life for all of us. They are a stark reminder that people of the past are people just like you and I. This is obvious of course, but to see them with your own eyes brings a humanity to the story that was unexpected. These nine individuals are more than just individuals, they are representatives of what life was like for San and Khoi people in Sutherland in the 1800s. Life was hard physically and emotionally. We see characters in these people, we see perseverance, resolve and strength of character. They shared a life experience as labourers on Kruisrivier farm. Three individuals have evidence of squatting facets, a sitting position that was culturally and symbolically important for San people – and also for burying their dead in a way that was culturally significant. These two pieces of evidence alone are a statement. The farmer could take their freedom and force them to work but could not take their spirit and culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300875/original/file-20191108-194637-t5tx90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ancestral blessing ceremony was part of the restorative justice process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Je'nine May/UCT</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>There were ceremonies to engage with the ancestors and try to find spiritual restitution as well?</strong></p>
<p>The process of restitution will continue to be a journey. The families visited the gravesite that the individuals were removed from. I provided a biological report on a visit to the community. A blessing ceremony was held at UCT in partnership with traditional leaders. The families also viewed the remains in private, then invited some of us in to ask questions. This moment was important for closure and understanding. Traditional leaders from Cape Town have gone into the community in a knowledge-sharing exercise. I have been involved in community outreach and done educational scientific outreach in the local schools. </p>
<p>During each visit to Sutherland we came to know the families better and understand their desire for knowledge. A quick look at the <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.co.za/Tourism-g1601473-Sutherland_Northern_Cape-Vacations.html">tourism industry in Sutherland</a> today speaks to colonial history, to space and to <a href="http://www.karoohoogland.gov.za/sutherland-tourist-attractions/">star gazing</a>. Where is the deep historical recognition for San and Khoi people in this area? It is missing. The Sutherland families and communities want their history to be acknowledged and preserved for their children. These nine individuals have brought us together and provided a platform of opportunity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Gibbon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When the University of Cape Town discovered skeletons in its archive that had been unethically obtained and used, they set about restoring justice to the bones and the community they came from.
Victoria Gibbon, Associate Professor in Biological Anthropology, Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122053
2019-09-01T09:22:14Z
2019-09-01T09:22:14Z
Mitochondrial DNA reveals unexpected ancestral connections
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289061/original/file-20190822-170956-1st91ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Advances in DNA sequencing will help people to learn more about their ancestry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SVShot/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Biochemists study life on a molecular level. So, as a biochemist, it made sense to investigate my own existence at that deepest of levels, which is why I had my DNA sequenced – my <a href="https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/mitochondrial-dna">mitochondrial DNA</a>, or mtDNA, to be exact. </p>
<p>This genetic material is found inside mitochondria, the sub-cellular compartments or organelles where food is converted into energy. DNA from this organelle is passed down primarily from mothers to their children. During fertilisation, the father’s sperm transfers his chromosomal DNA into the female egg, leaving the mitochondria behind. </p>
<p>If any of the male-mitochondria are transferred into the egg, it is usually destroyed by internal processes. However, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/51/13039">recently published work</a> has shown that in a small number of cases, mitochondria from the father got into the egg, was not destroyed and was passed on to the children. </p>
<p>In most cases though, sons do not pass along mtDNA to their children. Every mother, however, transfers her mtDNA to her daughter who will in turn, transfer it to her daughter and so on throughout the ages. Because mtDNA does not change much over time, maternal lineage information from thousands of years ago becomes accessible today.</p>
<p>My female ancestor would, I thought, be Khoi-San. That’s what family records and knowledge of my immediate ancestors suggested. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoisan-identity">Khoi-San</a> were southern Africa’s first people, and dominated the region for thousands of years. </p>
<p>I expected to belong to the haplogroup L0, typical for all Khoi-San and many Coloured people. “Coloured” is a racial classification introduced by the apartheid-era <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/leg19500707.028.020.030/leg19500707.028.020.030.pdf">Population Registration Act</a> to refer to a multiracial ethnic group native to South Africa with Khoi-San, Bantu, Afrikaner, English, Indian and South Asian ancestry. </p>
<p>A haplogroup is a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on either the matrilineal or patrilineal line. The results of the sequencing tests surprised me: my mtDNA was assigned to the M2 haplogroup, a group whose origins are described as not native to Africa (see Figure 1) yet common to Cape Malay or Cape Muslims who have their origins outside the continent. </p>
<p>Historically, people in this group were brought over from South-East Asia to South Africa as slaves for European <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1415-47572013000200005&script=sci_abstract">colonisers</a>. Apartheid displaced the slavery narrative to the recesses of South African history: as a country we focus on apartheid as the origin of all our ills, while our slavery heritage is largely forgotten. Now, as my experience shows, developments in mtDNA sequencing are returning it to view. This is important because South African identity is more complex than just black and white, and slavery shaped the society in ways that should not be ignored.</p>
<h2>The history of haplogroups</h2>
<p>So what is haplogroup M2, the one I have discovered I belong to? Haplogroup M, together with its sister group N, originated from the same ancestor – known as haplogroup L3. Members of this haplogroup are believed to be the first humans that migrated <a href="https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/">out of East Africa</a> between 80 000 and 60 000 years ago. Once these ancient humans left the African continent they went on to populate the world.</p>
<p>Haplogroup M is found almost exclusively in Asia (Figure 1); M2, with an estimated age of 50 000 years, is found primarily in South East India and Bangladesh.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289904/original/file-20190828-184252-1vgnz3l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Routes used by the VOC slave ships juxtaposed against the predicted movements of Haplogroup M.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_M_(mtDNA)#/media/File:Peopling_of_eurasia.jpg; https://slavery.iziko.org.za/sites/default/files/images/2015-11-06/DetailedMap.jpg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was suspicious of my results. But my siblings’ mitochondrial DNA sequencing results were assigned to the same haplogroup and analyses done at three different laboratories – two national and one international – reached the same conclusions. So, I was left with finding a way to get this outcome to make sense. </p>
<p>The colonisation of what is today the Western Cape province and the subsequent contact of the indigenous Khoi-San with Europeans and their slaves provides a plausible explanation as to how the mitochondrial M2 haplogroup pattern could end up in someone with documented Khoisan ancestry. </p>
<h2>Colonisation</h2>
<p>The dominance of the Khoi-San in southern Africa was ended by the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – VOC or Dutch East India Company in 1652 with the establishment of a refreshment station that became a colony and, finally a settlement.</p>
<p>The VOC’s plans required labour. So the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/first-enslaved-people-arrive-cape-town">first shipment of slaves</a>, mostly captured in present-day Angola or Guinea, was brought to the Cape in 1658 by the slave ships Amersfoort and Hasselt, respectively. In subsequent years, the vast majority of slaves were brought in from Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia (Figure 1). Some of these female slaves brought the M2 haplogroup with them.</p>
<p>For the 180 years of slavery at the Cape, slaves far outnumbered the colonial population. The colonial economy could not function without the use of slave labour, meaning slave ownership was widespread. There are records of inter-marriage between the KhoiKhoi and San populations with colonial slave populations, as well as with African farmers and white settlers. </p>
<p>Add to this the unrecorded and involuntary unions between especially the masters and their slaves, and it becomes easy to envisage sexual contact between a female slave and a European male circa 1660 – and the birth of a female child or children who went on to have offspring-producing relationships with other European/Slave/Khoisan/Coloured men in subsequent cycles until eventually one such cycle produced my great grandmother. This is illustrated in Figure 2 below.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288749/original/file-20190820-170922-gq73sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A possible maternal heritage chart with starting point circa 1660, presupposing 9-10 family cycles until the birth of my great grandmother in 1904, provided the ages of the females when giving birth were between 24-25 years of age. Based on family records, John Doe could have been European/ Khoi-San/ Slave/Coloured.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Debra Meyer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With one or more of the male ancestors in my maternal lineage being Khoi-San, the cross-over sharing of chromosomal DNA between parents explains the Khoi-San phenotype – that is, observable, physical characteristics – in my family.</p>
<h2>Advances in technology</h2>
<p>Without the technology to sequence mitochondrial DNA, I would not know of my ancestral links to slavery. Artificial intelligence is making sequencing faster, cheaper and more accurate while machine learning algorithms that improve with experience are accelerating our ability to compare large, complex DNA sequencing data sets and interpreting its meaning. </p>
<p>Chances are, then, that in a few years mtDNA sequencing will disclose even more disruptive ancestral information – and allow us to see ourselves and our histories more clearly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debra Meyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Developments in mitochondrial DNA sequencing are returning South Africa’s slavery heritage to view.
Debra Meyer, Professor of Biochemistry and Executive Dean of Science, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121771
2019-08-20T13:04:43Z
2019-08-20T13:04:43Z
How a chief defied apartheid and upheld democracy for the good of his people
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288184/original/file-20190815-136222-34o1j9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, right, with Dali Mpofu and Winnie Mandela in 1989. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thobekile Maphumulo Family Papers, Author provided (No reuse)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released report of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-advisory-panel-land-reform">advisory panel</a> on land reform, and the latest efforts to force through <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-settle-traditional-leadership-challenges-119009">two controversial traditional authority bills</a>, point to the continued legacies of changes to the relationship between traditional leaders, their followers, and land in South Africa’s history. </p>
<p>The panel calls for a resolution to the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/final-report-presidential-advisory-panel-land-reform-and-agriculture-28-jul-2019-0000">contending philosophies around land tenure</a>” — those of individual rights and those of communalism. But as traditional leaders <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/contralesa-back-zulu-king-ingonyama-issue">fight to continue their control</a> over communally held land, there also needs to be a recognition that there are contending philosophies of traditional leadership. At times, these overlap.</p>
<p>This was evident at the meeting between a delegation from the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) and the then exiled African National Congress (ANC) in Lusaka, Zambia 30 years ago – on 18 August 1989.</p>
<p>The meeting released a joint memorandum. In it the parties called upon traditional leaders in South Africa to refuse to implement apartheid. The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110427125959/http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3843">document</a> recognised the profound effects of apartheid on South Africa’s traditional leaders: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From leaders responsible and responsive to the people, you are being forced by the regime to become its paid agents. From being a force for unity and prosperity you are turned into perpetrators of division, poverty and want among the oppressed. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland system</a>, land deprivation, forced removals and the denial of basic political rights – all these and more are the anti-people policies that the white ruling clique forces the chiefs to implement on its behalf.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Contending views of chieftancy</h2>
<p>The ANC and the Contralesa delegation called on a historical understanding of traditional authority in which a leader’s authority came from their followers. This understanding is embodied by the isiZulu proverb <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> (a chief is a chief by the people who <em>khonza</em> him, or pay allegiance to him). <em>Ukukhonza</em> is a practice of political affiliation. It is one that binds chiefs and their subjects and allows for accountability.</p>
<p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land. Historian Percy Ngonyama called this <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> (a chief is a chief by territory). Doing so effected territorial segregation. It also allowed white officials to govern through a mimicry of pre-existing political structures.</p>
<p>Colonial officials came to interpret <em>ukukhonza</em> as a practice of subservience. But in fact, historically, this was a reciprocal practice. Paying allegiance to a chief came with expectations of physical and social security.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My recent <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=552">book</a>, To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence and Belonging in South Africa, 1800 - 1996, is a history of <em>ukukhonza</em>. It shows how even as colonialism and apartheid sought to break down personal bonds of <em>ukukhonza</em>, people used knowledge about the practice to make claims on land and on their leaders. </p>
<p>In the case of Inkosi Maphumulo, the claims were for physical security in times of violence.</p>
<h2>Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mhlabunzima-joseph-maphumulo">Inkosi (Chief) Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</a> (1949-1991) led the Contralesa delegation to Lusaka. He governed in the Table Mountain region, an area just outside of Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal. His life, tragically cut short by an apartheid hit squad, provides insight on these overlapping concepts of chiefly authority – <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> and <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em>. </p>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo was the fourth chief of a colonially created chiefdom that from its genesis in 1905 was tied to land south of the <a href="http://www.dwaf.gov.za/iwqs/rhp/state_of_rivers/state_of_umngeni_02/history.html">Umngeni River</a> at <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&q=table+mountain+pietermaritzburg&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNz9T18f_jAhVKJVAKHbBzCQUQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1261&bih=636">Table Mountain</a>. The existence of two types of chiefdoms served to “divide and rule”. It pitted leaders who saw themselves as having historical authority against those with new authority from the colonial regime. </p>
<p>From his installation in 1973, he carried out the duties of the chieftaincy within the structures of the nascent KwaZulu bantustan. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“bantustans” or “homelands”</a> were the ultimate level of the three tiered system of governance designed to ensure segregation in South Africa – not only on racial, but also ethnic lines. The bantustans built on so-called <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/24222/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">tribal authorities</a> such as that of the region Maphumulo governed. </p>
<p>One of Inkosi Maphumulo’s priorities was to provide land to his subjects during a time when territorial segregation constrained black South Africans’ access to land. He tirelessly pursued a contested strip of land that bisected his territory but, according to apartheid-defined boundaries, fell neither under his control nor that of a neighbouring chief.</p>
<p>The government gazette that outlined the boundaries of the Inkosi Maphumulo Tribal Authority in 1957 made its leaders chiefs by land. Colonial officials had been putting down boundaries in Natal for over 100 years. But apartheid’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/bantu-authorities-act%2C-act-no-68-of-1951">Bantu Authorities</a> finalised this process and fully bounded chiefdoms. </p>
<p>But Inkosi Maphumulo was a leader who did not forget the responsibilities of chief by the people, even as he pursued land to allocate to his followers. By the time he flew to Lusaka, he had become known as the “peace chief”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maphumulo the peace maker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New African, April 17, 1989</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As violence spread across the Natal Midlands from 1985 in a state-sponsored civil war, Inkosi Maphumulo organised peace initiatives. And, through Contralesa, he set up a commission of inquiry into the causes of the conflict. </p>
<p>He spoke out against police partiality and cooperation with Inkatha, which was engaged in a deadly conflict with the ANC and the broader liberation movement. He also welcomed refugees of all political affiliations from war torn townships onto land at Table Mountain. He described the process by which this happened to the press:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People are not made to pay money to live in the area, but in our tradition they are expected to pay ‘khonza’—a tribute to the chief… A goat is sufficient for ‘khonza’ but if a person does not have one, then a small amount of money, depending on the person’s circumstances, is expected.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Land and belonging</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo spoke of rights to land as tied to belonging in a chiefdom, a process facilitated by <em>ukukhonza</em>. There was a slight hitch. The neighbouring Nyavu chiefdom, who claimed precedence in the region – to the time of King Shaka, if not before – believed the land onto which Maphumulo located refugees belonged to them. </p>
<p>While Inkosi Maphumulo sought to provide expected security to his followers, both old and those who newly paid allegiance to him, his neighbours and some among his followers who contested his chieftaincy saw the newcomers as interlopers. Peace would <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/aff00000000.043.027.pdf">not remain</a> at Table Mountain.</p>
<p>As the violence spread to the area, people used the cultural inheritance of <em>ukukhonza</em> to define who had access to the contested land, and who could expect security from their chief. Inkosi Maphumulo believed himself responsible for the new residents because they had paid allegiance to him. As the conflict raged, he reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had done all I could to ensure peaceful coexistence in my area. What had I done wrong?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He sought to expand his territory, but respected the demands of <em>ukukhonza</em> with his attempts to promote political tolerance, provide a safe haven, and end the violence.</p>
<h2>Chiefaincy and land reform</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo did not live to see the dawning of democracy in South Africa. But these overlapping concepts of chief by the people and chief by land embodied in his leadership need to be brought to the forefront in current discussions about traditional authority and land reform. </p>
<p>Even after the territorial rule of colonialism and apartheid took hold among chiefs, Inkosi Maphumulo’s belief in the concept of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> spurred him to pursue peace and promote political tolerance.</p>
<p>Enshrining the control of land by traditional leaders in <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll?fbclid=IwAR1crtWUQX3RseTPGSua0-0FRZhRv7niLms6KJQBe0tv5bIg8tcNF4TWCkc">recent</a> and newly proposed laws gives precedence to the <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> of colonial and apartheid rule at the expense of the people of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (2015) and Fulbright (2010-2011, 2018-2019). </span></em></p>
Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land.
Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/119009
2019-06-23T08:05:47Z
2019-06-23T08:05:47Z
South Africa still has a long way to go to settle traditional leadership challenges
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280176/original/file-20190619-171271-3h2kh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Traditional leaders listen to a speech by President Cyril Ramaphosa's in Makhanda, Eastern Cape. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Elmond Jiyane</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty-five years after apartheid formally ended in South Africa, rural people are still fighting laws that entrench the former discriminatory system and limit their freedom.</p>
<p>Recently, rural activists marched to the government’s headquarters in Pretoria <a href="https://rekordeast.co.za/208990/update-ard-to-march-against-bantustans-bills/">to protest</a> against pending laws that they argue reduce their constitutional rights. The protesters are part of a campaign launched by the collaboration of civil rights organisations, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Inyathelo/posts/the-alliance-for-rural-democracy-is-a-group-of-civil-society-organisations-promo/381147418622041/">Alliance for Rural Democracy</a>. </p>
<p>They were protesting against the <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TRADITIONAL-AND-KHOI-SAN-LEADERSHIP-BILL.pdf">Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill</a> awaiting signature by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/bills/2017-TraditionalCourtsBill.pdf">Traditional Courts Bill</a> which has been passed by the National Assembly and is now before the National Council of Provinces. (The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-origin-of-the-khoisan-tells-us-that-race-has-no-place-in-human-ancestry-53594">Khoi-San</a> are the first peoples of South Africa, formerly called <a href="https://theconversation.com/debunking-the-colonial-myth-of-the-naked-bushman-112313">“Bushmen”</a>.)</p>
<p>The new laws deal with traditional leadership and traditional courts, but the protesters say they are based on a false understanding of those concepts. Their claim is important partly because the effect of the new laws is to deny people the right to choose whether to have their cases heard in customary or state courts.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.assaf.org.za/sacq/issue/view/133">Constitutional scholars argue</a> that the customary and state courts do not offer the same protections and people should not be forced to use one kind rather than the other simply because they live in rural areas. This affects women in particular: they are not well represented in customary forums or in the new Bills.</p>
<p>It appears that the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), is backing these laws because it believes the traditional leaders who pushed for them deliver rural voters. Yet it ignores rural voices that contest the new laws’ definition of what is “traditional”.</p>
<p>So, what is truly “traditional”?</p>
<h2>Deciding what’s traditional</h2>
<p>To understand the protesters, it is worth examining how the colonial fictions about traditional leadership and customary law have shaped rural people’s access to rights in South Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276039206_Defining_Boundaries_Gender_and_Property_Rights_in_South_Africa's_Traditional_Courts_Bill">The historical record</a>, rather than <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/10.html">the colonial depiction</a> of it, shows that communities have typically determined how they are led. Customary law is <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/8383563">lived and agreed by community members</a>. </p>
<p>The historical and archaeological record also shows that communities did not have to have a senior traditional leader. <a href="http://www.nylslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/11/wicomb1.pdf">The idea of a “chief”</a>, beloved by colonialists, does not reflect the fact that societies in southern Africa were mostly governed by decisions made by groups of people.</p>
<p>This is why South Africa needs to balance the demands of traditional leaders with these collective decision-making processes and modern constitutional terms for governance. South Africa’s Constitutional Court has noted that “living customary law” requires respect – and that it <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2004/17.html#_ftnref41">must accord with</a> the 1996 Constitution. But laws that keep using the idea of colonial and apartheid chiefdoms actually go against this precept. </p>
<p>Post-apartheid legislation insists on the existence of a “traditional leader” for a “traditional community” to be recognised by government. With recognition comes salaries for traditional leaders and land, among other government benefits. This is why traditional leaders support the laws. The new <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TRADITIONAL-AND-KHOI-SAN-LEADERSHIP-BILL.pdf">Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill</a> is based on the same hierarchy of leaders and authority as the Traditional Leadership and Governance <a href="http://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TLGFA-Traditional-Leadership-and-Governance-Framework-Act-2003-Act-No-41-of-2003.pdf">Framework Act</a>, which it replaces. And that, in turn, is based on colonial and apartheid-era definitions.</p>
<p>But it’s not the way communities define authority.</p>
<p>The law also delineates the jurisdiction of traditional leaders in terms of territory. But traditional community boundaries are actually set by fluid personal relationships. A community defines itself.</p>
<p>This mismatch of definitions is why people often don’t agree about who should inherit a title, who has certain status and where boundaries lie. The result is <a href="https://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/Limpopo-to-probe-568-traditional-leadership-disputes-20150430">hundreds of disputes</a> over leadership positions and community boundaries.</p>
<h2>Definition of a community</h2>
<p>One law that has recognised the historical reality is the Interim Protection of Informal <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/interim-protection-informal-land-rights-act">Land Rights Act</a>. This defines “community” as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>any group or portion of a group … whose rights to land are derived from shared rules determining access to land held in common by such group. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, Section 1 of the Mineral And Petroleum Resources <a href="http://www.energy.gov.za/files/esources/pdfs/energy/liquidfuels/act28r.pdf">Development Act</a> defines “community” as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a coherent, social group of persons with interests or rights in a particular area of land which the members have or exercise communally.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike the Framework Act, these last two definitions attempt to capture the fact that communities end where agreements between their members end. The Informal Land Rights Act also sees that communities have flexible, nested and overlapping borders that depend on a purpose. This is especially important for decisions over land, where the relevant “community” may be the family, clan, subward, ward, village, or what is legally defined by the Framework Act as the “traditional community” (formerly, “tribe”).</p>
<h2>New laws get it wrong</h2>
<p>There are additional problems with the revised 2017 <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/bills/2017-TraditionalCourtsBill.pdf">Traditional Courts Bill</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, traditional courts were a part of the way that traditional communities functioned. They are not the same as state courts. They don’t judge. Rather, they are places where people manage disputes through processes combining negotiation, mediation and arbitration.</p>
<p>But the Traditional Courts Bill denies people living in “traditional communities” the right to choose whether to use customary or state courts. It also denies people the right to legal representation when accused of an offence – a right the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a> wholly guarantees. </p>
<p>The Constitution says that the <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/constitution/your-rights/the-bill-of-rights">Bill of Rights</a> underpins all laws. It qualifies the right to culture, which it considers an individual choice.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2008/9.html">2008 case</a>, the Constitutional Court clarified its <a href="https://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/victory-for-woman-in-developing-customary-law/">approach to customary law</a>. Courts must first look at customary law as lived in and by communities and defer to the right of communities to observe and develop their own law. Courts must also balance this with their responsibility to ensure legal certainty and protect vested and constitutional rights, especially of vulnerable groups.</p>
<h2>Who is vulnerable?</h2>
<p>The relationship between women’s rights and customary law has been debated since South Africa’s Constitution was first negotiated. It continues to be raised in relation to all the legislation discussed above. Almost all traditional leaders in South Africa are male. And traditional courts are typically made up of men, excluding women from participation other than as parties to cases or witnesses.</p>
<p>This brings us back to why the Stop the Bantustan Bills campaign <a href="http://www.larc.uct.ac.za/news/after-march-stop-bantustan-bills-campaign">marched to Pretoria</a>. They want a citizenship equal to that held by South Africans living in urban areas as promised under the Constitution.</p>
<p>It seems a straightforward request. But it may not be heard. After all, the ANC seemingly believes bending to the will of the traditional leader lobby will secure its rural support. This belief is arguably affirmed in the leader of the traditional leader lobby, <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/sango-patekile-holomisa/">Inkosi Patekile Holomisa</a>, being declared one of two Deputy Ministers of Justice and Correctional Services in the new cabinet.</p>
<p>But President Ramaphosa still has an opportunity to show he is able to listen to rural people, even in the face of pressure from the traditional leader lobby. The President should therefore decline to sign the Traditional Leadership Bill and Traditional Courts Bill into law. He should rather honour the Constitution, whose drafting assembly he <a href="https://www.dpme.gov.za/about/Pages/President-Cyril-Ramaphosa.aspx">chaired</a> during the new South Africa’s dawn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sindiso Mnisi Weeks is also adjunct associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Access to Justice and Human Security: Cultural Contradictions in Rural South Africa (Routledge, 2018).</span></em></p>
The contested law also defines the jurisdiction of traditional leaders in terms of territory. But traditional community boundaries are actually set by personal relationships.
Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, Assistant Professor, School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117870
2019-05-29T13:40:08Z
2019-05-29T13:40:08Z
How controversial “racist” research opens door for a decolonisation drive
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276965/original/file-20190529-192462-82trea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Historically, Khoisan people from southern Africa were used as scientific subjects in racist experiments.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">hecke61/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been justified outrage about a recently published – and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13825585.2019.1598538">hastily retracted </a>– <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13825585.2019.1598538">academic article</a> written by academics from Stellenbosch University in South Africa.</p>
<p>The article suggested that “coloured” women in South Africa “present with low cognitive function and which is significantly influenced by education”. Coloured is a racial classification legalised during apartheid for people of “mixed race”. This allegedly low cognition was also linked to unhealthy lifestyle behaviours.</p>
<p>A myriad of articles have been written that criticise the authors’ work, and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/stellenbosch-study-on-coloured-women-draws-on-colonial-stereotypes-22166233">take aim</a> at their university’s ethics committee for allowing the study to be conducted. They have been accused of racial essentialism; of <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-04-25-study-on-coloured-womens-intelligence-scientifically-flawed-says-professor/">methodological flaws</a>; and of <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/ideas/2019-04-25-racist-medical-myths-persist-with-sas-diseased-apartheid-mentality/">connecting race with medical conditions</a>.</p>
<p>There’s one particularly important concept that’s been given a lot of attention in the debates – the notion of <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/lifestyle/2018-03-01-jonathan-jansen-evidence-of-the-persistence-of-racial-science-is-all-around-us">“race science”</a>, which is also called scientific racism. The article and the opprobrium that followed are a reminder that race and racism are still deeply embedded in science, and must be exorcised. </p>
<p>This can only be achieved by decolonising modern western science. By “decolonise”, I mean “decentre” rather than destroy modern western science. It must be stripped of the epistemological and methodological privileges it enjoys. It must be <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11159-007-9056-x">placed on the same plane</a> as other approaches to knowledge and research. In this way, it can be compared equitably with other ways of knowing.</p>
<p>If this approach becomes commonplace, then new knowledge spaces will be created. In these spaces, those from different knowledge traditions can produce new knowledge through the negotiation of trust. They can apply different lenses and ask different questions that won’t lead them to racialised ways of thinking and operating. But, this will require a willingness to accept that modern western science is one way and not the only way of understanding the natural world. </p>
<p>Over the years progress has been made to excise racism from science or to compensate those who were victims of scientific racism. One example is the compensation of the families of the African American men who were denied diagnosis and treatment for syphilis in the well-known <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm">Tuskegee study</a>. Another is the universal acceptance of the principle in ethics that states <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/first-do-no-harm-201510138421">“do no harm”</a>. However, this has not arrested enduring racism in science. </p>
<h2>Race science rising</h2>
<p>Race science concerns the use of science as a vehicle to advance racist agendas, or where race is used as a variable in science for the purpose of labelling certain groups of people negatively or defining them in deficit terms. </p>
<p>There are many examples of this in history. Carolus Linnaeus, who developed the modern system of classifying living things, classified Khoisan (first nations people of southern Africa) as <em><a href="https://fyp.uoregon.edu/sites/fyp2.uoregon.edu/files/malefijt_1968.pdf">Homo monstrosus</a></em>: monstrous or abnormal people. And <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2019/2019-05/study-signals-enduring-racism-in-science.html">in 1937</a>, scientists in the Zoology Department at Stellenbosch University used 80 measurements to confirm the category “coloured man” as distinctive from “white man”.</p>
<p>British science journalist Angela Saini <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/18/race-science-on-the-rise-angela-saini?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Email">points out</a> that race science is on the rise again internationally. And, she argues, it’s being advanced in subtle ways by well-educated people who wear smart suits. This includes academics at leading universities around the world.</p>
<p>It’s important to be alive to the dangers of race science because it can be used to justify racism in broader society.</p>
<p>But it continues to exist because it is part of a system of thought that I call modern western science. I’m referring here to science embedded in Eurocentrism: a way of thinking that prioritised anything from the western world – and particularly from Europe – and that was <a href="http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30000550">spread and entrenched through colonisation</a>.</p>
<p>Given its original site of production, this school of thought necessarily centres European history. Through its various incarnations, an ideal identity of human was formed that is male, white, heterosexual, able-bodied – and this is a screen against which others are declared different. Positing others as “different” (and inferior) opened the door to race science.</p>
<h2>A new approach</h2>
<p>Of course, modern western science did not develop free from the influence of other knowledges. Through colonising places, it picked up certain ideas and approaches from different countries or regions. For example, Indigenous peoples in North America helped settlers to treat life-threatening scurvy through the application of tonics made from conifer needles, which were rich in Vitamin C.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351">How Indigenous knowledge advances modern science and technology</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, such knowledges were absorbed into a western cultural archive and represented in western terms. For example, the pain-reliever Aspirin was first discovered by Indigenous people – they used <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351">willow bark</a>, which contains the active ingredient from which Aspirin was created. More importantly, modern western science has not paid homage to the influence of other knowledge systems.</p>
<p>There is no denying that modern western science has brought some benefits to humanity. But this does not mean it shouldn’t be interrogated and, as I suggested earlier, de-centred. The upshot of this would be the democratisation of science in two ways. First, by broadening who participates in the production of scientific knowledge; and second, by broadening what counts as science. This would help to root out race science.</p>
<p>Science has always been and will always remain the product of human will and intention. Scientific knowledge will always be culturally and historically produced. And if we are to speak in any sense about objectivity in science, this must be produced by science that is multicultural and not universal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lesley Le Grange receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa. </span></em></p>
Modern western science must be stripped of the epistemological and methodological privileges it enjoys.
Lesley Le Grange, Distinguished Professor of Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109582
2019-01-10T13:36:09Z
2019-01-10T13:36:09Z
The University of Cape Town’s recent history matters as much as its past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253047/original/file-20190109-32151-1kcarwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UCT will honour Sarah Baartman by naming a hall after her.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crown jewel in <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/">University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s)</a> symmetrically pleasing main campus is its hall. The campus lies in linear regularity against the iconic backdrop of Devil’s Peak, part of the spectacular mountain range that circles the city. The triangular parapet of the hall reaches for the peak even as its steps cascade down towards the busy streets of Rondebosch, the suburb below. </p>
<p>With UCT ranking as the <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/main/research/rankings">top university on the continent</a>, this stock image has come to symbolise more than just one campus, but African excellence itself.</p>
<p>The physical view of the campus changed forever in 2015, with the removal of the brooding statue of British colonialist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> at the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32236922">foot of the staircase</a>. Now, in 2019, the scene will change symbolically too. Jameson Memorial Hall stands, but its name falls: going forward, it will be known as the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/uct-renames-jammie-memorial-hall-to-sarah-baartman-hall-20181213">Sarah Baartman Hall</a>. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sara-saartjie-baartman">Baartman</a>, a Khoi woman sold into slavery and eventually exhibited as a curiosity in England in the late 18th Century, has long been a powerful symbolic figure in contemporary South Africa. This remarkable UCT turnabout moves the commemoration narrative. As the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">official UCT announcement</a> notes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is fitting that Baartman, a victim of colonial inhumanity, should replace a perpetrator of colonial crimes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The announcement was made by incoming Vice-Chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng in her December 2018 robing ceremony. It had, in fact, been in the works from <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840">2015’s Fallism protest movement</a>. At the time then-Vice-Chancellor Max Price created a task team and <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2016-06-23-council-agrees-to-change-name-of-jameson-hall">invited renaming suggestions</a>. At that point, Jameson Hall, named after Rhodes’ political ally <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-leander-starr-jameson">Leander Starr Jameson</a>, was temporarily given the generic placeholder of Memorial Hall. This was a gesture to the centrality of institutional memory, but strategically vague as to what kind of memory that should be.</p>
<p>Now, after extensive consultation both within the university community and with Khoi community representatives, the decision has been made. It’s one the university itself is naming “potent” and “historic.” But how radical is it?</p>
<p>It’s undoubtedly encouraging - more than that, exciting - to see UCT nail their colours to the mast in what feels like an embrace of structural transformation, not to mention a powerful signal of a commitment to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-will-take-critical-thorough-scrutiny-to-truly-decolonise-knowledge-78477">decolonial</a> agenda.</p>
<p>Yet I have reservations.</p>
<h2>A much deeper problem</h2>
<p>Let us be frank: Sarah Baartman Hall is not named as an abstract decolonial gesture. It’s not a simple symbolic reference to a closed chapter of history, chosen at random from hundreds of alumni submissions. It is so named explicitly because of the direct trauma that people of colour experienced from the ongoing campus exhibition of an underclad statue of Baartman from 2000 to 2018 in the Science and Technology section of the main library. The statue stood not 200 metres from the main hall. </p>
<p>These are not marginal concerns: in response to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/quarrel-over-sarah-baartman-sculpture-at-uct-20180303">escalating and often powerfully performative campus protests</a>, the UCT public artworks committee held an interactive exhibition of the statue last year entitled <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-09-21-dignifying-sarah-baartman">“Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman: a Call to Respond.”</a></p>
<p>More, the Hall is named because of the repeated strategies students adopted, including the use of the statue to expose, as it were, the hostility of an under-transformed university environment where they themselves continued to feel unwelcome, a curiosity. The statue, by Willie Bester, was exhibited as recently as October 4 last year. The uneasy campus culture is ongoing.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Barbour</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There surely can be no Sarah Baartman Hall without acknowledgement of Sarah Baartman’s entwined history with the land – and legacy – of Rhodes at the institution. Yet these potent contestations are entirely absent from the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">university’s announcement</a> of the name change. This frames Baartman’s “humiliation” as ending in 2002 with the restitution of her remains from France’s <em>Musée de l'Homme</em> and <a href="http://www.baviaans.net/listing/sarah-bartman">ceremonial interment in Hankey, Eastern Cape </a>.</p>
<p>There is no mention of Bester’s statue, no mention of the countless protests, debates and performative interventions staged around the symbolism of Baartman’s body that have marked the past 18 years of campus engagement with the statue.</p>
<p>Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the campus, but if it is not accepted that her legacy is built into every brick, each classroom and every interaction, the honour is more than hollow, it is inappropriate. Baartman has, after all, been the figurehead for countless ideologies, both in and out of her time. To place her historic name on a building while eliding the contemporary pain that prompted this naming from its origin story is to make Sarah Baartman once again an object to gaze at in a centre of learning.</p>
<h2>The alternative</h2>
<p>But that doesn’t have to be the case. For this gesture to stand in the spirit for which it was clearly (and commendably) chosen, the university must own its own institutional complicity in Baartman’s – and South Africa’s – loaded history and institutional culture that continue to alienate students and staff of colour from fully being at home on campus. To move forward meaningfully there must be a frank acknowledgement that Rhodes’ legacy did not end in 2015 and a clear commitment to practical as well as symbolic change.</p>
<p>The naming decision has garnered overwhelmingly positive responses, with graduating students taking to social media in droves, expressing what it meant to them to graduate in a hall bearing the name of Baartman. I certainly share this joy. But we shouldn’t let the renaming of a hall overshadow the need for careful institutional and self-examination. </p>
<p>The Vice Chancellor has demonstrated a powerful understanding of being the change she wants to see at UCT. Her donation of part of her inauguration budget to pay student debt was a remarkable combination of symbolic and deeply practical gesture. Under her leadership, the university must surely be best placed to open up space for transformation, not close down debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Lever receives funding from the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) to research statue-based protest and performance in SA and the US. She is a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, examining protest, spectacle and commemoration in Cape Town.</span></em></p>
Sarah Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the University of Cape Town’s campus, but if her legacy isn’t built into each classroom and interaction the honour is hollow.
Carla Lever, Research Fellow at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84716
2017-10-12T13:46:01Z
2017-10-12T13:46:01Z
Ancient DNA increases the genetic time depth of modern humans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189965/original/file-20171012-31375-hmz15a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tapping into ancient DNA can help us understand ancient humans' movements and lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=DNA&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdmrr14efWAhVIChoKHQ4qB2IQ_AUICygC&biw=1522&bih=708#imgrc=GOr_O-uj32HSEM">Illustration: Marlize Lombard, Maryna Steyn and Anders Högberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been about 2000 years since a young boy died on what is today a beach in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. In the 1960s the child’s remains were exposed to wind and rain. It was carefully excavated and taken to the museum in Durban and later to Pietermaritzburg. Over the past four years I have worked with a team of researchers who reconstructed the DNA of the boy from Ballito Bay and other ancient individuals, and what we’ve <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/09/27/science.aao6266.long">discovered</a> changed what we know about deep human history.</p>
<p>The boy lived about 2000 years ago, which helped us to recalculate the time at which humans like us – <em>Homo sapiens</em> – first split or branched from archaic or pre-modern human groups to between 350 000 and 260 000 years ago.</p>
<p>Previously, it was thought that we emerged just a little less than 200 000 years ago. This was mostly based on the shape of fossil skulls found in Ethiopia, and on earlier work on the DNA of people currently living in southern Africa, such as Khoe-San groups. </p>
<p>Then, earlier in 2017, a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/world-s-oldest-homo-sapiens-fossils-found-morocco">skull from Morocco</a> that looks like a combination of us and older human groups was dated to about 300 000 years ago. This age also overlaps with that of <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/homo-naledi-human-evolution-science/"><em>Homo naledi</em></a> in South Africa.</p>
<p>Our deeper genetic estimate for the origin of modern humans further tallies with the ages of two other southern African archaeological finds, the <a href="http://showme.co.za/tourism/florisbad-museum-and-research-centre-soutpan/">Florisbad skull</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8599389">Hoedjiespunt fossils</a>. If we take all the DNA, archaeological and fossil evidence together, the period roughly between about 200 000 and 350 000 years ago is becoming increasingly interesting for exploring our origins. </p>
<p>Collectively, this research shows that humans might have originated from several regions in Africa instead of just one, with different groups interacting with each other through time and across the landscape. We do not know exactly how or where – yet. But work like ours helps to fill gaps and highlight interesting new questions. For example, by pushing back our genetic origins it is now necessary to revisit interpretations of “what is human” in the fossil record.</p>
<h2>Digging into DNA</h2>
<p>South Africa has a fascinating archaeological record, with a Stone Age spanning more than 2 million years. But archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past.</p>
<p>So how do we get from the stones and the bones to the people? One way is through DNA. The last decade saw remarkable development in the technology and methods to understand ancient human DNA. As an archaeologist I became fascinated by what these approaches could tell us about our human origins in Africa, and started working with colleagues in <a href="https://h3africa.org/component/contact/contact/15-other/37-dr-himla-soodyall">South Africa</a> and <a href="http://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N9-1616">Sweden</a> who are geneticists associated with a <a href="http://www.iob.uu.se/research/evolution-and-development/jakobsson?languageId=1">laboratory</a> in Uppsala specialising in ancient human DNA. </p>
<p>Some of my previous research has focused on Stone Age sites in KwaZulu-Natal, so that it made sense to focus on ancient DNA from this province. The team at Uppsala’s laboratory, assembled experts to do the extraction, analysis and interpretation of the results, resulting in this newest research.</p>
<p>We were able to reconstruct the full genome of the Ballito Bay child together with six other individuals from KwaZulu-Natal. The remains of one adult male also come from Ballito Bay; those of an adult female were found on the beach at Doonside, further south. Together with the boy, they are associated with the Stone Age more than 2000 years ago in South Africa. Genetically, they are related to <a href="http://www.san.org.za/history.php">San groups</a> who were on the landscape before herders from East Africa came in to live among them and formed local herding groups, historically known as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoikhoi">Khoe or Khoikhoi</a>.</p>
<p>The remains of the four other individuals are from contexts that archaeologists associate with the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/iron-age-kingdoms-southern-africa">Iron Age</a>. These were farmers who came into southern Africa from West Africa, possibly through what is today Angola. </p>
<p>All four of these individuals were found not on the coast, but in KwaZulu-Natal’s inland areas. Interestingly, these Iron Age individuals had gene variations to protect them against <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_Vq78Ljzc">malaria</a> and sleeping sickness. We didn’t find similar variations among the Stone Age individuals. This shows that the Iron Age individuals lived or moved through areas in Africa long enough to build resistance against these diseases, whereas those from the Stone Age probably did not.</p>
<h2>Building our understanding</h2>
<p>This is an important addition to our understanding of human history.</p>
<p>Cumulatively, the fossil, ancient DNA and archaeological records indicate that the transition from archaic to modern humans was older than previously thought, and probably did not occur in one place in Africa. Instead there might have been <a href="https://vimeo.com/19797501">gene flow</a> between groups from, eastern, southern and northern Africa, who all potentially played a role in our common human history.</p>
<p>Reconstructing the full genomes of human remains even older than 2000 years will help us to understand the relationships between the different groups that roamed the African landscape during ancient times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlize Lombard receives funding from the African Origins Platform of the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p>
Archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past. DNA is one way to get from the stones and the bones to the people and their stories.
Marlize Lombard, Professor with Research Focus in Stone Age Archaeology; Director, Centre for Anthropological Research in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/77345
2017-05-16T00:14:18Z
2017-05-16T00:14:18Z
It’s time to celebrate Africa’s forgotten fossil hunters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168887/original/file-20170511-32618-bewdt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Local people at Tendaguru (Tanzania) excavation site in 1909 with Giraffatitan fossils.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article3586616/Urzeitliches-Knochenpuzzle-aus-Deutsch-Ostafrika.html">Wikimedia Commons/Public domain</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are few things more exciting for a professional palaeontologist than discovering fossil remains. In early 2017 I found a beautifully preserved skeleton sticking out of the ground in South Africa’s Karoo region. It was the vertebral column of a big herbivorous animal called <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/anapsids/pareiasauria.html">pareiasaur</a>. </p>
<p>The individual vertebral arches were accompanied by the animal’s two hip blades. Fragments of its forelimbs and some parts of its cranium were also visible. All this suggested that I’d found a skeleton nearly 2 meters long, the rest of it hidden below the ground. These 275 million years old fossils had no deformities and were easy to identify. I realised that even someone with no training in palaeontology would have easily find such eroding bones and recognised them as some giant creature’s remains.</p>
<p>This got me thinking about Africa’s earliest fossil seekers, whose identities are largely unknown. Who were they, and how did their discoveries influence our thinking about evolution? How many of their ideas were dismissed or written out of history after the arrival of colonialism and western fossil hunters on the continent? </p>
<p>It’s important to honour these people and their fossil finds, which are examples of both cultural and palaeontological heritage.</p>
<h2>Historical fossil hunting in Africa</h2>
<p>For many, the history of fossil bone discovery in Africa can’t be separated from famous European-led expeditions. Many of these happened during the 19th and 20th centuries and generated breathless headlines around the world. </p>
<p>There was the German expedition at Tendaguru (Tanzania), which yielded the extraordinary skeletons of some of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/African-Dinosaurs-Unearthed-Tendaguru-Expeditions/dp/0253342147">biggest dinosaurs ever found</a>. American and European palaeontologists also mounted several trips to the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-73896-3_9">Fayum depression</a> in Egypt because it was home to mammals of all sorts and sizes some 35 million years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168366/original/file-20170508-20745-17ek8mu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This perfectly preserved backbone actually belongs to a long extinct reptile called pareiasaur.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julien Benoit</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These expeditions captured the public’s imagination. But the archaeological record reveals that fossils were discovered and collected <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9435.html">well before such trips</a>, by amateurs who used them in, for instance, religious rituals.</p>
<p>In her book about fossil discoveries in classical Antiquity, “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9435.html">The First Fossil Hunters</a>”, Adrienne Mayor mentions that gigantic bones were found in Morocco as early as 300 to 400 B.C. She suspects they were fossilised elephants.</p>
<p>One of the most famous ancient fossil discoveries in Africa involved a giant tooth. Christian theologian and philosopher Saint Augustin, the bishop of what is today Algeria, found it near Utica (Tunisia) in the fourth century A.D. It proved to be a <a href="http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/310/1/67.abstract">fossilised elephant molar</a>.</p>
<p>Saint Augustin’s discovery isn’t the oldest example of fossil collection in Africa, though. That title goes to the ancient Egyptians who collected and gathered millions of years old mammalian fossil bones and packed them in linen, likely as a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=9TwhfvU08UcC&source=gbs_book_other_versions">form of worship to Set</a>. These fossil collectors lived 3000 years ago. There’s also evidence of fossilised shark teeth that were collected and pierced to be worn as pendants in ancient Egypt, some <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=9TwhfvU08UcC&source=gbs_book_other_versions">6500 years</a> ago. </p>
<h2>The search for the first fossil collectors</h2>
<p>It’s possible that fossils were recognised in Africa even earlier than this. In Congo, a site dating back 21 000 years has yielded the tooth of a fossil elephant that went extinct millions of years earlier. This <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=9TwhfvU08UcC&source=gbs_book_other_versions">suggests</a> that someone stumbled upon this large fossil tooth and brought it back home, perhaps as a curio.</p>
<p>In addition, an undated Khoisan rock art site in Lesotho appears to represent <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10420940591008971">dinosaur footprints</a>. Fossil tracks dating back more than 200 million years ago are not uncommon in this region, and are often well exposed – lying close to the surface of the earth – so it makes sense that ancient residents would have seen and documented them. The Khoisan could well have been the first people to find fossils in Southern Africa. </p>
<p>Though this hypothesis is still <a href="http://www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/10/18/2013/2013101882378185.pdf">hotly debated</a>, these drawings are accompanied by cave paintings which suggest the Khoisan interpreted these footprints as belonging to a race of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10420940591008971">giant, flightless birds</a>. Today, most scientists consider birds to be dinosaurs’ closest living relatives. This would imply that Khoisans ancestors had a remarkable sense of scientific reconstruction, even though no framework for evolution had yet been described.</p>
<h2>Before Darwin</h2>
<p>The Khoisan weren’t the only people in Africa thinking way ahead of the Darwinian curve. A number of Muslim scholars from the Middle East and North Africa made very explicit, <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/27/priority-first-theory-evolution-600-years-older-darwin/">farsighted statements centuries before Darwin</a>.</p>
<p>For example, a Tunisian scholar named Ibn Khaldun, stated as early as 1377 that “the higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found.” He was probably inspired by his predecessor, the Persian Ibn Miskawayh (932-1030), who stated in the Brethren of Purity that “Animalilty […] finally reaches the frontier of humanity with the Ape which is just a degree below Man in the <a href="http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/uoc/PDF-FILES/%2811%29%20Dr.%20Sultan%20Shah_86_2.pdf">scale of evolution”</a>.</p>
<p>It’s very likely that Darwin didn’t know about these ancient discoveries and medieval authors since they are not mentioned in any of his biographies or works. But the very fact that they exist illustrates Africa’s formidable potential to influence and develop palaeontological research. </p>
<p>The challenge now is to build upon this heritage and raise awareness about these long-forgotten discoveries and theorists. This is an important way to motivate a new generation of African fossil researchers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from The Claude Leon Foundation; PAST and its Scatterlings projects; the National Research Foundation of South Africa; and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences). </span></em></p>
Africa has one of the world’s richest fossil records, and evidence suggests that amateurs collected really important fossils long before professionals arrived on the scene.
Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/68693
2016-11-22T20:00:34Z
2016-11-22T20:00:34Z
How justice can be brought to South Africa’s rooibos industry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146741/original/image-20161121-4544-1l8awlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A worker piles up leaves of rooibos tea for drying. Local people have been marginalised in the industry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are political, environmental and social controversies associated with that most delectable of South African beverages: rooibos tea. The industry is based upon <em>Aspalathus linearis</em>, a leguminous plant from the Fabaceae family that occurs only in South Africa’s fynbos region. The debate enfolds both the plant itself and the traditional use and knowledge that fostered the growth of this lucrative industry.</p>
<p>Rooibos was first commercialised at the turn of the 20th century and is now a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629916305300">R300 million-a-year local industry</a>. It employs 5,000 people and trades up to 15,000 tonnes a year. </p>
<p>But these economic feats have been accompanied by dispossession and adversity stretching back over centuries through colonialism and then apartheid when the government imposed a 40-year monopoly on rooibos.</p>
<p>The inequalities continue. About 350 commercial farmers produce 98% of the harvest. Less than 7% of land on which rooibos tea is grown is controlled by coloured – the name given to mixed race descendants of settlers, former slaves and Khoi or Bantu people – farmers who produce about <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Bek/publication/222301191_'Alternative_foods'_and_community-based_development_Rooibos_tea_production_in_South_Africa's_West_Coast_Mountains/links/02e7e5149b1fe04b26000000.pdf">2% of tea volumes</a>. Despite their involvement in fair trade, many of these farmers remain economically, politically and geographically marginalised.</p>
<h2>Laying claim to rooibos</h2>
<p>There are claims that the rooibos industry grew on the uncompensated back of traditional knowledge. This has led to the launch of demands by indigenous San and Khoi for a stake <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Agribusiness/Tea-industry-urged-to-share-benefits-with-Khoi-San-20150522">in rooibos benefits</a>. </p>
<p>This is in line with South Africa’s <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nema_amendment_act10.pdf">Biodiversity Act</a> and its <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nemba_regulations_g30739rg8831gon138.pdf">2008 Bioprospecting, Access and Benefit Sharing Regulations</a>. Growing from the international <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-en.pdf">Convention on Biological Diversity</a> and its <a href="https://www.cbd.int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf">Nagoya Protocol</a>, the law states that benefits arising from use of indigenous biodiversity should be shared with resource custodians and traditional knowledge holders.</p>
<p>In 2010, the <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-90-481-3123-5_9">South African San Council</a>, one of the organisations representing first indigenous peoples of Africa, wrote to the Director-General of Environmental Affairs to claim their rights as primary knowledge holders of rooibos and honeybush tea. They were joined, in 2013, by the <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/government-system/traditional-leadership">National Khoisan Council</a> – established by former President Mandela to create a platform for Khoisan historical leadership in South Africa’s Constitution. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/traditionalknowledge_rooibosandhoneybushspecies_report.pdf">Government-commissioned research</a> supported claims by San and Khoi. Its report urged those involved in using rooibos or honeybush to negotiate benefit-sharing agreements. These agreements set out the terms under which genetic resources and traditional knowledge should be used and their benefits fairly and equitably shared. </p>
<p>The report caused ructions. The rooibos industry dismissed it as lacking credibility and commissioned its own report, unpublished to date. At the same time it continued to use images of San and Khoi in the marketing of rooibos. Negotiations are now underway to seek resolution between the rooibos industry and the San and Khoisan councils.</p>
<h2>Whose knowledge counts?</h2>
<p>There is a tension between achieving historical and restorative justice for the San and Khoi and recognising the long chain of those who have contributed knowledge in different ways.</p>
<p>The San and Khoi indisputably inhabited rooibos-filled landscapes, but by the end of the 18th century the numbers of San had been decimated. Yet their knowledge of local plants was unquestionably passed on.</p>
<p>Important questions have thus been raised about claiming priority, or who was first.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629916305300">Tryntjie Swarts</a>, for example, was a local woman who located the elusive rooibos seed in ant nests in the 1920s, which led to the industry’s expansion. </p>
<p>Russian immigrant <a href="http://www.rooibosltd.co.za/rooibos-background.php">Barend Ginsberg</a> first established the industry in the early 1900s, his dream being to make rooibos the “Ceylon of the Cape”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/opinion/2016/03/06/Obituary-Annekie-Theron-founder-of-global-rooibos-company-who-built-R80m-business">Annekie Theron</a> was a Pretoria housewife who accidentally discovered that rooibos had a soothing effect on her hyper-allergic baby. This led to a dramatic increase in demand. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146235/original/image-20161116-13521-n3b9k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rooibos industry has largely been built on the back of cheap labour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rooibos Limited</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers and innovators have demonstrated the <a href="http://sarooibos.co.za/">health-giving properties of rooibos</a> and have pioneered different processing techniques. Local farmers have contributed production innovations.</p>
<p>There are questions about who should benefit from agreements under the Biodiversity Act. San and Khoi councils have been proactive in their demands but until recently have not included local coloured rooibos farmers. </p>
<p>These farmers are typically mixed-race descendants of settlers, former slaves and Khoi. They do not easily identify as indigenous or associate themselves with contemporary San or Khoi political structures. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12096/full">plant, not the culture</a>, serves as the economic anchor for many. Now there are moves to include these rooibos farmers in benefit-sharing agreements.</p>
<h2>Adding value</h2>
<p>A potentially larger set of issues also requires resolution. The Biodiversity Convention and Nagoya Protocol are underpinned by the principle of fair and equitable benefit sharing. This is between technology-rich countries of the global North and biodiversity-rich countries of the global South. These principles of remedying global injustice have been all but ignored for rooibos.</p>
<p>For example, flavonoid C-glycosides of the plant have <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629911001086">anti-oxidant properties</a> thought to protect against cancer, heart attacks and strokes. </p>
<p>These are attracting growing international interest but this bioprospecting, meaning the search for useful chemical compounds and genes from biodiversity, has yielded few benefits for South Africa. </p>
<p>By 2016, 141 patents had been filed for rooibos, <a href="http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/ip-development/en/economics/pdf/wo_1013_e_ch_2.pdf">most by Japanese and other foreign companies</a>. These cover a range of uses from pharmaceuticals to teas and cosmetics. Many of these remain inactive but they raise questions about how material was obtained and compliance with South Africa’s Biodiversity Act. </p>
<p>Rooibos tea is a commodity, but research and development for new products is characterised as bioprospecting and requires a permit. A <a href="https://www.cbd.int/abs/side-events/resumed-abs-9/id2114-berne-policy-brief.pdf">controversy</a> involving food giant Nestlé brought these issues to the fore.</p>
<p>The fact that more than 95% of rooibos is bulk exported without value-adding is also cause for concern. A step in the right direction is the recent <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/sas-rooibos-tea-gains-protection-under-eu-deal-20160617">granting of geographic indication status</a> for rooibos. This is an important way to secure the plant’s origin in the market.</p>
<p>There are also invisible injustices, which must be attended to. A central motivation for bioprospecting is that it should enable biodiversity conservation to pay its way by creating incentives to conserve the resource. Yet the conservation of rooibos as a genetic resource, as a habitat and ecosystem, and as a landscape has been all but ignored in the business model of rooibos.</p>
<p>Because the crop is an indigenous species, it is often promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional agriculture. But thousands of hectares of natural mountain fynbos, constituting one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world, are ploughed up every year to grow uniform plantations of rooibos tea.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sanbi.org/sites/default/files/documents/documents/biodiversitybusiness.pdf">footprint for cultivated rooibos has grown</a> from 14,000 hectares in 1991 to over 60,000 hectares today. Chemical inputs are also a concern and soils have been depleted. </p>
<h2>The vision</h2>
<p>Implementing access and benefit sharing in the rooibos industry requires a unifying, integrative and inclusive vision.</p>
<p>Such an approach needs to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>recognise the historical and existing injustices of the sector;</p></li>
<li><p>acknowledge the significant contributions that have been made by traditional knowledge holders, researchers, individuals, farmers and commercial enterprises;</p></li>
<li><p>regulate research and development to optimise benefits from bioprospecting;</p></li>
<li><p>take action to deal with the environmental problems;</p></li>
<li><p>embed access and benefit sharing within a wider developmental agenda involving access to markets, credit and land; and</p></li>
<li><p>set in place restorative measures to transform the industry.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It is clear that the rooibos industry is poised for transformation. Decisions taken today will not only influence the local industry, but will also have an impact across the seas. Access and benefit sharing, while fraught, irreconcilable and fractured, could catalyse just the kind of forum needed to turn challenges into opportunities for growth, redress and a rethink of the rooibos industry.</p>
<p><em>The research described in this article is based on a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629916305300">recent published review</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Wynberg works for the University of Cape Town, South Africa where she holds a research chair funded by the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation. She consulted for the Department of Environmental Affairs for many years on policy issues relating to access and benefit sharing as well as for the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the ABS Capacity Development Initiative. She serves on the Boards of Biowatch South Africa, Environmental Monitoring Group and was previously VIce Chair of the Board of PhytoTrade Africa. This article is written in her personal capacity and does not represent the views of any of these organisations. No benefit will accrue to any organisation.</span></em></p>
The rooibos industry has been accompanied by dispossession and adversity stretching back over centuries.
Rachel Wynberg, Associate Professor and DST/NRF Bio-economy Research Chair, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/57080
2016-04-05T13:48:22Z
2016-04-05T13:48:22Z
Justice is still not being done in the exploitation of indigenous products
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117003/original/image-20160331-28443-f1wtcw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvesting rooibos in South Africa's Suid Bokkeveld. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Weinberg</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been a sea change in the biodiversity business. <a href="https://www.cbd.int/abs/about/default.shtml/">International</a> and <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nema_amendment_act10.pdf">national</a> laws now oblige companies and researchers to “do the right thing”. </p>
<p>Indigenous people and local communities must be included as beneficiaries in ventures exploiting their knowledge or resources. Communities must give their consent before any bioprospecting – exploring biodiversity for valuable genes and biochemicals. And there must be conservation benefits.</p>
<p>But what does this means in practice? The evidence is ambivalent, raising questions about who “qualifies” for benefits and “who was first” in claiming knowledge ownership. There are also questions about how to regulate these <a href="https://www.cbd.int/abs/infokit/brochure-en.pdf">“access and benefit-sharing”</a> arrangements without creating an unwieldy bureaucracy.</p>
<p>In South Africa significant progress has been made to develop workable models of benefit sharing. But, as is the case in many countries, major challenges prevent access and benefit sharing from adding up to social justice.</p>
<h2>How Hoodia paved the way</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most famous case involves the succulent plant <a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789048131228">Hoodia</a>. It has long been used by the indigenous San people, the oldest and most marginalised inhabitants in Africa, to stave off hunger and thirst. Active ingredients of the plant were <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CA94277035&recNum=42&maxRec=42&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=Hoodia+CSIR&tab=NationalBiblio">patented</a> by South Africa’s <a href="http://www.csir.co.za/">Council for Scientific and Industrial Research</a>. Lucrative deals were also signed to develop anti-obesity products. </p>
<p>This was done without the consent or knowledge of San communities, despite being based on their traditional knowledge. The research council was subsequently forced to negotiate with the <a href="http://www.kalaharipeoples.net/article.php?i=258&c=6">South African San Council</a>, leading to a <a href="http://ntww1.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/PTL0002_PGE157_MEDIA_REL?MEDIA_RELEASE_NO=7083643">benefit-sharing agreement</a> in 2003.</p>
<p>Although Hoodia was later abandoned as a commercial product due to safety and efficacy concerns, the case has been precedent setting. San communities claim to be primary traditional knowledge holders of all southern African biodiversity. As such, they are now at the front line of many access and benefit-sharing deals in the region. This has paid rich dividends.</p>
<p>For example, <em>Sceletium tortuosum</em> or kanna, a succulent plant well known for its mood-enhancing properties, is the subject of an agreement between <a href="http://www.zembrin.com/">HG&H Pharmaceuticals </a>and the South African San Council. This has led to South Africa registering its first International Certificate of Compliance under the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2016/pr-2016-03-29-nagoya-protocol-en.pdf">Nagoya Protocol</a>. </p>
<p>An agreement between the South African San Council, the National Khoisan Council and a local pharmaceutical company, Cape Kingdom Nutraceuticals, gives San and Khoi communities 3% of the profits from products using <a href="http://www.buchulife.com/blog/artlcle/south-african-san-council">buchu</a>. The essential oil from buchu is widely used in international flavour and fragrant <a href="http://www.health24.com/Natural/Herbs/Is-buchu-South-Africas-miracle-herb-20150811">industries</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nk_Tl7dK5O0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>A third agreement, founded on the back of the highly successful rooibos tea industry, involves the San Council in an agreement with <a href="http://www.nestle.com/">Nestlé</a>, based on the development of a novel tea product.</p>
<h2>Still cause for concern</h2>
<p>But amid this optimism there is cause for concern. The San have a long history of dispossession, persecution and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=ko109fkqEGUC&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=San+have+a+long+history+of+dispossession,+persecution+and+relocation&source=bl&ots=DR-CJb9ucQ&sig=mD2w_K2P4tInaiFALpFk6ImWXVU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX_vGBmffLAhWDwxQKHW_XBn8Q6AEISTAH#v=onepage&q=San%20have%20a%20long%20history%20of%20dispossession%2C%20persecution%20and%20relocation&f=false">relocation</a>. Most live in remote, arid environments, eking out a living through agriculture, livestock, wage labour and the harvesting of plants. They often don’t have rights or traditional claim to the land they work.</p>
<p>Introducing huge sums of money into these communities could be potentially catastrophic. Their wide dispersion across remote parts makes the situation particularly fraught. Ensuring the equitable distribution of funds is a hard task.</p>
<p>A further complication is that several groups hold traditional knowledge about the same plants to which San communities lay claim. Almost all of such groups have, to varying degrees, the San as their forebears. The most significant of these include <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people-south-africa/khoikhoi">Khoi communities</a>. Originally pastoralists, they are today often urbanised and more and more politicised.</p>
<p>Although absent from Hoodia negotiations, the National Khoisan Council has increasingly become a partner to various benefit-sharing agreements. It was established by former President Nelson Mandela to accommodate historical leadership of Khoi and San within the South African constitutional framework. </p>
<p>What this means in practice is ambiguous, and is often embroiled in the politics of identity and representation. There is a lack of clarity about who exactly “qualifies” as being San or Khoi, and a concern that benefits will flow only to an elite leadership.</p>
<p>In some cases, such as for the kanna plant, San have involved other groups in benefit-sharing arrangements. This was because initial research took place with traditional healers of the indigenous <a href="http://wiki.olc.edu/index.php/The_Nama_People_of_Africa">Nama community</a>. But there are many communities who have customary rights and ownership over plant resources yet do not necessarily identify themselves as “indigenous”. Whose knowledge counts under such circumstances?</p>
<p>Cederberg in the Western Cape, for example, includes some of the only areas where buchu and rooibos grow naturally and are wild-harvested. The communities are typically mixed-race descendants of settlers, former slaves and Khoi people. The harvesting and use of these plants have formed a central part of their livelihoods and cultures for decades.</p>
<p>Most of these harvesters and small-scale farmers remain completely unaware of the access and benefit-sharing regulations that protect their rights. Yet they are often traditional knowledge holders. </p>
<p>They also do not easily associate themselves with San and Khoi political structures. </p>
<p>A South African natural products industry that remains largely untransformed, with racially skewed white ownership, aggravates this. So too does the global landscape which is often monopolised by a handful of large corporations.</p>
<h2>Broader vision needed</h2>
<p>More regulation does not necessarily help. Government approaches have been highly managerial, working in silos and territorial of their individual mandates. Insufficient human capacity, limited community experience and poor knowledge of bioprospecting mar regulators dealing with access and benefit sharing – despite good intentions.</p>
<p>A persistent backdrop is the politically charged nature of bioprospecting and the oft-competing directives to commoditise biodiversity and traditional knowledge. The concern, borne out in South Africa, is that governments entangle themselves in unworkable laws and adopt a “tick-box approach”. This aims to ensure regulatory compliance rather than social justice and economic development.</p>
<p>Such experiences provide rich lessons for implementation of international agreements like the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2016/pr-2016-03-29-nagoya-protocol-en.pdf">Nagoya Protocol</a>, as well as wider initiatives aiming to reduce societal inequalities.</p>
<p>Importantly, they emphasise that establishing greater benefits for indigenous people and local communities is essential. But this won’t be achieved by access and benefit sharing alone. Equal attention should be given to: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>building the long-term financial and technical capacity of communities to engage in commercialisation;</p></li>
<li><p>transferring technology to African countries;</p></li>
<li><p>adding value to raw material;</p></li>
<li><p>facilitating market access; and</p></li>
<li><p>interrogating the unequal power relations of African natural product value chains.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Realising such changes will not be possible without securing rights to the resources, knowledge and land that have been alienated over centuries. Also to be considered are the broader threats causing rampant loss of biodiversity and culture. These include mining and industrial agriculture. Greater integration of these issues is vital if the objectives of achieving equity, conservation and economic development are to be achieved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Wynberg works for the University of Cape Town, South Africa where she holds a research chair funded by the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation. She consulted for the Department of Environmental Affairs for many years on policy issues relating to access and benefit sharing as well as for the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the ABS Capacity Development Initiative.
She serves on the Boards of Biowatch South Africa, Environmental Monitoring Group and was previously VIce Chair of the Board of PhytoTrade Africa.
This article is written in her personal capacity and does not represent the views of any of these organisations. No benefit will accrue to any organisation.</span></em></p>
Good models have been developed to ensure benefit sharing in the biodiversity business. But major challenges prevent developing countries from translating this into social justice.
Rachel Wynberg, Associate Professor and DST/NRF Bio-economy Research Chair, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53594
2016-02-04T04:27:35Z
2016-02-04T04:27:35Z
How the origin of the KhoiSan tells us that ‘race’ has no place in human ancestry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109968/original/image-20160202-32222-14dj62q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The annual 'Living Landscapes' procession is aimed at raising awareness of the Cedarberg's KhoiSan cultural heritage. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ancient origins, anatomical, linguistic and genetic distinctiveness of southern African San and Khoikhoi people are matters of confusion and debate. They are variously described as the world’s first or oldest people; Africa’s first or oldest people, or the <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Khoi-San-want-recognition-as-first-people-of-SA-20150820">first people</a> of South Africa.</p>
<p>They are in fact two evolutionarily related but culturally distinct groups of populations that have occupied southern Africa for up to 140,000 years. Their first-people status is due to the fact that they commonly retain genetic elements of the most ancient <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
<p>This conclusion is based on evidence from specific types of DNA. This evidence also demonstrates that other sub-Saharan human populations retain genetic bits and pieces of DNA from non-KhoiSan primordial humans. These pre-date their out-of-Africa colonisation of the balance of the world.</p>
<p>What is important in the debate on the origins of, and diversity among, population groups of <em>Homo sapiens</em> is to establish what cannot, and should not, be derived from the various DNA evidence used to support the KhoiSan-as-first-people hypothesis. </p>
<p>This is that the KhoiSan, or any other groups of humans, can be assigned to evolutionarily meaningful “races” – or subspecies in biological classification.</p>
<p>The DNA evidence, if interpreted incorrectly, could be used to support the findings of “scientific” racial anthropologists such as <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Carleton_Stevens_Coon.aspx">Carleton S. Coon</a>. </p>
<p>As recently as 1962, Coon “recognised” the KhoiSan as the Capoid race. He based this on the distinctive anatomical features of the Capoids from those he used to designate the Congoid race. These include golden brown rather than sepia-coloured skin, the presence of epicanthic eye folds, prominent cheekbones and <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steatopygia">steatopygia</a>.</p>
<p>But, if correctly interpreted, the scientific evidence points quite to the contrary.</p>
<h2>Human evolution cannot be drawn like a tree</h2>
<p>If one were to compare the entire DNA genomes from representatively sampled human populations from around the world, the resulting relationships would look more like an evolutionarily reticulated chain-link fence. In other words, a network rather than a tree. This applies to even purportedly racially important anatomical features.</p>
<p>This is because human population groups worldwide are highly homogeneous (99.5% similar) genetically and their anatomical features vary in an uncorrelated fashion over the landscape. </p>
<p>These groups are, in evolutionary terms, very recent entities that have no biological or <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-has-been-abused-through-the-ages-to-promote-racism-50629">taxonomic</a> significance.</p>
<p>The DNA evidence used to discover the human genetic “footprints” that characterise the KhoiSan, and other diverging populations, is today easily put together. Forensic pathologists use it to determine an unidentifiable corpse’s population group. This process has been popularised on television shows such as <a href="http://www.tvmuse.com/tv-shows/CSI--Crime-Scene-Investigation_8779/">CSI</a> and <a href="http://www.fox.com/bones">Bones</a>.</p>
<p>This DNA evidence comes from:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Y chromosome polymorphisms inherited without recombination along <a href="http://www.ramsdale.org/dna13.htm">male lineages</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, from nuclear <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/full/409821a0.html">DNA</a>; and</p></li>
<li><p>most especially from <a href="http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/3/757.full.pdf+html">mitochondrial DNA</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Mitochondria are organelles within a cell that have their own independent DNA separate from that in the nucleus that determines an organism’s external appearance and physiology. They are involved with cellular respiration and nothing more.</p>
<p>Mitochondrial DNA allows the detection of direct genetically “ungarbled” connections among evolutionarily evolved human population groups. This is because a component of it evolves much faster than the bulk of nuclear DNA. Also, mitochondrial DNA is inherited maternally and is thus not intermixed with paternal DNA during reproduction.</p>
<p>Some evolutionary genetic anthropologists ignore the overwhelming balance of evidence that there is no evolutionarily significant <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-has-been-abused-through-the-ages-to-promote-racism-50629">racial variation</a> in either genes or anatomy. Instead they focus on these very few bits and pieces of DNA that, in evolutionary terms, change rapidly. This way they reach distorted conclusions about discernible “races” within the human species.</p>
<h2>Why there is only one race</h2>
<p>Recent DNA results used to detect human population genetic “footprints” is <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24988-humanitys-forgotten-return-to-africa-revealed-in-dna/">summarised</a> in: Humanity’s forgotten return to Africa revealed in DNA.</p>
<p>The story it tells is as follows. About 140,000 years ago human populations from East or Central Africa moved southwards and “colonise” western southern Africa. The probable nearest living relatives of these source populations are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text">Hadzabe people</a> from north-central Tanzania; and</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0509/feature5/">Mbuti pygmies</a> from the eastern Congo.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This migration gave rise to the present-day <a href="http://www.san.org.za/history.php">San hunter-gatherers</a>.</p>
<p>Much more recently – about 2000 years ago – there was a second movement of “colonists” from the north into southwestern Africa. They gave rise to the pastoral <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people-south-africa/khoikhoi">Khoikhoi people</a>.</p>
<p>This second group of “settlers” carried within its genome bits of Eurasian-sourced – and even some <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis">Neanderthal</a> – DNA derived from European humans who had returned to Africa about 3000 years ago.</p>
<p>Subsequent to this second colonisation, there was intermixing between the Khoikhoi and San. This gave rise to their close anatomical similarities despite the fact that they retained their marked cultural and linguistic differences.</p>
<p>Much more recently – about 1700 years ago – there was a third major north-to-south migration. This time it was the Bantu-speaking, black Africans into south-eastern Africa. Those “settlers” that eventually became the Xhosa peoples moved westwards and encountered the Khoikhoi, whom they drove further west and intermixed with genetically.</p>
<p>So, it is now possible for genetic evolutionary “anthropologists” to distinguish population differences among humans to infer the timing of their movements throughout the globe.</p>
<p>It is even possible to map one’s genetic “ancestry”, as South African President Nelson Mandela did, indicating that he possessed some <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/dna-test-may-reveal-youre-related-to-madiba-1.268615">KhoiSan</a> DNA.</p>
<p>The important point is that this evidence should not be used to assert that these differences, or shared bits of “ancient” DNA, support the identification of multiple human “races”. In fact, it confirms the wise assertion by the pan-Africanist leader, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/robert-sobukwe-inaugural-speech-april-1959">Robert Sobukwe</a>, that there was only one race: the human race.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Before his retirement Tim Crowe received funding from the South African National Research Foundation and Department of Science and Technology through an award to the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology as DST/NRF Centre of Excellence.</span></em></p>
Human population groups worldwide are highly homogeneous genetically. They are in fact 99.5% similar and their anatomical features vary in an uncorrelated fashion over the landscape.
Tim Crowe, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.