Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-15T06:58:57.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

2020 ASR Distinguished Lecture: African Voices Matter: Reflections on Fifty Years of Historical Research in Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2021

Robert Edgar
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The recent racial reckoning has challenged scholars to recover Black voices that have been erased from historical accounts. This essay is my reflections on the challenges I faced in conducting research on African voices in politically and racially charged settings in Lesotho and South Africa over the past half century. After the political atmosphere began changing in South Africa in 1990, I served the individuals and communities I write about by rectifying historical injustices such as returning a holy relic to a religious group, the Israelites, and facilitating the return of remains of Nontetha Nkwenkwe from a pauper’s grave in Pretoria to her home.

Résumé

Résumé

La récente prise de conscience raciale a mis au défi les chercheurs de retrouver les voix noires qui ont été effacées des récits historiques. Cet essai est une réflexion sur les défis auxquels j’ai été confronté en menant des recherches sur les voix africaines dans des contextes politiquement et racialement chargés au Lesotho et en Afrique du Sud au cours du dernier demi-siècle. Après que l’atmosphère politique a commencé à changer en Afrique du Sud en 1990, j’ai rendu service aux individus et aux communautés sur lesquels j’écris en rectifiant des injustices historiques telles que la restitution d’une relique sacrée à un groupe religieux, les Israélites et en facilitant le retour des dépouilles mortelles de Nontetha Nkwenkwe d’une tombe de pauvre à Pretoria à sa ville natale.

Resumo

Resumo

O recente ajuste de contas racial desafiou os estudiosos a recuperar as vozes negras que foram apagadas dos relatos históricos. Este ensaio é a minha reflexão sobre os desafios que enfrentei ao conduzir uma investigação sobre vozes africanas em cenários de carga política e racial no Lesoto e na África do Sul ao longo do último meio século. Depois de a atmosfera política ter começado a mudar na África do Sul em 1990, servi os indivíduos e as comunidades sobre as quais escrevo retificando injustiças históricas, como a devolução de uma relíquia sagrada a um grupo religioso, os Israelitas, e a facilitação do regresso a casa dos restos mortais de Nontetha Nkwenkwe do túmulo de um indigente em Pretória.

Keywords

African voicesapartheidmillenarian movementsNontetha NkwenkweEnoch MgijimaBulhoek MassacreA.P. MdaEdwin Thabo Mofutsanyana
Type
Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 760 - 775
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the African Studies Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Booth, Douglas. 1998. The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Davidson, Basil. 1964. African Past: Chronicles from Antiquity and Modern Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.Google Scholar
Davidson, Basil. 1967. History of West Africa, 1000–1800. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Edgar, Robert. 1988. Prophets with Honour: A Documentary History of Lekhotla la Bafo. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.Google Scholar
Edgar, Robert. 2005. The Making of an African Communist: Edwin Thabo Mofutsanyana and the Communist Party of South Africa, 1927–1939. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press.Google Scholar
Edgar, Robert. 2018. The Finger of God: Enoch Mgijima, the Israelites, and the Bulhoek Massacre in South Africa. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgar, Robert, and ka Msumza, Luyanda. 1996. Freedom in Our Lifetime: The Collected Writings of Anton Muziwakhe Lembede. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Edgar, Robert, and ka Msumza, Luyanda. 2018. Africa’s Cause Must Triumph: The Collected Writings of A.P. Mda. Cape Town: Human Science Research Council.Google Scholar
Edgar, Robert, and Sapire, Hilary. 2000. African Apocalypse: The Story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, a Twentieth Century South African Prophet. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Ellsworth, Scott, 2021. The Truth Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. San Antonio: Trinity University Press.Google Scholar
Fage, J.D. 1981. “The Development of African Historiography.” In UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. 1, edited by Ki-Zerbo, J., 25–42. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fage, J.D., and Oliver, Roland. 1966. Short History of Africa. Harmondsworth, Penguin.Google Scholar
Grann, David. 2017. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Green, Toby. 2020. A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Hayes, Patricia, and Minkley, Gary, eds. 2019. Ambivalent: Photography and Visibility in African History. Athens: Ohio University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Karlos (2021). 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, James. 2021. Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race Riot and its Legacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Landau, Paul, and Kaspin, Deborah, eds. 2003. Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Madigen, Tim 2001. Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
McNeil, Donald. 1998. “Mnqaba Journal: South Africa Returns a Prophetess to Her People.” New York Times, 18 November.Google Scholar
O’Meara, Dan. 1996. Forty Lost Years: The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party, 1948–1994. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Posel, Deborah. 1991. Making of Apartheid, 1948–1961: Conflict and Compromise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, T.O. 1970. The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Vinson, Robert. 2012. The Americans are Coming! African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Welsh, David. 2009. Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Witz, Leslie, Minkley, Gary, and Rassool, Ciraj. 2017. Unsettled History: Making South African Public Pasts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worger, William, and Clark, Nancy. 2016. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar