8 documents in search of a theory

8 documents in search of a theory

Giving a lecture to an assembled group of school students meeting from across a number of Scottish schools who are specialising in South Africa as part of their Scottish Highers in History seems to have become an annual event. Last year I spoke to them about the hidden side of the development of nationalism in South Africa and particularly the part played by white women in this. This year I’m going to speak about something I find quite intriguing. I’ve picked a number of documents – some written, some photographic – that are concerned in one way or another with race matters. They span the period 1835 to 1933, they originate from different parts of what became South Africa in 1910, and in so far as they tell a story it is one with several beginnings, several middles, and several culminations, not necessarily in that order. They concern someone’s indentures, the contract of hire for a farm labourer, a photograph of leaders of a pressure group organisation, a letter about labour recruitment, an amended draft page from an official document, a photograph of a black leader and white supporter, an Act passed by the South African parliament, and a letter concerned with the Coalition formed in the wake of the 1933 political election. Actually I would have preferred there to have been just six (but was unable to whittle the number down), and then the title of this blog would have paralleled that of Pirandello’s play, ‘Six characters in search of an author’. This is because I am in search of a theory that would link and explain them, in the sense that they tell different stories rather than the relentless unfolding of one straightforward narrative about race and racism, but clearly they are also linked because they occurred in the same country and helped add up to a historiographical picture that has become very familiar. They tell of significant diversities and also, somewhere within this, of emergent regularities. It’s just like doing a jigsaw puzzle composed of 1500 pieces but for which only 6 or 8 are in the box, although the picture on its lid is very clear. Help!

 

Last updated: 24 October 2019


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