Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
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inakiilg the positions of historian-write1-: interviewer-researC[ler,<br />
soul-ce explicit or problen~ati~.<br />
inlervjcwed- he general (Kas Mai~~e standing for the experience of shal-mopping and Maine's<br />
rience that of South African history told large) Hofineyr argues that ally interaction<br />
More all^, tile biography, despite the far more s~lggestiv~ concern with<br />
issues of '10~~ peasants speak' hinted at in an earlier article by van onaelel1 (19931,<br />
does 'Iot ell.@ge ~ ~ S Lof I ~ the S social constr~lctions of langLlage, lnellloiy<br />
and histoi~ 'The<br />
~~nvc~ltionai approach to 'memoly 3s evidellce' relnitins firmly in<br />
piace Tt7e Seed is h4ne is not just the story of Kas Maine, but it is<br />
suggested that it is<br />
horv Maine himself would tell it-it is representative of his<br />
eel-, ora1ity and literacy needs to be sought in the details of each particular context.<br />
us literate goverlxnent bureaucracies, schooling and religion were 'oralised' in<br />
porta~lt ways, while the chiefdom, and various agents within it, both constructed,<br />
propriated alld transfor~ned the meanings of writing and of identity. In other<br />
uations, though, opposing notions of literacy and orality providecl 'metaphorical<br />
*ks of ilnages through which both historical life and political life iwe1i-e<br />
inter~retaticlll. Yet because of the nature of expression and translation of that onceptualised' and acted upon, as in the cases of legitimating chiefly rule and of<br />
ir'cmory, Kas Maine's actual voice is silenced. Maine llardly lnakes it onto the 535 gagiIlg forced removals. Thus a central argument is that while it was overall the<br />
pages 'in his Ow11 voice', i.e. in extended quotatio,ls of liis o1vlr words,<br />
his memory enables asignificant rc\vriting ofthe past.<br />
the evidence<br />
arbcd wire (representative of a 'literate' intervention) that caged the spoken word' the<br />
erweavillg and confrontations between orality and literacy, and of the oral<br />
In addition, Van Onselen (1 996:s) argues that<br />
allce politics of Chiefdoms a~ld the control of literate institutions, was a 1na.b<br />
fpolitical conflict on the Higl~veld (Hofineyr 1993: 9- 15; Chs 3 &4).<br />
KasMaille's odyssey was b~lt a moment in a tiny corner orawider world that<br />
thousands of black South Afiican sharecropping falnilics caine to on a<br />
.journey to nowhcrc.<br />
In seilse Kas Maine also stands for the subaltern voice of a]] sharecroppcm.<br />
lneinory 01- melnol-ies also stand for collective ones. The paradox that this is<br />
reaily Van Onselen's sto~. his voice. his practice ofwriting history involving lllelnoly<br />
as evidence which is allnost obsessively sifted, checked, ordered, referellced and crossreferenced,<br />
evaluated and processed by him--the professional historian-into the<br />
remel~brance of real collective subaltern experience of stmcture and ofagency should<br />
also not be forgotten.<br />
Flofmeyrls work moves significantly beyond the boundaries of social history<br />
her analysis of the form and power of language in shaping meanin!: and detelmining<br />
tern subject positions a South Africa11 locality. Equally, she delnonstrates the<br />
rtance new theoretical insights around concerns wit11 lallguage, intellectual<br />
and identity forlnation. These coinbinations of 'oral and written technologies<br />
illlellect7, although emphasised as within particular sets of social and political<br />
struggles (of household, gender and place, for example) are also engagedby<br />
as within the constitutive and 'cognitive' nature of language. The<br />
tllis has for subjectivity, agency and popular and political conscio~lsn~s~<br />
explored in the book as are the relatio~lsl~ips and encounters betweell<br />
If Van Onselen provides one model of contemporary history writing, then<br />
Isabel Hofine~r's work provides a significantly different mode]. H~~ book, we sPefld<br />
021r Years 0s 0 Tole i.s ToId (1993) is also eno~mously reliallt on forms of oral<br />
and of engaging val~ing forms of subaltern agency and dolniIlance. 1t also<br />
broadly covers a similar periodisation, and is also focused on the Highveld It is,<br />
however about a chiefdom, rather than an individual sharecropper Hofmeyr is<br />
therefore concerned with broader patterns of oral historical narrative and with the<br />
nature and forin of oral it^, literacy and intellectual meanings of the past in range of<br />
formats, including those of memoty, manuscript and lnonumellt.<br />
The study provides three crucial thresholds againstwhich the wider study of<br />
oralit~ and literacy in Makopane 01- Valtyn is explored"'. Ratller than drawing the local<br />
tradition and history in the construction of local meanings, power and identity<br />
iculations ofpasts and presents.<br />
T~~ aspects stalldout in Hoflneyr's account. The first is the reflexive nature of<br />
resentation, There is a conscious attempt to continually relate her position as<br />
and researcher, the narratives of her informants and the evidence of differing<br />
in a lnallller that is explicated on tile page". The result is an engagellle~lt with<br />
r\i and mert,ol.y thfi allows several different but interrelated dl-;mas to unfold.<br />
le the lneanings and terms of their construction also rclnain visible, and of the<br />
cess ofllistory making. Tl)is also means that, secondly, Nofineyr is tocha"engc<br />
ions of tradition and of for example, through all analysis that situates<br />
--<br />
lil ..<br />
1 he first thrcs1loId is that ol'thc conversion oithe chiefcfom is1to a rllra] localion in the<br />
togetller\vitll he adve~it aliil impact of inissionaries and the Iileracy tllcy [,l.ougl,t in this<br />
second llircsl~old of ch~~iice occ~trrcd 1Lon1 tllc 1930s. wit11 advent oj.direct il,tervcr<br />
fhc brm of 'betterment'. ~~iicler<br />
Dcpai.t1llc~lt in i~a~.ticulnr. T J ~ ui-ili~ tIrc 1950s t~iis was 1lapliazal-il and llal[-lleartcd, but the<br />
2s tilil-ci tlli.e~~l~lti Of'corrcivc :~partl~cid social cnginccring emerged, tile intl-nsion<br />
~('lilical autiloi.ily illli) Lilr .Ilea~-l' ofti~e cl~ielao~n \\,;is 111;1rked. ,J'llis<br />
alj and ccvritte~l7<br />
worlds in differing cultural and intel!ectual contexts. 111 the Process<br />
vely notions of modernity alld tradition are rendered problematic, and once read<br />
hrough the different categories of orality and literacy, 'tradition' becomes visible as<br />
the institution oi. the literale [,ureauclacies o[tlle native I should be noled that the appendices of the book, containing icllgtll~<br />
scgillents of<br />
foms a s,g,lifica,It of tllc overall bvork, as pal-t or' Ilcl. more 1-cflesiv~ al'd Inore<br />
LIS el,gagemcnl \.vitll taking tlIese llisloricai ilarratives SCI-iousi) . At tilt sallle time.<br />
arc<br />
jjnallv cfkct<br />
serics oi'Sorced reriloviils 111 llri: 1060.;. also lellgthy scctiolls wit{,jll her lest itself where these issues are expiici[l~ addrcss~d.<br />
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