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Frances Baard's and Helen Joseph's struggle against apartheid ...

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Musiiwa - <strong>Frances</strong> Baard’s <strong>and</strong> <strong>Helen</strong> Joseph’s <strong>struggle</strong><br />

characterizes human existence”. 40 It seeks to bring to the fore the relationship between a<br />

method of inquiry <strong>and</strong> the conditions that influence people’s lived experiences. In the<br />

case of this article then, hermeneutics begs the question: What is the relationship<br />

between Baard’s life history <strong>and</strong> Joseph’s autobiography, <strong>and</strong> their perception of their<br />

experiences of the <strong>struggle</strong> <strong>against</strong> <strong>apartheid</strong>? To be more explicit: What kind of<br />

knowledge do a life history <strong>and</strong> an autobiography bring to the fore if they depend on<br />

people’s perception <strong>and</strong> interpretation of their lived experiences? For example, the 1956<br />

anti-pass campaigns constitute an important women dominated epoch in the <strong>struggle</strong><br />

<strong>against</strong> <strong>apartheid</strong>, but how do <strong>Helen</strong> Joseph <strong>and</strong> <strong>Frances</strong> Baard perceive <strong>and</strong> present<br />

their experiences of the <strong>struggle</strong> <strong>against</strong> <strong>apartheid</strong>? The question of women’s<br />

representation of the ways in which they perceive <strong>and</strong> interpret the experiences of their<br />

<strong>struggle</strong> <strong>against</strong> <strong>apartheid</strong> underlies the hermeneutic aspect of this article.<br />

With regard to methods of historical inquiry, hermeneutics posits two basic<br />

tenets. The first is that a life history <strong>and</strong> an autobiography are influenced by subjectivity.<br />

However, the life history poses a significant epistemological issue in hermeneutics.<br />

Central to hermeneutics in life histories is the existence of different subjective worlds that<br />

dwell on the use of predetermined questions or ideas. As Gelya Frank notes: “unlike the<br />

autobiography, with which it is frequently grouped, the life history is a collaboration<br />

involving the consciousness of the investigator as well as the subject.” 41 The subject in a<br />

life history has to contend not only with her subjective views, but also with the<br />

interviewer who also has her own subjective views about the world. This is well<br />

illustrated in the introductory chapter to Baard’s life history when Barbie Schreiner, the<br />

researcher, becomes the feminist spokesperson who ascribes a Western oriented identity<br />

on Baard. She explains: “This book tells the story of <strong>Frances</strong> Baard, a black South African<br />

woman who was a trade unionist ...”. 42 In that process, she shows that any kind of<br />

methodological inquiry informed by theoretical pre-underst<strong>and</strong>ing imposes an alien set of<br />

meanings (categories such as gender, race or class) on individuals, <strong>and</strong> in so doing fails to<br />

bring the subject’s own truth of herself. Baard does not seem to contest the ascription,<br />

“black”, but rather proudly re-inscribes <strong>and</strong> crystallises “blackness” on herself <strong>and</strong> people<br />

of her own race.<br />

The second tenet of hermeneutics is that as a philosophical discipline, it brings<br />

into focus the personal narrative as a text or discourse to be interpreted. In other words,<br />

a life history or an autobiography is not a historical text in its own right, but “it is a text or<br />

document” 43 that communicates self-ascribed information about a particular<br />

phenomenon. With reference to Baard’s life history, Schreiner says that “this book does<br />

not only tell her story. It tells part of our history”. 44 Similarly Joseph attests that her<br />

autobiography, while recounting her own story, is “even more” a history of the South<br />

African <strong>struggle</strong> <strong>against</strong> racist minority rule. 45 If the life history or the autobiography is<br />

not the history, what is the text intended to communicate? The text portrays women’s<br />

perception of their experiences as witnesses <strong>and</strong> constructors of historical legacies that<br />

inform the trajectory of South Africans’ <strong>struggle</strong> for independence. However, this<br />

approach gives primacy to the interpretive process that intervenes between the<br />

interpreter <strong>and</strong> that which is to be interpreted, where an underst<strong>and</strong>ing of an event or<br />

40. P. Ricoeur, “History <strong>and</strong> Hermeneutics”, The Journal of Philosophy, 73, 19, 1976, p 683.<br />

41. G. Frank, “Finding the Common Denominator: A Phenomenological Critique of Life History<br />

Method”, Ethos, 7, 1, 1979, p 70.<br />

42. Baard <strong>and</strong> Schreiner, My Spirit is Not Banned, “Introduction” (emphasis added).<br />

43. Frank, “Finding the Common Denominator”, p 70.<br />

44. Baard <strong>and</strong> Schreiner, My Spirit is Not Banned, “Introduction” (emphasis added).<br />

45. Joseph, Side by Side, Part 1, Chapter 10, “Trial by Detention”.<br />

73

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