Today we are featuring a book review of Sasinda Futhi Siselapha (Still Here), written by Luce Graduate Fellow Jeni Francisco. All credit is given to Frontiers and their book review series, which you can find here.
Sasinda Futhi Siselapha (Still Here) is an edited volume of interdisciplinary scholars who work on ‘post-apartheid’ South Africa. The strength of the edited volume lies in the authors’ commitment to what feminist scholar Amina Mama calls the idea of activist scholarship[i]. While allowing for diversity in feminist methods and feminist tools, the idea of activist scholarship, according to Mama, offers a critical approach to scholarship that centers on a feminist ethic regarding the researcher’s social responsibility and constant examination of ethical tensions that may contradict feminist commitments.
One dilemma explored throughout the essays is the role of the diaspora. Zethu Cakata’s essay, South Africa belongs to all who speak colonial languages, argues that reclaiming indigenous languages is a powerful mode of decolonization. She refers to the parable Amandla Engwenya Asemanzini (the crocodile’s strength lies in the water) to remind African activists that a person is truly powerful in her own territory. Here, Cakata conceptualizes territory as one’s culture, being, and essence as opposed to a fixed territorial marker or nation-state. And according to Cakata, the deterioration of one’s essence begins with the loss of language. The African diaspora is not specifically mentioned in Cakata’s analysis. However, it can be inferred that the parable accounts for the diaspora’s role as they are also subject to the loss of their culture, being, and essence through assimilation.