Cultural Studies and development trends in the “New South Africa”: Some critical perspectives

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE HAS a three-fold purpose: First, it reviews the key concerns contained in Keyan Tomaselli's Introduction entitled African Cultural Studies and Global Academic Hegemony. Second, as an ancillary to Tomaselli's essay, this paper outlines some related aspects of development that need to be considered to clarify and accent the dialectical nexus between theoretical reflection and human development. (1) Third, Cultural Studies, as an academic pursuit, sheds light on the human condition, and as such, provides an appropriate entree to the broader concerns in the realm of human development. My article, then, seeks to make a contribution towards clarifying some of these crucial aspects undergirding existing relations of power--economically, politically, ideologically and theoretically--with a view to expediting our collective understanding and improvement of the human condition. The salient concerns of cultural studies In his essay entitled African Cultural Studies and Global Academic Hegemony Tomaselli (1998a; 1998b) details the evolution and permutation of cultural studies--a type of pluralisation of sub-categories of interest in an increasingly transdisciplinary field of inquiry. He concludes his survey of the present status of the field by arguing for a `reconceptualisation' and a contextualisation of the human condition by `indigenising' the subject and object of inquiry. This would be done by focusing more rigorously on the experiences, expectations and interpretative frames of reference within specific societies. Such a re-orientation, in Tomaselli's view, would allow for a greater degree of recognition that non-Western cultures, such as those of Africa, and by extension, of the rest of the so-called `Third World', do constitute part--and even a significant part--of human culture. A broadening of the cultural horizon would not merely encourage a better grasp--at least academically--of the differentiated `Other'. Such a multi-focal perspective on subordinated cultures would facilitate meaningful dialogue, communication, cross-fertilization and open-endedness among different communities within the human family. Indeed, at the dawn of the 21st Century, such a project in cultural sensitisation is not merely imminently apposite; it is ultimately a pedagogical and a moral imperative as we continue our quest to improve the human condition. Privileging the local at the expense of the global Tomaselli refers to the work of the late EP Thompson and implies that his work is at once pioneering and a disclosure of ordinary people's ability to be agents of change within specific social settings. The raison d'etre of Thompson's research was followed in South Africa by Charles van Onselen (1982a; 1982b). Focusing on history from the bottom-up became a cause celebre of `people's history'. Whilst focusing on the exceptional circumstances of ordinary people and their heroic struggles to live meaningfully, researchers, emphasising the history of the subaltern, manage to indicate that structures--however inert, powerful and apparently impenetrable--do not inexorably determine social destiny (cf. eg. Spivak, 1988; Mouffe, 1988). At worst, structural constraints limit social change, but they can never really eliminate the human drive for justice. Indeed, humans, through their sheer determination, consistency of will-power, experiential insight and vision, do effect change--however small these changes might be (cf. eg. Williams, 1961; Toye, 1989). Micro-level investigations into the multiple experiences of ordinary people gave rise to a whole range of theoretical, heuristic and conceptual devices to reflect the import of the exceptional, the local, the small and micro-level dynamics undergirding social change (cf. eg. Lyotard, 1984). Social theory, as a consequence, teams up with post-modernist phrases such as `particularities', `specificities of circumstances', and `conjunctural imperatives', that is, episodic experiences as a leverage to effect gradual, yet important change). …