Figuring the Animal in Post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This special issue, which constitutes the first Human-Animal Studies edited collection in southern Africa, includes vibrant, creative and theoretically far-ranging articles. Even as these attest to the transdisciplinary nature of Human-Animal Studies (HAS), the influence of such core narratives as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland resonate, with literature anchoring not only the historical research by Sandra Swart included here but also the article and artwork by Wilma Cruise on the figural animal. All the articles in this edition have been gleaned from the HAS colloquia which have their own narrative. Held at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape, the first colloquium, Figuring the in Post-Apartheid South in 2011 was followed by Animal Vulnerabilities (2012) before reprising Figuring the in Post-Apartheid South Africa II (2013). This year the theme was Animal Absence/Animal Presence. articles included in this special issue constitute a representative glimpse of the literary, historical and figural debates at these events, but other non-represented discussions also contributed substantially to making the colloquia vibrantly transdisciplinary. Don Pinnock and Adam Cruise delivered papers on effective strategies for elephant activism. Duncan Brown discussed the indigeneity of trout in the postcolony. Sharyn Spicer asked: What's Race Got to Do with It? in her investigation into the pet-keeping practices of a sample of township residents. Shirley Brooks and Dayne Botha presented research on a project to locate owls in a number of townships, and critiqued the discrepancy between discursive constructions and practical consequences. Brooks also co-presented a paper with Mahlatse Moeng on the social-nature divide in relation to flamingos at Kamfers Dam, Kimberley. terms Studies (AS) and Human-Animal Studies (HAS) have been used almost interchangeably in this fairly recent, burgeoning field. Aaron Gross and Anne Vallely entitle their edited collection Animals and the Human Imagination: A Companion to Studies (2012), whereas Garry Marvin and Susan McHugh call their collection the Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies (2014). Either way, AS or/and HAS challenge accepted beliefs as their basic theories, and subsequent research undermines the dualism of anthropocentric thought underpinning the humanities. HAS as a term has the edge for us, as it suggests the intertwining of human and non-human and the belief that animals cannot exist in isolation in our research or imaginations. Critical Studies, which has become more visible locally in recent years, has its provenance in social justice concerns. (1) Since roughly 2000, the animal turn in the humanities has drawn heavily from Ur theorists Jacques Derrida via That Therefore I am and J.M. Coetzee via Lives of Animals both of whom connect animals and humans. Both texts insist on the presence of the live, embodied non-human animal. While Derrida opens a philosophical space for the to be empowered to respond (rather than merely reacting), Coetzee has Elizabeth Costello focus on representations of animals through philosophers and poets and maintain that poets are more primed and equipped to imagine and represent animals. If the essays in this special issue engage with international theorists and philosophers, all evince a deep sense of the embodied in southern Africa (and within a broader political context). In The Post-humanist Gaze: Reading Fanie Jason's Photo Essay on Carting Lives, Woodward discusses Fanie Jason's photographs of carthorses and humans on the Cape Flats in the class-based carting industry. In his article Touching Trunks: Elephants, Ecology and Compassion in Three Southern African Teen Novels, Wylie stresses the pedagogic urgency of teaching children about the future of elephants within the environment of southern Africa. …