Primordialist paranoia, essentialism and South African realities: participating and observing across the ‘anthropological divide’

Abstract

This article interrogates the exigency of some of the current concerns of South African anthropology. The contribution is autobiographical and occasionally anecdotal; personal narrative hence shapes the mode of text development. In considering the current state of the South African anthropology project, the following, inter alia, receive particular attention: the legitimacy of the perseverance with the notion of an ‘anthropological divide’; the persistence of discrete ‘quoting circles’; a debilitating past which still haunts the contemporary anthropological enterprise and results in a kind of primordialist paranoia; and a state of selective denial as regards prevailing perceived, lived and legislated South African realities—the new essentialist challenge for constructivist anthropologists.