Post-apartheid Era Research Articles

Human Rights Education in South Africa: Ideological Shifts and Curricular Reforms

Using a mixed quantitative and qualitative analysis of 42 South African textbooks from the postapartheid era, we seek to understand how global human rights discourses manifest in South African text...

The concurrence of breach of contract and delict in a constitutional context

In this article, we tackle the legal question of the concurrence of a breach of contract and a delict through the lens of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. We begin by outlining the approach of the judiciary and reiterating the inconsistency between the treatment of traditional subjective interests (in other words physical harm to person and/or property) and purely economic interests (in other words non-physical harm). We then highlight the essential classical liberal premise (as adjusted by 20th-century reliance theory) that appears still to underpin the approach of our courts. Indeed, in the context of pure economic loss, it is said to be challenging to establish an independent delict in terms of the accepted ‘independent delict’ test. In this respect, we identify the delictual element of wrongfulness and in particular, the judiciary’s tendency to treat the risk of indeterminate liability and the anti-circumvention argument mechanically as overriding factors in the application of the boni mores test. We argue that this tendency is inconsistent with the broader constitutional movement away from classical liberalism and toward welfarism where values of human interdependence and solidarity must carry more weight. In more concrete terms, neither of these factors per se can automatically lead to a finding that the defendant did not have a legal duty in delict. At the same time, we maintain that the approach to concurrence in the context of physical harm via the application of the ‘independent delict’ test (as constitutionally informed) fosters a well-reasoned principled approach that enables the weighing up of pertinent policy considerations as required in the post-apartheid era. In the end, therefore, we aver that this (constitutionalised) ‘independent delict’ test ought to apply likewise to physical harm and pure economic loss where there is also a breach of contract. However, since the causing of pure economic loss is prima facie lawful (while positive conduct causing physical harm to person or property is prima facie wrongful), an important caveat in relation to pure economic loss is that the element of wrongfulness must be the function of the balancing exercise contemplated by the boni mores test, where the risk of indeterminate liability or the anti-circumvention argument may be relevant factors but cannot, without more, supersede the enquiry.

The Politics of Memory in South African Art

ABSTRACTThere is a saying attributed to Winston Churchill that goes, “History is written by the victors,” indicating that all histories are subjective and biased in some way. This was certainly true for South Africa under the Nationalist regime where the exploits of Afrikaner colonialism were glorified, and the majority of the population were mere “bit players” at best and vilified as savages at worst. Such traumatic histories have been interrogated by Penny Siopis in her “History Paintings” made in the early post-apartheid era which consider the residual effects of a dominant patriarchal and colonial discourse on the lives of black women in South Africa. Like Siopis, Paul Emmanuel and Diane Victor engage with the biased nature of history and memory in the light of post-apartheid dispensation in South Africa and the continuing after effects of our fraught past. This article considers the way these three artists engage with the inherent fragility and bias of memory through the materials they employ as much as the content of their works. I consider selected works by these artists and investigate how they engage with the politics of memory to expose fabrications and redress lacunae in the continuum of contested South African histories. I suggest that their works demonstrate how memories have been manipulated in service to a dominant ideology; in other words, they expose the “politics” of memory by using reconstituted/reworked memories to revisit and restore histories that might otherwise be lost.

Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa by Gavin Steingo

Reviewed by: Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa by Gavin Steingo Suzanne Wint Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa. By Gavin Steingo. (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. [xx, 307 p. ISBN 9780226362403 (cloth), $90; ISBN 9780226362540 (paperback), $30; 9780226362687 (e-book), price varies.] Illustrations, references, index. Kwaito is frequently defined as a South African version of other popular genres—South African hip-hop or South African house. In his book Kwaito's Promise, Gavin Steingo explains why neither label is accurate and suggests that it is more productive to consider kwaito not as a genre but rather as an aesthetic way of thinking. Steingo's approach is at once deeply theoretical and deeply ethnographic, drawing heavily on the work of philosopher Jacques Rancière. His deft incorporation of the two approaches is the reason this book is the recipient of the 2017 Alan Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. According to Steingo, kwaito is not a form of "escapism" that critics are quick to denounce (p. 9). Rather, he asserts that kwaito is a way to generate multiple sensory realities, and through this multiplicity, effect futures other than those currently predicted for most South Africans in the postapartheid era. His stated theoretical aim is to "reinvigorate a politics of aesthetics" (p. viii), and he does so by invoking Rancière's notion of decoupling knowledge from ideology. He argues for seeing musical autonomy as a way to double reality rather than as an illusion that hides reality (p. xi). Following the preface and acknowledgements are brief yet instructive explanatory sections on languages (specifically, tsotsitaal and Zulu) and on the language of racial designations in the postapartheid South African context. In chapter 1, "The Struggle of Freedom," Steingo asserts that the contemporary field of music studies is based upon two assumptions: first, that there is no musical aesthetic judgment that can be decoupled from social and cultural evaluation and the contest over power; and second, knowledge is either true or false. True knowledge liberates, and false knowledge oppresses. Steingo argues, after Rancière, for two knowledges that are each accompanied by ignorance. In his scheme, the liberatory/oppressive binary can be flipped, such that there is a knowledge that represses and an ignorance that liberates. Kwaito produces multiple sensory realities that liberate the Sowetans with whom Steingo worked from their oppressive economic realities. "The Experience of the Outside" (chap. 2) provides an excellent history of kwaito and its relationship to genres produced in the United States. Chapter 3, "Platform, or The Miracle of the [End Page 685] Ordinary," details ways in which commercial kwaito is collected and distributed into the world. Steingo calls these "platforms"—performance contexts (labels, radio stations, television programs) that are at the same time "experimental arrangements of sensory perception" (p. 59). Through platforms, Steingo examines gendered divisions of labor and issues of gender identity in kwaito. He also expands upon the creation of multiple sensory realities, using the term "aesthetic undecidability" (p. 88). Chapters 4 and 5 focus on noncommercial kwaito and are heavily ethnographic. "Immobility, Obduracy, and Experimentalism in Soweto" (chap. 4) considers music circulation within Soweto through the lens of technical breakdown and precarity, whereas most explorations of music circulation assume ubiquity, availability, and lack of friction—in other words, unimpeded circulation. Apartheid-era urban planning limits mobility within the township, organizing both space and time for music making. Steingo embraces friction through an aesthetic obduracy, showing examples of how breakdown informs creativity in kwaito. Internal hard drives are extricated from machines and loaned out with indeterminate routes back to the original owner. Obduracy generates what the author calls an "aesthetics of propinquity" (p. 121), or working with the equipment and people—and even the computer glitches and corrupted files—that are nearby. "Acoustic Assemblages and Forms of Life" (chap. 5) widens in geography to the larger Johannesburg metropolitan area in order to consider strategies Sowetans deploy in interacting with centers of power. Steingo employs Ana Maria Ochoa Gautier's idea of the acoustic assemblage to explain the ways that Sowetans engage with various "outsides" (p. 125...

Multicultural Urban Ministry in the Post-apartheid Era:A Search for Identity and Unity in Diversity

"This article explores the cultural-ethnic diversity of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South Africa and its development in urban centers since the end of Apartheid. It examines challenges and opportunities for the transition to multicultural churches, and concludes by arguing that the culture of racial prejudice and suspicion can only be eradicated with the weapons of trust, faith, hope, and love."

Etiese prediking in post-apartheid Suid-Afrika? Enkele homiletiese oorwegings

Ethical preaching in post-apartheid South Africa? A few homiletic considerationsThis article will try to indicate that while the church’s approach during the apartheid era was characterized by liberation theology and preaching, the post-apartheid era – that is still characterized by social decay, moral impoverishment and especially an increase in poverty, family violence, divorce and a spirit of individualism – asks for an increased focus on sustainable poverty eradication. It is argued that in post-apartheid South Africa a fundamental consensus on binding values, non-negotiable standards and morally acceptable ground attitudes are urgently needed. It is in this context that the role of ethical preaching is examined. In a context of widespread poverty, unemployment and a sense of insecurity, apathy, unconcern and depression among many ethical preaching, as an orientation event, can bring a new dignity to people.

Foreign exploitation of tourism in Zakes Mda’s <i>The Heart of Redness</i> and <i>The Whale Caller</i>

The main land of Africa enriches a large amount of natural resources that has been extracted and exploited for years. However, many African countries still rank among the poorest nations on the globe. The exploitation and sale of natural resources to western corporations have not helped Africans escape poverty. In addition, there are social issues that evolved over time from the sale and exploitation of resources. This work presented various forms of contemporary tourism and discusses matters of sustainable tourism development for local communities in Zakes Mda’s fictional account of the Xhosa community in Qolorha-by-Sea. This work therefore addressed issues that are neglected in the postapartheid era through the characters used in the novels.

“There was much that went unspoken”: maintaining racial hierarchies in South African paid domestic labour through the unsaid

ABSTRACTDomestic labour in South Africa has historically been a site of racial inequality which has continued into the post-apartheid era despite extensive transformation efforts. This article argues that silence presents an avenue for understanding how such racial hierarchy has persisted. We present a qualitative case study of a domestic labour dyad utilising the diary-interview method to analyse the presentation of labour troubles and the perceptions, interpretations, and implications of the unsaid regarding such troubles. Drawing from the data, we demonstrate how intimacy is foregrounded in talk, while domestic labour activities and domestic labour itself go unsaid. We conclude that the intimate nature of domestic labour allows participants to speak about their relationship in ways that make the labour relationship and its racial inequalities become invisible in talk, making it a difficult institution to challenge and change.

South African manufacturing firms in transition

ABSTRACT We seek to provide a more detailed understanding the dynamics of change of firms in the post-apartheid era through the examination of the results of two firm-level surveys in the eThekwini Metro area. This paper aims to fill a gap in the South African labour market literature: our understanding of the demand side of the labour market. We examine the characteristics of firms which have grown their employment in order to test the local application of firm and labour market theory. An important finding is that subcontracting matters for employment growth. Those firms in the sample that outsource aspects of production to subcontractors are more likely to have grown employment. The flexibility that subcontracting provides, in terms of responding to changes in workload, is one of the key reasons that firms engage in subcontracting. There are some plausible hypotheses as to how this relationship works. First, subcontracting allows firms to outsource lower-skilled work, and achieve the scale necessary to employ high-skilled full-time staff. Second, subcontracting allows the firms to access high-skilled individuals that they would otherwise not have the operational scale to retain on a full-time basis. We also examine the role of exporting and value chain integration in employment creation.

J. M. Coetzee: politics of the child, politics of nonposition

ABSTRACT This article explores the political resonance of the child figure in J. M. Coetzee’s writing by linking the two child characters in his fictional memoir Boyhood (1997) and his recent fiction The Childhood of Jesus (2013). Mirroring some recurring themes and motifs in Coetzee’s early novels, the trope of childhood and the issue of education, as I observe, have become increasingly important, since the late and post-apartheid era, in the author’s ongoing critique of colonialist and neocolonialist forms of power. This article will discuss the ideological dimension and the subversive potentiality embedded in this particular literary trope through the concept of political ‘nonposition’. Developed by Coetzee himself in his critical essays and often associated with the trope of the child, the notion of ‘nonposition’ is significant to understand Coetzee’s novelistic discourse as a form of non-sectarian political participation. Tracing Coetzee’s Australian-phase writing back to post-apartheid South Africa, this article also illuminates part of a continuous trajectory in Coetzee’s oeuvre that will shed light on the politics of his highly self-reflexive metafictional literary practice in general, which has been substantially informed by South African history and politics preceding his emigration to Australia and the development of his late style.

The Politics of Representation in South African Museums

Politics are an integral part of our museums, and, in light of the question of power this paper aims to unpack the politics of representation in South African museums in the post-apartheid era. I argue that the politics of the colonial era and apartheid era still prevail in South African museums today. In South African politics during apartheid, certain race groups had privileges over the others, and museums and public commemorations were affected. Museums represented the power holders, their concepts of museology, of public commemoration and society. In apartheid South Africa, the focus was on white control and Afrikaner Nationalism. Following the first democratic elections of 1994, the focus in representations in the heritage sector, thus in museums, shifted to reconciliation (as the country was divided in a way that certain groups were deprived of basic human rights) and nation building. There were major policy changes to enforce transformation. McGregor & Schumaker (2006) pointed out that state-led commemorations were selective, liable to elevate the ruling party ignoring the youth and women. Kratz (2011) placed emphasis on the importance of rhetorics of value in museums. Rhetorics of value invoke a range of experiences, deal with thematic content, thread throughout an exhibition or museum conveying ways objects are treated and presented, and are also related to visitors’ own identities, judgments and perceptions of worth (Kratz, 2011). There are a number of techniques that one can apply to study the politics of museums. I will use this concept to analyse the museums within eThekwini Municipality and unpack the politics of representation. This paper pays attention to the emphasis on representing settler histories and male leaders and questions how women and Africans are represented in museums.

Being Special: Nostalgia through Special Rates Areas and Community Improvement Districts in Cape Town Suburbs

This paper explores how memories and nostalgia inform the rationale of implementing Community Improvement Districts (CIDs) or Special Rates Areas (SRAs) as a means of crime prevention and urban maintenance in two formerly ‘whites-only’ Cape Town suburbs; Rondebosch and Mowbray. Through an exploration of the remembering, the maintenance and the resuscitation of an idealized past in a suburb that remains predominantly white after years of racial and economic exclusion, this paper interrogates the role of long-term resident nostalgia in post-apartheid South Africa in maintaining spatial apartheid. Using Svetlana Boym’s (2001) framework of nostalgia, particularly ‘restorative nostalgia’ and ‘reflective nostalgia,’ to interpret the memories of residents interviewed, this paper argues that it is nostalgia for an idealized past and a remembered specialness that sustains mentalities that give rise to spatially exclusive SRAs and CIDs. In this paper, public and social media discourse analysis and resident interviews allow us to understand residents’ memories and discussions around crime and urban degeneration and homelessness in Rondebosch. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to questions about spatial exclusivity in residential spaces in the post-apartheid era, particularly in a city that retains the legacy of spatial apartheid.

200 Years of Astronomy in South Africa: From the Royal Observatory to the ‘Big Bang’ of the Square Kilometre Array

South Africa has been an important site for southern hemisphere astronomy since La Caille’s observations in the 1750s. A new phase of international significance now dawns as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is being assembled in the Karoo. This huge project forms part of an international consortium and it promises to give South Africa a leading edge in radio astronomy. A strong developmentalist agenda pushed by its promoters goes along with the promise that science can benefit humankind. This article surveys the history of astronomy in South Africa from the perspective of the politics of knowledge. It identifies several different phases in the development of astronomy, from its colonial origins in the 19th century to its entrenchment as a South African-based discipline in the 20th century, following a long period of heavy reliance on investment and expertise from abroad. The article argues that astronomy was only fully ‘nationalised’ in the apartheid era. In the post-apartheid era, South Africa’s special place as a portal into the southern skies has been important to the country’s re-emergence as a site for the globalisation of knowledge and legitimated by the promise of a scientifically led ‘African renaissance’. The article concludes by posing questions about the SKA’s future in the light of the history of colonial and post-colonial knowledge exchange.

The Religious Question and The South African Constitutional Court: Justice Ngcobo in Prince and De Lange

Justice Ngcobo, an active member of the Constitutional Court early in the post-apartheid years, engaged with the merits of religious freedom and considered the determinations of the faithful and religious organisations as part of appropriate adjudicatory factors. Roughly two decades after the end of Apartheid in Ecclesia De Lange v Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church for the Time Being and Another there is strong suggestion discernible from De Lange that this position could be abandoned. If this trend is embraced, it would regard the determinations of the faithful and religious institutions as final and dispositive. Consequently, features of religious belief and practice would be immunised from constitutional scrutiny. What makes this trend worthy of evaluation are the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal leading up to De Lange; the force of the trend evident in De Lange; the persistence and subtle recognition of the religious question in South Africa’s lower courts in the post-apartheid era despite the position of the Constitutional Court in the post-Apartheid years to fully engage with petitions about the right to religious freedom. This article draws attention to the challenges of the resurgence of the religious question in South African law by engaging in a review of the opinion of Justice Ngcobo in Prince v President of the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope and Others as well as similar cases where the religious question has arisen, including De Lange.

The evolution of non-communicable diseases policies in post-apartheid South Africa

BackgroundRedressing structural inequality within the South African society in the post-apartheid era became the central focus of the democratic government. Policies on social and economic transformation were guided by the government’s blueprint, the Reconstruction and Development Programme. The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of non-communicable disease (NCD) policies in South Africa and the extent to which the multi-sectoral approach was utilised, while explicating the underlying rationale for “best buy” interventions adopted to reduce and control NCDs in South Africa. The paper critically engages with the political and ideological factors that influenced design of particular NCD policies.MethodsThrough a case study design, policies targeting specific NCD risk factors (tobacco smoking, unhealthy diets, harmful use of alcohol and physical inactivity) were assessed. This involved reviewing documents and interviewing 44 key informants (2014–2016) from the health and non-health sectors. Thematic analysis was used to draw out the key themes that emerged from the key informant interviews and the documents reviewed.ResultsSouth Africa had comprehensive policies covering all the major NCD risk factors starting from the early 1990’s, long before the global drive to tackle NCDs. The plethora of NCD policies is attributable to the political climate in post-apartheid South Africa that set a different trajectory for the state that was mandated to tackle entrenched inequalities. However, there has been an increase in prevalence of NCD risk factors within the general population. About 60% of women and 30% of men are overweight or obese. While a multi-sectoral approach is part of public policy discourse, its application in the implementation of NCD policies and programmes is a challenge.ConclusionsNCD prevalence remains high in South Africa. There is need to adopt the multi-sectoral approach in the implementation of NCD policies and programmes.

When the Past Is in the Present: The Paradox of Educational Opportunity and Social Inclusion in South Africa and Rwanda

The legacies of a racial and ethnocentric past continue to have implications for the present in South Africa and Rwanda, particularly within the realm of education. Although in both societies, the governments have addressed their repressive and violent histories through the implementation of color-blind (or nonracial/ethnic) policies that espouse national unity and reconciliation, these very same policies inadvertently reinforce old divisions. They suppress candid discussion about past and current intergroup tensions, resulting in a paradox of social inclusion. In this article, the authors interrogate how historically ascribed identities, which were used for the purposes of oppression and social divisions in South Africa and Rwanda, are reconstituted in the postapartheid and postgenocide eras. The authors draw on empirical evidence from case studies of contemporary schools in both countries and argue that the nations’ two approaches—nonracialization and nonethnicization, respectively—aim to mute explicit discourse and language about racial and ethnic differences though the spread of “color-blind” ideologies. However, everyday behaviors and attitudes of individuals—students and educators—who are inculcated with ideas of past racial/ethnic ideologies remain rigid and continue to affect micro-level and school-level interactions that undermine the legitimacy of either color-mute or color-blind ideologies and contribute to boundary maintenance.

Feminist Approaches to Educational Leadership in Disadvantaged Rural Communities

Playing host to many leaders of South Africa's transition to democracy, the historic schools continue to contribute to the education of learners in disadvantaged rural communities. Within the leadership narratives of these schools are the lived daily experiences of female educational leaders whose voice has been largely absent from main stream leadership discourse. Problematizing this silence, this paper draws on critical feminist leadership theory to explore social justice interpretations of female leaders in South Africa's historic schools. Data were collected through a qualitative research paradigm and from a critical feminist perspective. The aim of the study was to analyse and conceptualise educational leadership in relation to power and social justice in the post-Apartheid era. Contained within the findings are multiple narrations of leadership for social justice and an alternative interpretation to feminist servant leadership. In addition, the findings unlocked insights into the relationship between curriculum management, instructional leadership and critical pedagogy.

Tackling injustices of occupational lung disease acquired in South African mines: recent developments and ongoing challenges

BackgroundSouth Africa’s mineral resources have produced, and continue to produce, enormous economic wealth; yet decades of colonialism, apartheid, capital flight, and challenges in the neoliberal post-apartheid era have resulted in high rates of occupational lung disease and low rates of compensation for ex-miners and their families. Given growing advocacy and activism of current and former mine workers, initiatives were launched by the South African government in 2012 to begin to address the legacy of injustice. This study aimed to assess developments over the last 5 years in providing compensation, quantify shortfalls and explore underlying challenges.MethodsUsing the database with compensable disease claims from over 200,000 miners, the medical assessment database of 400,000 health records and the employment database with 1.6 million miners, we calculated rates of claims, unpaid claims and shortfall in claim filing for each of the southern African countries with at least 25,000 miners who worked in South African mines, by disease type and gender. We also conducted interviews in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape, Lesotho and a local service unit near a mine site, supplemented by document review and auto-reflection, adopting the lens of a critical rights-based approach.ResultsBy the end of 2017, 111,166 miners had received compensation (of which 55,864 were for permanent lung impairment, and another 52,473 for tuberculosis), however 107,714 compensable claims remained unpaid. Many (28.4%) compensable claims are from Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and elsewhere in southern Africa, a large proportion of which have been longstanding. A myriad of diverse systemic barriers persist, especially for workers and their families outside South Africa. Calculating predicted burden of occupational lung disease compared to compensable claims paid suggests a major shortfall in filing claims in addition to the large burden of still unpaid claims.ConclusionDespite progress made, our analysis reveals ongoing complex barriers and illustrates that the considerable underfunding of the systems required for sustained prevention and social protection (including compensation) needs urgent attention. With class action suits in the process of settlement, the globalized mining sector is now beginning to be held accountable. A critical rights-based approach underlines the importance of ongoing concerted action by all.

Collaborative mental health care in the bureaucratic field of post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACTSouth Africa's long and arduous journey from colonial and apartheid-era care for people with mental illness to more comprehensive, equitable mental health care is well-described. Deeper engagement with the structural power dynamics involved in providing collaborative mental health services are less-well described, especially in its post-apartheid era. This conceptual article positions state and non-state mental health service providers – along with their relationships and conflicts – within Bourdieu's bureaucratic field. It is suggested that key internecine struggles in South Africa's post-apartheid socio-political arena have influenced the ways in which collaborative mental health care is provided. Drawing from two recent examples of conflict within the bureaucratic field, the article illustrates the ways in which neoliberal forces play out in contemporary South Africa's mental health service delivery. Struggles between the state and private healthcare in the Life Esidimeni tragedy receive focus, as well as the shifting of responsibility onto civil society. A court case between the state and a coalition of non-profit organisations provides further evidence that neoliberal rationalities significantly influences the position and power of non-state service providers. Unless serious consideration is given to these dynamics, collaborative mental health care in South Africa will remain out of reach.

Travelling Concepts in J. M. Coetzee’s Apartheid and Post-apartheid Novels

Nobel-prize winner John Maxwell Coetzee is considered one of the most controversial novelists and essayists in South African literature. He witnessed two crucial eras in South Africa: apartheid and post-apartheid. Being a white author put him in a difficult situation when he began expressing his ideas on political and social issues in his country during times of conflict. Critics see that Coetzee’s apartheid novels are evasively indirect when they comment on the prevalence of injustice in South Africa. Coetzee defended his position as a writer who rejected realism as a fixed norm for fictional representation, favouring an allegorical depiction of resistance against oppression. In his post-apartheid novels, however, there seems to be a shift in his mode of writing as he resorts more to realism to comment on the switch of balance and power in South Africa. Moreover, his apartheid allegories experience a similar change where they gain new dimensions and perform different functions in the post-apartheid context. This sudden modification in Coetzee’s novelistic practice has always perplexed his readers and critics as well. He has been accused of being an elusive writer who avoids any specific political orientation. Take as an example his apartheid novel Life and Times of Michael K (1983), which is considered an allegorical representation of resistance against oppression and injustice; where the silence of the colonized protagonist Michael K stands as an allegory of peaceful resistance rather than submission. On the contrary, his post-apartheid novel Disgrace (1999) adopts an opposite novelistic approach where realism stands out clearly, while allegory recedes. The silenced this time is not the colonized but the former colonizer and thus silence becomes an allegory of atonement rather than resistance. Nevertheless, Coetzee’s bewildering and allegedly paradoxical mode of writing can be explained when the two novels are read in the light of his talk ‘The Novel Today’, which is an articulation of the responsibilities of authorship. The aim of the paper is to use Edward Said’s ‘Traveling Theory’ to trace the origins or genesis of Coetzee’s concepts and ideas of authorship, which are expressed in his talk and practiced in his apartheid novel Life and Times of Michael K, and then to follow up the changes and developments that occurred in his mode of writing after these concepts and ideas travel to the new context of the post-apartheid era as manifested in his novel Disgrace. Finally, the paper provides a theoretically-based perspective that establishes Coetzee’s critical consciousness as the norm for his authorship and thus denies the accusations levelled against him of being ambivalent and paradoxical.