Writing the South African San : Colonial ethnographic discourses 1st ed.

Author

• Atkin, Lara

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

Cham, Switzerland : Springer International Publishing, 2021

Language

English

ISBN

9783030862268

Series

Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture

Subject(s)

• AFRICAN LITERATURE
• ENGLISH LITERATURE
• INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN LITERATURE

Notes

. .

Abstract

This book offers an innovative new framework for reading British and settler representations of Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century. Taking the representation of the Southern African San as its case study, it uses methodologies drawn from critical anthropology, imperial history and literary studies to show the role that literary representations of Indigenous peoples played in popularising the hierarchical view of racial difference. The study identifies an ‘ethnographic poetics’ in which the claims of scientific discourse blend with a consciously literary preference for metaphor and analogy. This created a set of mobile figures that could be disseminated to different reading publics in both Britain and the colonies through a variety of literary genres and textual media. It advances research on race and imperial history by focusing on the importance of literature - from newspapers and periodicals to popular novels - in shaping discourses of national and racial belonging in Britain and the Cape Colony.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

1 online resource (xi, 212 p.)

Dimension

-

Other Desc.

-

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Chapter 1: Literature and Ethnology: Towards a Theory of Ethnographic Poetics
Chapter 2: Representing the Khoisan c. 16001800
Chapter 3: Better to Be Naked and Free than to Wear Clothes and Be Oppressed: Indigenous Uses of Humanitarian Discourse
Chapter 4: The South African Children of the Mist : The Bushman, the Highlander, and the Making of Colonial Identity in Thomas Pringles South African Poetry
Chapter 5: The Bushboy in Childrens Literature: Missionary Ethnography and Imperial Adventure Fiction
Chapter 6: Encountering Southern Africa: The Display of Khoisan Peoples in London
Chapter 7: Conclusion: The Colonial Encounter and Identity Formation

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	00053/23	820.93529009034 Atk W	Online !	Available