Browsing by Author "Sharp, John"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Constructing identity in diaspora : Jewish Israeli migrants in Cape Town, South Africa
    (1998) Frankental, Sally; Sharp, John; Reynolds, Pamela
    This study was conducted through systematic participant-observation from July 1994 to December 1996. Basic socio-demographic data were recorded and revealed considerable ·heterogeneity within the population. Formal and informal interviews, three focus group interviews and (selected) informants' diaries provided additional material. The study examines the construction of identity in diaspora and explores the relationships of individuals to places, groups and nation-states. Jews are shown to be the most salient local social category and language, cultural style and a sense of transience are shown to be the most significant boundary markers. The migrants' sharpest differentiation from local Jews is manifested in attitudes towards, and practice of, religion. Whether a partner is South African or Israeli was shown to be the single most important factor influencing patterns of interaction. Most studies treat Israelis abroad as immigrants while noting their insistence on transiency. Such studies also emphasize ambivalence and discomfort. In a South Africa still deeply divided by race and class, the migrants' status as middle-class whites greatly facilitates their integration. Their strong and self-confident identification as Israeli and their ongoing connectedness to Israeli society underlines distinctiveness. The combination of engagement with the local while maintaining distinctiveness, as well as past familiarity with multicultural and multilingual reality is utilized to negotiate the present, and results in a lived reality of 'comfortable contradiction' in the present. This condition accommodates multi-locality, multiple identifications and allegiances, and a simultaneous sense of both permanence and transience. The migrants' conflation of ethnic-religious and 'national' dimensions of identification (Jewishness and Israeliness), born in a particular societal context, leads, paradoxically, to distinguishing between membership of a nation and citizenship of a state. This distinction, it is argued, together with the migrants' middle-class status, further facilitates the comfortable contradiction of their transmigrant position. It is argued that while their instrumental engagement with diaspora and their understanding of responsible citizenship resembles past patterns of Jewish migration and adaptation, the absence of specifically Israeli (ethnic) communal structures suggests a departure from past patterns. The migrants' confidence in a sovereign independent nation-state and in their own identity, removes the sense of vulnerability that permeates most diaspora Jewish communities. These processes enable the migrants to live as 'normalized' Jews in a post-Zionist, post-modern, globalized world characterized by increasing electronic connectedness, mobility and hybridity. The ways in which the migrants in this study have negotiated and defined their place in the world suggests that a strong national identity is compatible with a cosmopolitan orientation to multicultural reality.
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    The impact of race legislation on kinship and identity amongst Indian Muslims in Cape Town
    (1980) Hill, Rosemary Anne; Sharp, John
    This study focuses on the relationship between the responses of Indian Muslim migrants to the Cape, (based in an Indian group area in Cape Town, called Rylands) and the responses of the environment to Indians. There has been remarkably little work of any nature undertaken concerning Indians in the Cape. The broad anthropological framework emphasises the centrality of the Indians' own perception of their lives, and the significance of the external constraints imposed on them through various means.
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    An investigation into the effects of a child care intervention strategy known as Community Motivators in two sites in the Cape Town area
    (1996) Newman, Priscilla Mary; Sharp, John
    This report is the result of an investigation into the effects of a small scale intervention strategy known as the Community Motivator (CM) Programme on the childraising practices of caregivers in two informal settlements in the Cape Town area. The Community Motivator Programme, initiated by the Early Learning Resource Unit(ELRU) seeks to integrate the fragmented service delivery that is occurring in communities where children in the age category birth to six years are at risk in terms of health, nutrition and psycho social development. The ideas for this type of intervention have been informed by developments world wide. Increasing child survival rates have brought new challenges with regard to development and from these concerns, has come the need for integrated and innovative developmental approaches (Young, 1994, Morgan 1993, Myers 1992). This small scale study has investigated the effects of the Community Motivator programme of work on childraising practices in the informal settlements of Samora Machel near Mitchells Plain and Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay, Cape Town. The original intention was to develop a case study of the Community Motivator Programme in Samora Machel . An outbreak of tension and violence in the area led to postponement after two weeks. The study was then relocated to Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay. It became apparent that useful comparisons could be made between the Community Motivator Programmes operating in each site and the study design was amended.
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    Marena a Lesotho: chiefs, politics and culture in Lesotho
    (1995) Quinlan, Tim; Sharp, John
    'What is a chief?' and 'what do chiefs do?' are the two questions which begin this study of political authority in rural Lesotho. These questions are contained within a broader one, 'why do villagers often hold chiefs, individually and generally, in contempt but recoil at the suggestion of dissolution of the chieftainship?' The latter question arose from the author's initial field experiences to become the basis for a study which examines the history of the chieftainship in Lesotho. This history is seen as a dialectical process involving a struggle over, and a struggle for, the chieftainship. The former struggle refers to the interventions of elites in society, namely senior chiefs, colonial government officials and, in more recent times, post-independence governments and foreign aid agencies. The latter struggle refers to the interventions of chiefs and the rural populace. Having outlined different ethnographic descriptions of Lesotho's chieftainship, in order to illustrate the different criteria of authority which were applied in the making of the chieftainship, the study goes on to consider the efforts of different agencies to make the chieftainship in the image they desired. The contradictions within, and between, these interventions are explored as the study moves towards consideration of why rural Basotho still support the chieftainship. This analysis takes the discussion from the colonial context, during which Basutoland and the chieftainship were created, to contemporary regional and local rural contexts, in which the chieftainship exists. The discussion illustrates how chiefs have been personifications of family and society, and how this representation is being challenged amongst the rural populace today. The multiplicity of forces which have shaped the chieftainship are then drawn together in a conclusion which examines the pivotal role of the chieftainship in the creation of a national identity and in the crisis of legitimacy facing the contemporary state in Lesotho. The study is informed by a marxist theoretical perspective, but it is also influenced by the debate on postmodernism in Anthropology. This leads the study to acknowledge the current context of theoretical uncertainty for ethnographic research, and the opportunities this affords for exploration of new perspectives. One result is that the study examines tentatively the role of bio-physical phenomena in the way Basotho have constructed society and nature, and represented this construction in their collective understanding of political authority.
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    Social aspects of natural resource management in rural Kwazulu
    (1993) Huggins, Gregory Bryan; Sharp, John
    Environmental degradation is widely regarded as an integral part of South Africa's homeland areas. Conventional thinking often blames so-called traditional farming practices, attitudes and values for this situation. In other words, the blame is placed with the residents of the areas and environmental degradation is explained away as the result of a particular cultural make-up. Following this line of thought, education via agricultural extension is mooted as the primary solution to what is regarded as an inherent problem. The central concern of this dissertation is to examine the dynamics of natural resource management by residents of a rural area in KwaZulu known as oBivane. The thesis shows that the conditions leading to environmental degradation are best seen as the result of particular historical and political processes and not simply as the results of particular patterns of behaviour that are culturally driven. These processes, given primary impetus by massive population influx onto a restricted land base and combined with the peculiarities of differential access to resources and the need to preserve the interests of elite groups, have forced sectors of the South African population into situations where physical survival has necessarily had grave environmental cost. One of the consequences of apartheid policies has been to institutionalise environmental degradation in particular areas of the country.
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    Traders and taximen in Qwaqwa : a study of class formation in a South African homeland
    (1988) Bank, Leslie John; Sharp, John
    This thesis is centred around the experiences of traders and taximen in Qwaqwa, the smallest of South Africa's 'homelands'. It aims to investigate the extent to which small-scale entrepreneurs of various kinds can be seen to be participating in processes of class formation within the homeland. The focus adopted directs attention away from the issue of poverty which has dominated rural research over the past decade. The thesis also seeks to contribute to existing studies of class formation in the homelands, which address the problem from the perspective of 'state' and 'capital'. This study seeks to broaden this focus through a historical analysis of social processes at the local-level. It argues that traders and taximen in Qwaqwa cannot simply be regarded as the recipients of state initiatives, but are agents in forging their own opportunities and relationships.