Browsing by Author "Tinker, Anna"

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    Place of Light' : what cultural villages can tell us about 'culture', 'ethnicity' and tourism in post-apartheid South Africa
    (2010) Tinker, Anna; Shepherd, Nick
    The 'new' South Africa is abuzz with keywords. There is much talk within academic discourse and beyond of 'ethnicity', 'culture' and the 'rainbow nation' among others. They are a national obsession at this crucial time when South Africa is still struggling to negotiate its identity. The usage of these words is rapidly evolving and today they their use extends far past their original meanings. However, their use has persisted and has done so largely unchallenged. This has meant that the words are now highly problematic. In order to critically examine these concepts, I use the space of the cultural village as an analytical tool. Cultural villages have faced criticism in recent years - accusations that they 'stage' their 'authenticity', and freeze cultures in order to package them for international consumption. While this paper does devote space to these criticisms, it focuses its attention on 'what cultural villages can tell us about the nature of post-apartheid South Africa', specifically about the keywords, 'culture' and 'ethnicity'. Research is based at Lesedi Cultural Village in the North West Province. I use the landscape of the surrounding area and the signs and symbols in the village itself as entry points to map and frame my discussions. The Cradle ofHumankind where Lesedi is situated is saturated with an evolutionary narrative that visitors to Lesedi will bring with them to the site. Evolutionary notions of the 'primitive' have been re-appropriated by the tourist industry to draw visitors back 'home' to Africa, while South Africa owes much of its difficult history to the same evolutionary narratives. Through ethnographic fieldwork, the space of the cultural village is deconstructed to see what it can tell us about 'culture' and 'ethnicity' in the country beyond its fences. I interrogate the concept of 'culture', by closely analyzing the meaning of a proverb on Lesedi's shebeen wall which reads, 'a man without culture is like a zebra without stripes'. It transpires that the humble zebra can tell us a great deal about the nature of 'culture' in South Africa and the current debates which surround the use of the word.