'If it's not black gold, then it's bone gold' : contested knowledges of the Prestwich Street dead

Ralphs, Gerard

'If it's not black gold, then it's bone gold' : contested knowledges of the Prestwich Street dead

Master Thesis

2008

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

African Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

The aim of this mini-dissertation is to map out the nature of these contested knowledges of the Prestwich Street dead, and to describe and analyse the struggles of dominance and resistance these different ways of knowing gave rise to. My argument throughout is that out of the clashing of these knowledges emerged a frontier - a discursive space of conflict and turbulence that came into being with the surfacing of the dead, and dissipated with an official decision to prevent basic anatomical research on their skeletal remains. If this discursive battle and this frontier opened up the post-apartheid public sphere to new and emergent (South) African identities, then it also closed down the public sphere with the further entrenchment of particular disciplinary identities and formations, namely archaeology, physical anthropology, development, and heritage resources management.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-130).

Keywords

African Studies

Reference:

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Masters

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