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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'Tracks which cannot be covered': P.J. Schoeman and public intellectuals in southern Africa |
Author: | Gordon, Robert |
Year: | 2007 |
Periodical: | Historia: amptelike orgaan |
Volume: | 52 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 98-126 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | apartheid intellectuals anthropology San biographies (form) |
About person: | Pieter Johannes Schoeman (1904-1988) |
Abstract: | P.J. Schoeman is largely ignored in the history of South African anthropology and apartheid, yet he played a significant role as a public intellectual. He felt so strongly about the importance of segregation - he argued that territorial segregation was a means of solving the poor white problem and maintaining the racial purity of the Afrikaners, and that blacks, especially women and children, should be isolated as far as possible in reserves so that Western influences could be controlled - that he unsuccessfully ran for Parliament as Cape African Representative. He subsequently attempted to put his theory to practice as Chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen in South-West Africa. The theoretical paradigm he operated in was heavily tinged with Malinowskian functionalism. Schoeman's experiences provide important insights for contemporary South African academics as they ponder their role as 'public' or 'citizen' intellectuals in the new South Africa. Notes, ref., sum. in English and Afrikaans. [Journal abstract, edited] |