Anatomy of alterity: instrumental identities among the San in Zimbabwe

Chomutare, Gillian F.; Madzudzo, Elias

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Title:	Anatomy of alterity: instrumental identities among the San in Zimbabwe
Authors:	Chomutare, Gillian F. Madzudzo, Elias
Year:	2004
Periodical:	Zambezia (ISSN 0379-0622)
Volume:	31
Issue:	1-2
Pages:	104-122
Language:	English
Notes:	biblio. refs., maps
Geographic terms:	Zimbabwe Southern Africa
Subjects:	San ethnic identity sociology Other (Philosophy) San (African people)--Ethnic identity Marginality, Social
Abstract:	This is a study on identity politics as bases for alterity. The term 'alterity' is used here to mean the state of being regarded, or regarding oneself, as the 'Other'. The term therefore carries subordinate status implications. The authors show that alterity is a complex process, hence their metaphorical use of the term 'anatomy'. The study focuses on the economically and socially marginal San, an autochthonous ethnic group in Western Zimbabwe. Primarily, it seeks to show that ethnic identity is a social construct that dominant and subordinate groups use in their interaction. In sociology, labelling suggests the contours of power in social relationships. The authors go beyond this structuralist position to argue that identity is subject to time, place and context, and that subordinate groups use their 'given' identities instrumentally to access vantage points, in the case of the San to be identifiable to local and external benefactors. This expediency is an effective weapon of the weak; it averts unnecessary and dangerous confrontation and keeps them as prime candidates for outside help. In other contexts, the young San in particular shed off their identity and adopt that of the dominant groups (Kalanga or Ndebele) in a bid to level off the playing field of life's opportunities. Such stratagems are not unique to subordinate groups; regardless of structural position, people instrumentally use their identity to improve their life chances. A key argument of the article is that ethnicity is a transitional identity employed and dispensed with when convenient. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]