Music Education and minority groups cultural and musical identities in the ‘newer’ South Africa: white Afrikaners and Indians

Abstract

Music Education, as well as cultural and musical identities are all being renegotiated, post‐Apartheid, within the so‐called ‘newer’ rather than the commonly known ‘new’ South Africa. The developing situation with certain minority groups is particularly interesting. Education in general has undergone much change since the first democratic elections in 1994: music education specifically has been affected by such change in terms of content, delivery and assessment. Within the South African context, cultural and musical identities are often intertwined with language, racial and even tribal identities, and discussing one implies the others. We are particularly interested here in the role of formal Music Education in relation to white Afrikaners and Indians as they renegotiate their cultural development, including musical aspects.

Notes

1. Capital letters are used to denote a recognised subject field.

2. Bhabha (1994, pp.38, 39) discusses the ‘location’ of culture, and explores the ‘third space’ where interaction of cultures takes place, and new ‘hybrids’ are formed. Of course, if we view ourselves as being in this third space, we need to negotiate the different boundaries—and this issue of cultural boundaries is a whole research topic on its own.

3. The Group Areas Act was passed in 1952 by the government of the day. This Act physically separated the different race groups (white, coloured, Indian and black) and relocated them to designated residential areas.

4. Apartheid was the policy/system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race of the previous Nationalist party (often known as Afrikaner) government.

5. See Bryson, 1990, p. 19.

6. The term non‐white is a commonly used term, even in pre‐ and post Apartheid days, to refer to people of ‘colour’ (black, coloured and Indian) in South Africa, in comparison with whites.

7. It is notable, though, that James did not include ‘Afrikaans’ music as a genre in the 10 types of music, preferences for which she investigated among South African students.