An Exercise of Power as Epistemic Racism and Privilege: The Subversion of Tswana Identity

Abstract

In this article I will reflect on the book: The Words of Batswana 1883–1896. I will argue that the missionaries used epistemic racism as an exercise of power, thus subverted the Tswana language, customs, spirituality, and social structure to construct a new identity of Batswana people. This process asserted colonialism on the basis of language, religiosity, race, region, and knowledge. I will further maintain that one cannot divorce these issues from the process of the standardization of the Tswana language. The article will use decoloniality and Intersectionality theories as bedrock to engage the power structure, an epochal condition, and epistemological design used by the missionaries in the translation of the Bible into Setswana language. The strategies used by Batswana intellectuals as a form of resistance point to one of the methods that indicate signs of decoloniality. The article will suggest that decoloniality and Intersectionality as theories are vital in reclaiming the distorted traditions of Batswana people.

Keywords:

• Tswana language
• tradition
• spirituality
• identity
• race
• captivity
• epistemic racism
• religion
• categorization
• decoloniality
• coloniality, and Intersectionality

Notes

Cited by Ben Magubane in his article “Social Construction of Race and Citizenship in South Africa,” United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (Durban, South Africa, September 3–5, 2001), 3.

Stephen Volz's general field of expertise is African history, with particular interest in Africa's cultural and political interactions with other regions of the world.

Stephen Volz, “European Missionaries and Tswana Identity in the 19th Century,” Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 17, no. 1 (2003): 1.

The missionaries created tribal hierarchy by dividing amongst those who spoke Sotho into Tswana, Pedi, and Sesotho. Sotho consists of different dialects namely Setswana, Sepedi, and Sesotho spoken in the interior of South Africa in the nineteenth century until today.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1242. This concept is further defined by “Geek Feminism Highlights,” http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Intersectionality (accessed May 19, 2014).

Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Why Decoloniality in the 21 Century?,” The Thinker 48 (2013): 14.

Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “On Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the Development of a Concept,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 242.

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967), 9.

Magubane, “Social Construction of Race and Citizenship in South Africa,” 1.

Ramon Grosfoguel is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the department of Ethnic Studies Department. He is one of the proponents of decolonial theory.

Summer School Lecture, College of Human Sciences University of South Africa, January 7, 2014.

Hinrich Lichtenstein, The Foundation of the Cape and about the Bechuanas (Tr. and Ed. O. Spohr). Cape Town: A. A. Balkema. 1973. (“Ober der Beetjuanas.” Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden. 1807), 65.

Ibid., 374.

John Barrow, “An Account of a Journey made in the Years 1801 and 1802, to the Residence of the Chief of the Booshuana Nation,” in A Voyage to Cochinchina. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. [London: Cadell and Davies, 1806], 377.

Hinrich Lichtenstein, Travels in Sou/hem Africa. Vol. 2. (Tr. A. Plumptre) Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1930. (London: Henry Colburn. 1815), 377.

Magubane, “Social Construction of Race and Citizenship in South Africa,” 5.

John W. De Gruchy, “Settler Christianity,” in Living Faiths in South Africa, ed. Martin Prozesky and John de Gruchy (Cape Town: Clyson Printers, 1995), 31–32.

Ibid., 32.

Lecture, January 8, 2014.

It literally means words of Batswana. These are letters written by Batswana intellectuals and the chiefs (dikgosi) as an effort to engage with the missionaries regarding the unfolding situations that the Batswana people find themselves in. The exchange paints a picture of epistemic racism, institutional/structural exclusivity as a form of subverting the Tswana tradition, spirituality, and language to serve the intentions of the missionaries and colonizers.

Summer School Lecture, College of Human Sciences University of South Africa, January 7, 2014., 32.

Ibid, 32.

Ibid, 32.

Part Mgadla and Stephen Volz (Translators/Compilers), Words of Batswana: Letters to Mahoko A Becwana 1883–1896 (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2006), 29–31.

Ibid., 27.

I use capital B to indicate how Blackness was interpreted by the missionaries, the traders, and explorers. Such an interpretation has made it easy for them to categorize anyone of African origin.

Magubane, “Social Construction of Race and Citizenship in South Africa,” 7.

Ben Magubane, “Social Construction of Race and Citizenship in South Africa,” Conference paper: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Durban, South Africa, September 3–5, 2001, 5.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas (New York: The New Press, 1995), 358.

Lecture, January 7, 2014.

Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 133.

John W. De Gruchy, “Settler Christianity,” in Living Faiths in South Africa, ed. Martin Prozesky and John de Gruchy (Cape Town: Clyson Printers, 1995), 31–32.

Ramon Grosfoguel, “The Epistemic Decolonial Turn,” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (2007), 213.

Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (London: J Snow, 1842), 294.

Ibid., 244.

Fanon, Black Skin White Masks, 8.

Musa Dube is a professor of New Testament Studies. She is a proponent of post-colonial studies and feminism.

Musa Dube, “Consuming a Colonial Cultural Bomb: Translating Badimo into ‘Demons’ in the Setswana Bible (Matthew 8.28–34; 15.22; 10.8,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 73 (1999), 37.

Ibid., 37.

Ibid., 39.

Ibid., 41.

Gabriel Setiloane, The Image of God among the Sotho-Tswana (Netherlands: A.A. Balkema/Rotterdam, 1975), 64–65.

Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Why Decoloniality in the 21 Century?,” The Thinker 48 (2013), 12.

Ibid., 11.

Lecture, January 8, 2014, 7–42.

Ibid., 49.

Ibid., 33.

Maldonado-Torres, “On Coloniality of Being,” 243.

Ibid., 8.