THE extraordinary life of 20th century Eastern Cape-based African anthropologist, Monica Hunter Wilson (1908-1982), has been examined and hailed in a collaborative book edited by professors and brothers, Andrew and Leslie Bank.
They were speaking at the launch of the 355-page Cambridge University-published work, Inside African Anthropology, Monica Wilson and Her Interpreters, at the University Fort Hare’s (UFH) Institute of Social and Economic Research on Monday.
The brothers said Wilson’s pioneering fieldwork, famously encapsulated by her sitting for months, at times on maize bags, at trading stores in Pondoland recording people’s stories, led to her explosive entry into the international male-dominated intellectual realm at the age of only 28, with the publication in 1936 of her first book, Reaction to Conquest.
Writing under her original surname of Hunter, the work for the first time explored the devastating social impact of pre-apartheid colonialism, migrant labour and land dispossession, and was one of the first research works to detail African cultural, political and economic resistance.
Leslie Bank, professor of social anthropology at UFH, and Andrew Bank, head of history at the University of the Western Cape, delved into Wilson’s relationships with Lovedale College and Cambridge, and her discovery through her research assistants, such as Michael Geza, of how to let go of her own cultural precepts and intersect with richly observed Xhosa life in Transkei and East London.
They said: “Monica Wilson’s prolific work in communities in the Eastern Cape from the 1930s to the 1950s documented, as no other study had done, the nuances and complexities of traditional culture in the region, while at the same time providing detailed accounts of social and cultural change on farms, in towns and the cities.”
One of the aspects of the book was to show how Wilson worked with local interpreters, African students and fieldworkers and how the quality of her work ultimately depended crucially on their role as “intermediaries in the knowledge production process”.
They said: “Wilson was an outspoken critic of impact of migrant labour on the African family and of apartheid policies generally. As a child of Lovedale, she rejected segregation and embraced a Christian liberalism.”
But it was not her politics, but her achievements as an academic that the book celebrates, they said.
Wilson was an outspoken critic of impact of migrant labour on the African family and of apartheid policies generally
“Why is it,” Andrew Bank asked, “that there are so many biographies on politicians, but so few on South African intellectuals? We need to show much greater appreciation for those who spent their lives thinking about our complex society.”
Despite offers to work abroad, Wilson had been a stayer, choosing to continue anthropological research in South Africa as apartheid unfolded in the ’60s and ’70s.
Leslie Bank said the rise of sociology in that period had also pushed aside enthnographic anthropological studies, with its emphasis on the lived cultural rituals of people, and this had left an identity gap in society.
He said: “Sociology has much to say about class and industrialisation, but it says too little about culture.
“As we reflect on new African growth and opportunities, people still struggle to answer the question of who and what we are as Africans. These are cultural and philosophical questions and we need anthropology to answer them. Try and understand Bhisho without understanding kinship or clan, and you will struggle.”
“It is time for South Africa researchers and teachers to re-evaluate African anthropology and African studies and to see that we are not just copycat academics.
“We did not just borrow from Britain or America. We developed our own intellectual traditions and this needs more recognition.”
Bank said that despite rapid social change in the country since 1994, “there has also been a great deal of continuity of culture and ritual and this also needs to be carefully understood”.
During the research , the Banks returned to one of Wilson’s trade store research posts and asked if anyone remembered her. “An old man said ‘Of course we do’ and pulled out a copy of her Resistance to Conquest saying ‘We used it in our land claim’.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
Academics’ book honours pioneering anthropologist
They were speaking at the launch of the 355-page Cambridge University-published work, Inside African Anthropology, Monica Wilson and Her Interpreters, at the University Fort Hare’s (UFH) Institute of Social and Economic Research on Monday.
The brothers said Wilson’s pioneering fieldwork, famously encapsulated by her sitting for months, at times on maize bags, at trading stores in Pondoland recording people’s stories, led to her explosive entry into the international male-dominated intellectual realm at the age of only 28, with the publication in 1936 of her first book, Reaction to Conquest.
Writing under her original surname of Hunter, the work for the first time explored the devastating social impact of pre-apartheid colonialism, migrant labour and land dispossession, and was one of the first research works to detail African cultural, political and economic resistance.
Leslie Bank, professor of social anthropology at UFH, and Andrew Bank, head of history at the University of the Western Cape, delved into Wilson’s relationships with Lovedale College and Cambridge, and her discovery through her research assistants, such as Michael Geza, of how to let go of her own cultural precepts and intersect with richly observed Xhosa life in Transkei and East London.
They said: “Monica Wilson’s prolific work in communities in the Eastern Cape from the 1930s to the 1950s documented, as no other study had done, the nuances and complexities of traditional culture in the region, while at the same time providing detailed accounts of social and cultural change on farms, in towns and the cities.”
One of the aspects of the book was to show how Wilson worked with local interpreters, African students and fieldworkers and how the quality of her work ultimately depended crucially on their role as “intermediaries in the knowledge production process”.
They said: “Wilson was an outspoken critic of impact of migrant labour on the African family and of apartheid policies generally. As a child of Lovedale, she rejected segregation and embraced a Christian liberalism.”
But it was not her politics, but her achievements as an academic that the book celebrates, they said.
Wilson was an outspoken critic of impact of migrant labour on the African family and of apartheid policies generally
“Why is it,” Andrew Bank asked, “that there are so many biographies on politicians, but so few on South African intellectuals? We need to show much greater appreciation for those who spent their lives thinking about our complex society.”
Despite offers to work abroad, Wilson had been a stayer, choosing to continue anthropological research in South Africa as apartheid unfolded in the ’60s and ’70s.
Leslie Bank said the rise of sociology in that period had also pushed aside enthnographic anthropological studies, with its emphasis on the lived cultural rituals of people, and this had left an identity gap in society.
He said: “Sociology has much to say about class and industrialisation, but it says too little about culture.
“As we reflect on new African growth and opportunities, people still struggle to answer the question of who and what we are as Africans. These are cultural and philosophical questions and we need anthropology to answer them. Try and understand Bhisho without understanding kinship or clan, and you will struggle.”
“It is time for South Africa researchers and teachers to re-evaluate African anthropology and African studies and to see that we are not just copycat academics.
“We did not just borrow from Britain or America. We developed our own intellectual traditions and this needs more recognition.”
Bank said that despite rapid social change in the country since 1994, “there has also been a great deal of continuity of culture and ritual and this also needs to be carefully understood”.
During the research , the Banks returned to one of Wilson’s trade store research posts and asked if anyone remembered her. “An old man said ‘Of course we do’ and pulled out a copy of her Resistance to Conquest saying ‘We used it in our land claim’.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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