Investigating Onto-cartographies of Memory and Postmemory, and (Trans)raciolinguistics and Practice of Race Theory in Selected Excerpts of Ellen Kuzwayo’s Call Me Woman

Chaka Chaka

Abstract


This paper is undergirded by two sets of analytic tools: the onto-cartographies of both memory and postmemory, and (trans)raciolinguistics and practice of race theory. Employing these types of analytic tools, the paper sets out to answer the following two research questions: (a) what types of geo-narratives can be detected in the onto-cartographies of both memory and postmemory in the analysed excerpts of Call Me Woman as an autobiographical text?; and (b) what does analysing these excerpts of Call Me Woman through (trans)raciolinguistics and practice of race theory reveal about these excerpts of the autobiography? Pertaining to the first research question, the paper has discovered instances of imprecise geo-narratives, and of the problematics of remembering and forgetting that characterize the analysed excerpts of Call Me Woman. In addition, it has presented instances of postmemorializing and of intergenerational and transgenerational postmemories employed in the analysed excerpts. As regards the second research question, the paper has argued that there are instances of spatioracial apartheid, of a vindicationist view, and of metaculture, metarace and metalanguage that can be detected in the excerpts of Call Me Woman that it has analysed. Moreover, the paper has presented a case for an instance of postmemorially and vicariously deferring to and defying Whiteness in one of the analysed excerpts. In the main, the paper has argued that Ellen Kuzwayo’s Call Me Woman is an autobiography of onto-cartographies of both memory and postmemory. In this sense, the novelty of this paper lies in its endeavour to analyse autobiography through a dual conceptual perspective of the onto-cartographies of both memory and postmemory, and through the lenses of both (trans)raciolinguistics and practice of race theory.

Keywords


Autobiography, Onto-cartography, Memory, Postmemory, (Trans)raciolinguistics, Practice of Race Theory, Vindicationist View, Whiteness

Full Text:

PDF

References


Agyekum, K. (2006). The Sociolinguistic of Akan Personal Names. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 15(2), 206–235.

Arosi, Z. (2013). A Psychobiographical Study of Ellen Kuzwayo. MA diss. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Brockmeier, J. (2000). Autobiographical Text. Narrative Inquiry, 10(1), 51–73.

Bryant, L. R. (2014). Onto-cartography: An ontology of machines and media. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Burke, M. (2015). Unpacking and Evaluating Properties in Conceptual Metaphor Domain Mapping: Cognitive Stylistics as a Language Learning Tool. In M. Teranishi, Y. Saito and K. Wales (Eds.), Literature and language learning in the EFL classroom. (pp. 75–93). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Caquard, S. (2011). Cartography I: Mapping Narrative Cartography. Progress in Human Geography, 37(1), 135–144.

Chaka, C. (2021). English Language Learners, Labels, Purposes, Standard English, Whiteness, Deficit Views, and Unproblematic Framings: Toward Southern Decoloniality. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 16(2), 21-37. https://doi.org/10.20355/jcie29465

Chambers, L. R. (2013). Placing Identity: Journeys to Self through Communal Autonomy in African Diasporic Women’s Literature. PhD diss., University of Georgia.

Croom, M. (2020). If ‘Black Lives Matter in Literacy Research,’ then Take this Racial Turn: Developing Racial Literacies. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(4), 530-552. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X20967396

Coullie, J. L. (1994). Celebrity Monkeys and Other Notables: Recent Life Writing Publications Reviewed. Alternation, 16(2), 293–316.

Dlomo, V. N. (2003). A Comparative Analysis of Selected Works of Bessie Head and Ellen Kuzwayo with the Aim of Ascertaining if there is a Black South African Feminist Perspective. MA diss., University of Durban Westville.

Farred, G. (2004). The Double Temporality of Lagaan: Cultural Struggle and Postcolonialism. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 28(2), 93–114.

Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso.

Gratton, J. (2004). Postmemory, Prememory, Paramemory: The Writing of Patrick Modiano. French Studies, LIX(1), 1–7.

Gudmundsdottir, G. (2017). Representations of forgetting in life writing and fiction. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hirsch, M. (1997). Family frames: Photography, narrative and postmemory. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.

Hirsch, M. 2008. The Generation of Postmemory.”Poetics Today, 29(1), 103–128.

Kloppers, H. J., & Pienaar, G. J. (2014). The Historical Context of Land Reform in South Africa and Early Policies. PER: Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad, 17(2).

Krotz, S. W. (2014). Memory and Place: Rethinking the Literary Map of Canada. ESC, 40(2/3), 133–154.

Kuzwayo, E. (1985). Call me woman. London: Women’s Press.

Mandende, I. P., Chaka, C., & Moshidi M. M. (2015). Teknonymy and Multi-nominality as Multiple Identity Markers for Vhavenḓa: An Autochthonic View.”Journal of Asian and African Studies, 52(7), 997–1010.

Marsden, D. F. (1994). Changing Images: Representations of the Southern African Black Women in Works by Bessie Head, Ellen Kuzwayo, Mandla Langa and Mongane Serote. MA diss., University of South Africa.

Martin, K. M., Aponte, G. Y., & García, O. (2019). “Countering Raciolinguistic Ideologies: The Role of Translanguaging in Educating Bilingual Children. Cahiers internationaux de sociolinguistique, 2(16), 19–41.

Masemola, K. (2010). The Individuated Collective Utterance: Lack, Law and Desire in the Autobiographies of Ellen Kuzwayo and Sindiwe Magona. Journal of Literary Studies, 26(1), 111–134.

McAdams, D. P. (1988). Biography, Narrative, and Lives: An Introduction. Journal of Personality, 56(1), 100–122.

McAdams, D. P. (2001). The Psychology of Life Stories. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 100–122.

Modise, L., & Mtshiselwa, N. (2013). The Natives Land Act of 1913 Engineered the Poverty of Black South Africans: A Historico-Ecclesiastical Perspective. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 39(2).

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling Race and Language: Toward a Raciolinguistic Perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647.

Sarinjeive, D. (2002). ‘I’ and ‘We’: Writing the Black Female Self in Kuzwayo’s Call Me Woman and Morrison’s Beloved. Acta Academica, 34(2), 36–62.

Sebonde, R. Y. (2020). Personal Naming Practices and Modes of Address in the Chasu Speech Community. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 29(2), 1–18.

Shum, M. S. (1998.) The Role of Temporal Landmarks in Autobiographical Memory Processes. Psychological Bulletin 124(3), 423–442.

Sibiya, P. N. (2012). Gentrificaton in the Former Black Townships - The Case of Soweto in South Africa. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39671102.pdf

Smith, P. (2019a). (Re)Positioning in the Englishes and (English) Literacies of a Black Immigrant Youth: Towards a Transraciolinguistic Approach. Theory Into Practice, 58(3), 292–303.

Smith, P. (2019b). How does a Black Person Speak English? Beyond American Language Norms. American Educational Research Journal, XX(X), 1–42.

Smitherman, G. (2017). Raciolinguistics, ‘Mis-education,’ and Language Arts Teaching in the 21st Century. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 32(2), 4–12.

Sotelo-Castro, L. C. (2010). Participation Cartography: Blurring the Boundaries of Space, Autobiography, and Memory by Means of Performance. The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 15(4), 593–609.

Strong, J. (2009). Landscapes of Memory: The Cartography of Longing. PhD diss., University of Alabama.

Torrance, M. n.d. What Are the Tools Used by a Cartographer? http://www.ehow.com/info_8416634_tools-used-cartographer.html

WordWeb. n.d. http://wordweb.info/

Ziedler, P. (2013). Models and metaphors as research tools in science: A philosophical, methodological and semiotic study of science. Berlin: LIT Verlag Münster.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.1p.32

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. 

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature

To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.