The Attempted Erasure of the Khoekhoe and San delves into the complex issue of problematic coloured identity and the ongoing erasure of the Khoekhoe and San people in South Africa. Despite the end of apartheid, this erasure continues to persist today, starting as far back as 1652. There were two types of erasure that took place - genocide and bureaucratic. While the former is acknowledged by President Thabo Mbeki in his “I Am an African” speech, the latter began in 1828 with Ordinance 50 in the Cape Colony. From this point, the Khoekhoe and San were bureaucratically erased, culminating in the 1950 Population Registration Act. Despite these attempts, the Khoekhoe and San people resisted and fought for their identity, resulting in their continued existence in the present day. This book documents their painful journey, highlighting their struggles against subjugation and erasure since 1652.

In 1998 David Kruiper, the leader of the ‡Khomani San who today live in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, lamented, “We have been made into nothing.” His comment applies equally to the fate of all the hunter-gatherer societies of the Cape Colony who were destroyed by the impact of European colonialism. Until relatively recently, the extermination of the Cape San peoples has been treated as little more than a footnote to South African narratives of colonial conquest. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Dutch-speaking pastoralists who infiltrated the Cape interior dispossessed its aboriginal inhabitants. In response to indigenous resistance, colonists formed mounted militia units known as commandos with the express purpose of destroying San bands. This ensured the virtual extinction of the Cape San peoples. In The Anatomy of a South African Genocide, Mohamed Adhikari examines the history of the San and persuasively presents the annihilation of Cape San society as genocide.

Saugestad examines the relationship between the government of Botswana and its indigenous minority, variously known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, or more recently Noakwe.

This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive state-of-the-art study of 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' since its beginnings as a 'colonial science' at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe. Compiled by 56 internationally renowned scholars, this ground breaking study looks at past and current research on 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' under the impact of paradigmatic changes from 'colonial' to 'postcolonial' perspectives. It addresses current trends in the study of the role and functions of language, African and other, in pre- and postcolonial African societies. Highlighting the central role that the 'language factor' plays in postcolonial transformation processes of sociocultural modernization and economic development, it also addresses more recent, particularly urban, patterns of communication, and outlines applied dimensions of digitalization and human language technology.

An innovative and insightful exploration of varieties of English in contemporary South Africa.

This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of the indigenous people of the Western Cape. The past is vividly brought to life through the stories and photos, and information about heritage sites is included

San rock paintings, scattered over the range of southern Africa, are considered by many to be the very earliest examples of representational art. There are as many as 15,000 known rock art sites, created over the course of thousands of years up until the nineteenth century. There are possibly just as many still awaiting discovery. Taking as his starting point the magnificent Linton panel in the Iziko-South African Museum in Cape Town, J. D. Lewis-Williams examines the artistic and cultural significance of rock art and how this art sheds light on how San image-makers conceived their world. It also details the European encounter with rock art as well as the contentious European interaction with the artists’ descendants, the contemporary San people.