Africanity and research: A case study in rural South Africa

Abstract

In the first part of this article, Africanity as a concept within research methodology is explored in the dialogical spaces between the binaries of racial identity and group identity, indigenous and traditional values, post-colonialism and post-racialism, blackness and African, as well as eliminativist and conservationalist. In the second part, the research carried out in two townships in the eMakhazeni Local Municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa’s most eastern province, is described in terms of parameters and process. The townships involved are Sakhelwe in Dullstroom-Emnotweni and Emthonjeni in Machadodorp-eNktokozweni. The research focuses on interviews with young people between the ages of 18 and 24 on the potential of faith-based organisations to assist them in moving from the ‘margins’ of society to positions of social cohesion. The third and main part of the article, is dedicated to lessons learnt and experience acquired when research is carried out in a rural area from an Africanity perspective. This entails, inter alia (1) to be sensitive towards power relations in research; (2) respecting indigenous values within group identities; (3) not predefining the youth, using indigenous (and not European) definitions of ‘agency’ and ‘marginalisation’; (4) to engage in observation rather than interpretation; and (5) to decolonise the research process when regarding interpretation as an act of colonisation.