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Xhosa
Xhosa
Location: Sarah Baartman District, Makana Municipality, Eastern Cape
The Xhosa Indigenous People
The Xhosa Indigenous People
The Xhosa are the second largest indigenous group in South Africa. The IsiXhosa, the Xhosa language, is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, with almost 15% of the population speaking isiXhosa as their first language (1). Xhosa culture is loosely organised in different chiefdoms that go back to their Nguni ancestry (one of the four major ethnic divisions among Black South Africans).
Xhosa culture is rich in tradition, storytelling, proverbs and rites of passage.
After the initial settlement of the European around what is now Cape Town, territory expansion led them into conflict with the Xhosa people. The struggle for resources between the Europeans and the Xhosa became known as the Frontier Wars, which took part in the 19th century.
Colonisation, as well as apartheid, resulted in racial inequalities in different realms of life, such as land ownership, access to health, access to education. The Natives’ Land Act (1993) established the territory where Africans, which corresponded to 80% of the population, could live, restricting them to only 7% of the total territory of South Africa (later extended to 13.6%). In 1953 the South African Government implemented homelands known as Bantustans and two of these, the Ciskei and Transkei, both located where the Eastern Cape is now, were for Xhosa people. With democracy in 1994 Bantustans were abolished. The Eastern Cape is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa, characterized by high unemployment and illiteracy rates, high HIV prevalence as well as dependency on state-issued monthly social grants.
Publications about Xhosa Indigenous People
Publications about Xhosa Indigenous People
Cocks, M., Alexander, J., Mogano, L., & Vetter, S. (2016). Ways of belonging: meanings of “nature” AMong Xhosa-speaking township residents In South Africa. Journal of Ethnobiology, 36(4), 820–841.
Dold, A. and Cocks, M. (1999). The medicinal use of some weeds, problem and alien plants in the Grahamstown and Peddie districts of the Eastern Cape, South Africa South African Journal of Science, 96, pp. 467-473
Peires, J.B. (1982). The house of Phalo: a history of the Xhosa people in the days of their independence. Ravan Press, Johannesburg. 314 pp
Webb (2017). Further Beyond the Pale: Decolonisation, Historians and Military Discourse in the 18th and 19th Centuries on the Eastern Cape ‘Frontier’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43:4, 681-697,
Team Members
Team Members
MEMBER
Dr Mark New
mark.new@uct.ac.za
University of Cape Town, African Climate and Development Initiative
BIO
Mark New is the Director of the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) and AXA Research Chair in African Climate Risk at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He is responsible for the ACDI and the coordination of interdisciplinary research and teaching on problems at the intersection of climate change and development, from an explicitly African perspective. In addition to his senior management positions, Mark has over twenty-five years’ experience in climate change research, teaching and project management. His research has encompassed detection of climate change trends, climate modelling and scenarios, assessment of uncertainty in climate projections and impacts, and climate change adaptation. His current research focuses on climate change impacts and adaptation, with a Southern African and African focus with an emphasis on:
(i) improved understanding of climate processes, climate projections, climate risk and attribution;
(ii) climate impacts and adaptation, especially with regard to water, agriculture and food security, and compound impacts across sectors;
(iii) barriers and enablers of climate adaptation and resilience. He has also contributed to scholarship and teaching on engaged research and transdisciplinary leadership.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Climate change impacts
Risks and adaptation in Africa
Climate-poverty-inequality linkages
Joana Bezerra, PhD, is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Rhodes University Community Engagement, South Africa. With a background in Politics and International Relations and postgraduate studies in environmental studies, Joana is interested in the political dimensions of dimensions embedded in environment and development issues. She has fieldwork and research experience in Brazil, Europe and South Africa and her research areas are: people's relationship with land; environmental policies; epistemic justice and the environment; and service-learning.
Cultural ecosystem services
Epistemic justice
People and protected areas
Nosipho Nkwinti is currently a programme coordinator for Community relations and student organization at Rhodes University Community Engagement Division. She has worked in the Community Development space for 10 years, focusing on building mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships between the institution of higher learning and community-based organizations while promoting epistemic justice for the communities we work with. Her background is in Social Sciences, thus her approach to community engagement is through Community-Based Participation Research methodology.
Policy impact on the community
Volunteering; university-community relationships
Participatory research
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