1. In his essay “Apartheid’s Anthropologists: The Genealogy of Afrikaner Anthropology,” Robert Gordon argues that the limitations and abuses of Volkekunde must be understood in terms of the social context in which volkekundiges were producing knowledge. As male Afrikaner intellectuals at apartheid-supporting universities, these scholars tended to be isolated, and to isolate themselves, from the lives of those whom they were studying and the ideas exchanged outside a narrow sub-field of their discipline. Write an essay in which you: a.) Summarise Gordon’s argument
In his essay "Apartheid's Anthropologists: The Genealogy of Afrikaner Anthropology," Robert Gordon argues that the limitations and abuses of Volkekunde, or Afrikaner anthropology, must be understood within the social context in which volkekundiges were producing knowledge. He contends that these scholars, who were predominantly male Afrikaner intellectuals at apartheid-supporting universities, tended to be isolated both physically and intellectually from the lives of the people they were studying and from broader intellectual trends outside their narrow sub-field of anthropology.
Gordon suggests that the volkekundiges' isolation from the social reality of apartheid-era South Africa led them to uphold and reinforce the racist ideology on which the apartheid system was built. By distancing themselves from the lived experiences of Black South Africans and other marginalized groups, these scholars were able to perpetuate the discriminatory practices and policies of the apartheid regime through their research and academic work.
Furthermore, Gordon argues that the volkekundiges' isolation from broader intellectual currents outside their discipline limited their ability to critically engage with different perspectives and theories. This narrow focus led to a stagnation in the development of Afrikaner anthropology, as scholars failed to challenge and revise their own ideas in light of new information or alternative viewpoints.
Overall, Gordon's argument is that the limitations and abuses of Afrikaner anthropology can be attributed to the social context in which it was produced, with male Afrikaner intellectuals at apartheid-supporting universities being isolated from the realities of apartheid-era South Africa and from broader intellectual currents. This isolation prevented critical engagement with different perspectives and contributed to the perpetuation of racist ideologies within the discipline.