Selfhood, identity and culture in selected Tshivenda poetry

The issue of African identity in African literature has been receiving considerable attention in recent times. However, comparatively speaking, the focus has largely been on texts written in English, whereas texts written in (African) indigenous languages have received minimal attention. Moreover, critics who cannot understand the language of indigenous writing ignore such writings in their criticisms, which culminates in the treatment of indigenous writings as palimpsests on which the other records their story. Consequently, perspectives and philosophies shared by indigenous literature are marginalised and only those conveyed in European languages are considered. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to, firstly, attempt to draw Tshivenḓa poetry from the periphery to the ‗centre‘ of conversations on issues of selfhood, identity and culture in the postcolonial context. Secondly, it sought to show that a representative selection of Tshivenḓa poetry can provide indices into the trajectories and nuances of the Vhavenḓa people‘s selfhood, identity and culture. Undergirded by a trifocal theoretical framework, namely Afrocentricity, the hermeneutical approach and postcolonial theory, the study shored up various aspects that were thematised by the selected poets as indices into the Vhavenḓa‘s selfhood, identity and culture. The study employed a qualitative research approach and the descriptive method to analyse sixteen (16) purposively sampled poetry texts. Textual and thematic analyses were relied on in the analysis of the selected texts. The study found that Tshivenḓa poetry demystifies the meta-narratives propounded by colonialists and exponents of apartheid about African people‘s selfhood, identity and culture. Tshivenḓa poetry attains this, firstly, by demonstrating that the indigenes have always had ways through which they expressed their selfhood, identity and culture, and secondly, by agentively challenging hegemonic discourses on selfhood, identity and culture.
National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) and South African Humanities Deans Association (SAHUDA)