Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol.

22 (1) July 2012 Rethinking Folklore: (Un) answering pertinent questions about folklore studies in Afrika1 Madimabe Geoff Mapaya Music Department University of Venda Email: geoff.mapaya@univen.ac.za. Abstract
The paper presents a critical analysis of the state of folklore studies in South Afrika. Perceptions among scholars that South Afrika is lagging behind as far as growing folklore into a fully-fledged academic discipline is concerned should, according to a sampled number of articles critiquing folklore from the Afrikan perspective, be a cause for concern. Periodic and intentional debates within the Southern Afrikan Folklore Society (Safos) about the state of folklore seem to fail in unravelling this problem. I propose that folklore studies, even after domesticating it to become Afrikan Folklore Studies, is not suited for Afrikan scholarship. In this article I will advance reasons to prove this point, and further propose that Afrikan folklore should rather become an overarching philosophical underpinning for folkloric genres.

Introduction Shortly after joining the Southern African Folklore Society (SAFOS), I was priviledged to be requested to guest-edit an issue of the Southern African Journal for Folklore Society (SAJFS) a SAFOS journal. Having reviewed some of the articles before joining the organisation, having attended one conference, and now guestediting an issue of the journal, I was compelled to read the back issues in an attempt to learn of the gravity of issues tackled, and the general level of adherence to the purpose for which the journal was conceived and founded. What became clear in the exercise was the apparent dominance of literary scholars contribution, particularly from departments of Afrikan languages in Southern Afrikan universities; so much so that one would have thought that folklore is equivalent to oral literature particularly of the Afrikan languages persuasion (Mabelebele, 2006; Makgopa, 2008). But questions of interdisciplinarity (terminology borrowed from Makgopa), have reverberated in some significant contributions within and without the SAFOS itself. Performing the ritual of article writing, I, after this brief introduction, touch on the conceptual framework, proceed to discuss the status of folklore studies in South Afrika as perceived by three articles; Teaching an Eccentric Subject? Why folklore studies is, almost, a non-existent discipline in South Africa by Mashige and Thosago (2005), Folklore Studies in South Africa: Towards a provocative intra-disciplinary debate by Mabelebele (2006), and Contesting Space in Folklore Studies by Makgopa (2008), including a keynote address by Mashige at a SAFOS conference hosted in Tshwane by the University of South Africa (UNISA) in September 2010. But first, what is folklore and what constitutes folklore studies?

130

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 Definitions of folklore Brunvand (1978:20) sees folklore as comprising the unrecorded traditions of people; it includes both form and content of these traditions and their style or technique of communication from person to person. He further postulates that folklore is the traditional, unofficial, non-institutional part of culture which encompasses all knowledge, understanding, values, attitudes, assumptions, feelings, and beliefs transmitted in traditional forms of word of mouth. While I generally find this definition agreeable, I have issues with some of its basic concepts; namely unofficial, unrecorded traditions and non-institutional. 1) Who makes the determination about the unofficial status of folklore since it is prevalent in different cultures? Do the folk consider their lore unofficial? 2) Could it be that because the definition is coined by a folklorist, by implication a scholar, possibly an outsider with some distance between himself and that which he is defining, he has selectively chosen not to establish from the folk themselves how their tradition is, so to speak, officialised or recorded? 3) What is meant by, non -institutional? Is Brunvand implying that only Europeans have the capability to institutionalise; and no one else is capable of this high level ordering? To jostle our minds Prahlad (2005:260) advances that the discourse of western folklore studies emerged out of colonial discourse and has not yet adequately interrogated the impact of this origin on the study of matterials from postcolonial subjects. That the attendant scholarship canon and those used in traditional societies are, to a large extent, incompatible should not render the latter insignificant in opinion. The argument that the folks episteme and doxy are non-institutional and therefore informal is, for similar reasons, fundamentally flawed. In as many volumes of SAJFS, far fewer Afrikan scholars definitions of what folklore is have been cited. The attributive factor to this deficit might be due to the fact that Afrikan (South Afrikan) scholarship, is just coming of age (Mabelebele, 2006). In cases where such definitions are advanced, they, at face value, seem to be pedantic, because of the Afrikan tendency to undervalue and/or take for granted their own prowess. The most succinct definition, perhaps, comes from Makgamatha (1993:28) who refers to folklore as peoples customs any of those beliefs, customs and Oral literary forms common to man passed from generation to the other by word of mouth. The definition, unfortunately, confines itself only to the word of mouth concept between generations to the exclusion of daily transactions of humanly thoughts and emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, opinion, idea and so forth. For a South Afrikan that Makgamatha is, the concept peoples customs, like peoples congress, peoples power, is politically charged and therefore significant in meaning. But could this kind of sensibility be attributed to all folkloric scholars, particularly those within the SAFOS fold? For folklore studies, it seems strange that academicians significantly ignore the opinions of the folks themselves in talk about folklore a hallmark of Eurocentric mode of discourse which, in every turn, seeks to reduce a great many disciplines within the social sciences into studies of
131

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 inferior communities or races by the supposedly enlightened ones a penchant the (de)educated African folks acquired through the Euro-American-sensed education. From these definitions the concept folklore, nonetheless, appropriates everything that could be claimed by cultural studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, sociology and so forth. But is this enough, without locating such definitions within historical contexts, and by implication theoretical frameworks? If we are to acknowledge the latter point, then we should consider all the historical tragedies visited upon the Afrikan and reflect such in every discourse, partly as a way of reclaiming lost authority, particularly in emic discourses. It should, therefore, not be absurd to talk about Afrikan folklore. Different from the American conception of Africana folklore (Prahlad, 2005), Afrikan folklore should, apart from being globally relevant, be locally sensible to the Afrikan reality. Lastly, the concept folklorist is grossly misplaced in Euro-American folkloristic discourse; it should refer to culture bearer, the folk, the only person with expertise in matters relating to folklore. But alas! It has come to denote a traveller who comes in and out of the folk space, only to emerge after a limited period of time as an expert on the other peoples lore. In other words the use of the concept folklorist represents an exponential flirting with the colonial agenda. Theoretical framework Debates within the folklore fraternity, particularly SAFOS, and the nonresponsiveness of the (de)educated folks to all manner of plights in Afrika, bedevils the study of Afrikan folklore, and by implication folklore studies as an academic discipline in South Afrikan universities and government corridors: In its place, the buzz concept today is Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), which the likes of Mabelebele see as a subset of folklore despite the fact that it (IKS) is essentially and explicitly a problem solving paradigm whereas in folklore studies these properties are rather implicit and less obvious. Examples of the disciplines irrelevant trajectory and its despondency to Afrikan issues include failure to unravel the Sesotho sa leboa versus Sepedii question, failure to defend bogoi (traditional royal leadership institutions) against the bulldozing new political forces; or its adoption of too timid a reaction (almost oblivious) to issues relating to colonialism and apartheid. Then what good is folklore if it is not responsive to Afrikas challenges? Examples of ignorance about folkloric theories are plentiful; Thosago (1999) uses the phrase theoretically myopic folklorists while Makgopa (2008) refers to the quality of some articles read at SAFOS conferences as myopic. In some instances some scholars, ignorant of the historical fact that Afrika (is) was originally matriarchal (Diop, 1989 and Farrar, 1997), display an unhealthy appetite to readily attribute social ills such as rape, sexism and other anomalies to Afrikan culture a chorus churned by the seemingly uncultured media, with ornamentation provided by the de-cultured Afrikan, nourished by the uncritical ingestion of poisoned, imperialistic and Eurocentric modes of education. The tragedy of this phenomenon is that advocacy against sexism and patriarchy is today becoming tantamount to the denigration of Afrikan culture in its totality, as if this, and numerous other social ills,
132

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 is an Afrika specific problem. Sadly though, this uncritical mentality points to intellectual deficiency as far as folkloric debates within SAFOS are concerned. It is because of these reasons that for a theoretical framework, in the milieu of what Prahlad (2005) considers to be the longstanding influence of authors such as Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Mikhail Bahktin, etc., I assume the Afrocentrist stance. The reason for preferring, at least for now, the Afrocentric paradigm to any other are plenteous, but perhaps the most significant could be deduced from the level of energy and momentum the Afrocentric paradigm has gathered in the last three decades; energy because of the well documented struggle for (all) human rights in the Afrikan diaspora, particularly within the Afrikan-American experience; and momentum because of academic and political ground covered and the resultant efficaciousness in the articulation of the Afrikan mind (Du Bois, 1903). This stance is domesticated by Mphahleles Afrikan humanism philosophy (Rafapa, 2010) which, amongst other tenets, celebrates the resilience of Afrikan humility against the monumental historical hostilities visited upon the Afrikan continent. This state of consciousness acknowledges the hybridity of the post-colonial Afrikan as s/he makes sense of and foretells the Afrikan condition. For an Afrocentric inquiry, Asante (1987 and 1990) advances two underpinning principles, maat and nomma. Maat means the quest for justice, truth, and harmony. Unpacking Asantes principles, Reviere (2001:711) urges that the research exercise should be in harmony with the researcher who is, in essence, being used (by his or her community) as a tool in pursuit of truth and justice. Nomma, Reviere (2001) continues, is the productive word, which describes the creation of knowledge as a vehicle for improvement in human relations. Further, she proposes five canons which incorporate Asante maat and nomma: They are ukweli, utulivu, uhaki, ujamaa and kujitoa; (nnete = truth, toka = justice, kwano = harmony, botee = communalism, and boikgafo = commitment respectively) [bold in Sesotho sa Leboa language]. For Afrikan Humanism on the other hand, folklorists should work towards the harmonisation of the Afrikan ill-gotten education with the original wisdom sensible to both (Adedeji, 2008). The entire process of the inquiry should meet these requirements in order to assist the comprehension of arguments herein presented. Scholarly discomfort While the following discussion does not qualify as literature review per se, a reflection on the following articles captures the uneasiness Afrikan folklore studies is experiencing in South Africa. But who are these authors? Are they folklorists or the educated folks themselves? These are questions shy of rhetoric because, whereas folklorists study other peoples cultures, the educated folk should, with the same enthusiasm and vigour reserved for canonical scholarship originating from other cultures, study and comment on their own culture. It is with this appreciation that these authors points are deemed loaded in meaning than it would have been the case if the discourse was fundamentally etic in nature, because, as one would assume, these scholars straddle both the perspectives of foreign induced
133

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 scholarship and an authentically acquired wisdom suckled from the breast of the mother continent, Afrika. Am I romanticising about Afrikan culture? Why not? After all Eurocentricism itself is a colossal romantic story of western culture(s). In South Africa, the early exponents of Afrikan folklore studies are Makgamatha, Marivate, Msimang and Mathumba, some of whom provided a case for the Scallan to initiate a society that later became SAFSO (Mabelebele, 2006; Makgopa, 2008). In more than two decades Afrikan scholarship in the southern tip of Africa has matured enough to begin critiquing itself. Thosago was the first among SAFOS associates through his 1999 article; (Un)changing theoretical trends in the study of folklore in South Africa, to raise issues regarding the stagnation of folklore studies in South Africa. The subsequent article; Teaching an eccentric subject? Why folklore studies is, almost, a non-existent discipline in South Africa by Mashige and Thosago (2005), is, five years later, still highlighting issues contained in the earlier article. Only in this article do the authors ask: Is folklore studies an autonomous academic discipline in South Africa? If so, what are its axiomatic theoretical underpinnings and the magnitude of their self-vested power and authority to confer on, or withhold from, folklore studies a semblance of disciplinary legitimacy? What is the hegemonic impact of the current curricular crises in canonised disciplines on the scholarly cachet of folklore studies? And finally, once bestowed with the desired scholarly recognition, would folklores envisaged disciplinary status, its academic pariah condition notwithstanding, be (in)defensible? (Mashige & Thosago, 2005:68) Written in a rather flamboyant style but with brutal honesty, the article juxtaposes the disciplinary credentials of what folklore should or could be with what folkloric societies, according to Mashige and Thosago (2005:69), actually are a little more than holiday spots for respiting officially from abnormal teaching loads and inconsequential research projects Further, these scholars want us to believe that to the bigoted and conservative folklore scholars, interdisciplinary [approach] is a contagious disease, an abomination which upon diagnosis, at best should be cured immediately because it might inevitably decimate folklore studies. Let us reconcile the foregoing argument with the following from the same authors: Folklore scholarship is mainly conducted under the repressive aegis of the various language departments, anthropology, sociology, etc. and this alliance has disastrous consequences for its continued growth, especially now that most departments in the arts and humanities face a hopelessly bleak future due to budgetary cuts dwindling student enrolments and the curricular preponderance of science and technology. [emphasis added] (Mashige & Thosago, 2005:71) These authors warn that:
134

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 folklorists should not over-indulge in borrowing injudiciously or even wholesale the analytical tools developed and used by cognate disciplines without even attempting to establish their own, thus creating the false impression that folklore studies is un(der)theorised and therefore not worth its academic salt. (2005:73) While I agree with their conclusion that folklorists need to reformulate, redefine the term folklore, and to undertake more than just disciplinary reconfiguration, Mashige and Thosago are treading on dangerous grounds by invoking Georges sentiments (1991) that folklore resides within the ambits of the folklorist who is specially trained for the task. Had they appreciated the political connotations of Georges assertion, and the fact that folklorists are by design not the primary source of the lore (in the folklore); Mashige and Thosago would not have attributed so much currency to extraneous abstractions such as Georges. In any case the folklorist is a foreigner (to the lore) from colonising nations (Naithani, 2010) as opposed to the bona fide member of the folk whose membership is granted by the divine process of birth. Uncritical cow-towing to this line of discourse perpetuates the Eurocentric stereotype; that of accruing importance to the etic at the expense of the emic ideation. Mabelebele, whose masters degree traces the development of folklore in South Afrika, published an article; Folklore Studies in South Africa: Towards a provocative intra-disciplinary debate (2006) decrying the stagnation of folklore studies within university curricula, specifically in South Africa. His argument is that the interdisciplinary nature of the articles read in SAFOS conferences might be responsible for the dwarfing of folklore studies. Makgopa (2008: 48) zooms even sharper when he asserts that it is sometimes disconcerting how mediocrity among some academic is clouded [epitomised] by [a] lack of knowledge and understanding of the status of folklore. He regards those who consider their disciplines no-goareas as myopic academics. During his keynote address to the plenary session of the 11th SAFOS International Biennale Conference held at the National Museum on the 29th of September 2010, Mashige also launched what seemed to be a frontal attack on scholarship within SAFOS that has failed to change the fortunes of folklore studies in South Afrikan institutions. Indeed, spark[ing] lively discussion about the role of critical inquiry, scholarship and publishing he did. Having been part of the audience, I could attest to the atmosphere of reluctance amongst academics in attendance to self-criticise. But positively, the theming of the subsequent regional conference at the University of Venda to rethinking folklore in the 21st century attests to the fact that a critical number of scholars in the crowd were indeed attentive and determined to adumbrate the idea of critiquing folklore studies. This acceptance of Mashges challenge was symbolically portrayed when the University of Venda accepted the SAFOS banner, with it the responsibility to convene the conference that was to follow. Perhaps the most important and maybe revealing section of Mashiges address carried a subtitle Charting the way forward. In this section he, in a way of
135

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 summarising his presentation, enumerates no less than ten points or areas that warrant critical attention. A substantial number of these points or areas, though, are clustering the essence of the debate, which is to critically focus on a thing or discipline called folklore. In short Mashige is still on the beat that he and Thosago, Mabelebele and Makgopa broached. It would seem that Mabelebele, Mashige and Thosago, amongst other issues, bemoan the dominance of paradigms and theories from other colligate disciplines without advancing their own folkloric inventions. Mabelebele in particular sees the interdisciplinary nature of folklore studies more as a disadvantage. Mashige and Thosagos position is not clear on this particular point, while Makgopa falls short of out-rightly propagating for Interdisciplinerity as the only way forward for folklore studies. That neither of the scholars, with the exception of Mashige, had since their cited articles taken the lead in dismantling the dysfunctional elements in folklore studies casts a shadow of doubt on the sincerity of their robustness. Perhaps if they did, it could have been clearer that there is a difference between folklore and folklore studies and that folklore studies is a colonial conception; a haven for the folklorist (outsider) to assume authority over the folk and to eventually colonise them culturally and scholastically; the aim being to render the folk non-existent or objectifiable entities, and thereby legitimising the looting of their lore. I have, elsewhere in this article, distinguished between folklore, folklore studies and the folklorist. I have also implied that, like most disciplines that took root in the eighteenth century Europe, especially with the discovery of other worlds, the concept of folklore studies became contaminated with the agenda of colonialism because historically it focused on groups marginalised by geography, class and ethnicity (Prahlad, 2005:261). In the early years of folklore scholarship, scholars studied the lore of people who were (still are) unlike them (Sims & Stephens, 2005:22). Interestingly, some European scholars like Goldstein in (Zeitlin, 1999:3), being true to themselves, have likened folklore studies to religion and the folklorist as its missionary. And no Afrikan is capable of being a missionary; logically therefore no Afrikan can become a folklorist. Has there been any significant shift since then? Consider the following: In recent years, folklorists have come to understand that our work is not simply studying the folk but collaborating with them. Folklorists such Betty Belanus have developed the notion of community scholars, people from the communities we study and present who are also students of the culture. In an important step, we have found ways to bring them to the meetings of the AFS as well as regional gatherings and to view our relationships with them as partners. In our hiring practices, it is crucial that we select the individual who most fully embody our field and further it: both expansive and delimited approaches can be effective as we designate
136

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 individuals from inside and outside the field to best carry forward the vision. [emphasis added] (Zeitlin, 1999:14-15) But both epistemology and folklore studies are essentially concerned with knowledge; episteme or lore, only the first is believed to be more sophisticated, highly philosophised and therefore elitist compared to folklore studies which is lower in stature because it deals with common or ordinary knowledge as its subject. Admitting these points is a good way to start accepting that a bed is made, and unsuspecting Afrikan scholars, folk scholars and scholars from other marginalised races must now just sleep in it; and the condition is if they (from the citation above) most fully embody our field and further it (Zeitlin, 1999:15). For all intents and purposes, we have now entered a zone Nketia (1986), one of the most esteemed Afrikan scholars of Afrikan music would regard as western theory, Afrikan praxis. Unknowing first generation Afrikan scholars, beholden to their former promoters, many of whom are of European descent, have become collaborators in the process of perpetuating the agenda of colonialism and disguised apartheid all under the burner of canonised scholarly disciplines such as ethnomusicology and folklore studies. The many myopic papers (Makgopa, 2008) that are presented in SAFOS conferences reveal the trend where to the merriment of other colleagues, the slashing of Afrikan customs at every opportunity, has become fashionable. New dimensions Here, I submit that Afrikan folklore, let alone folklore studies in Afrika, cannot become a field of study as conceptualised by the Americans and the Europeans for simple reasons: 1) Afrikan epistemology and ontology are, as captured in the Afrikan humanism philosophy, tightly intertwined. In Afrikan societies, knowledge as we know it is tacit and in other instances it manifests itself in badimo (ancestors) prescribed ways, almost like talent. Experientially acquired wisdom, however, is more precious; it is higher and is symbolised by the grey head or the grey beard (the elderly). The sum total of tsebo (knowledge) and bohlale (wisdom) is the lore under discussion here. Arguably, a folklorist (from a foreign culture) would have no way of knowing, let along comprehending, these subtleties, nor will an Afrikan scholar who has faithfully ingested the Eurocentric form of education. 2) Scholarship by design is Eurocentric; its meritocratic, individualistic systems, including programmatic apparatus such as research and the way disciplines are conceived and institutionalised does very little to enable Afrikan innovation, or adequately access and appraise the Afrikan lore, hence the need to rethink folklore. But how do we, as Afrikans, rethink folklore while we are ill-equipped for this and similar tasks? Why direct our attention only to a question of interdisciplinerity if scholarship as a whole is not reformed? 3) The lore of the folk is located within the multiple institutions found within rural Afrikan villages (and now township and suburban) communities. This is why fieldwork is crucial for disciplines such as folklore studies, cultural studies and ethnomusicology. Non-Afrikans use this aspect of research to
137

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 graduate themselves into adventurers and explorers who afterwards attain heroic status in academia. As Agawu (2003) observes, these scholars, once they have spent (normally) two years in the field, they come out with self-accrued sense of importance that by far surpasses that of the original culture bearer. In almost all cases, the agenda is to remove the culture, the lore, the music, the art work etc. from its original environment and place it in university laboratories for further analysis, appropriation and the eventual publishing of books and research articles. These kinds of authors then are revered as established scholars whose opinion outweighs those of the folk. If we were in a normal, logical and sane world, would this, usually 2-years, fieldwork-discovered-importance match the lifelong immersion of the member of the folk in articulating folklore? 4) The era of the validity of disciplines that study other cultures than their own is fast coming to an end. Scholars from the previously marginalised and studied communities are now doctors and professors equipped to challenge misrepresentation about their communities. If folklore is fundamentally colonialist why invest time and resources on an exercise that will come to nought? With the foregone argument, my point has been to illustrate that folklore studies is an irrelevant tool for an Afrika sensed research. Even if we were to agree to the domesticated version of folklore, namely Afrikan Folklore Studies, we would still arrive at the same point of fruitless academic exercise. Imagine a situation where the concept teaching methodology has exponents who want it to become a discipline devoid of school subjects content. Afrikan folklore philosophy Whereas fellow academicians battle to force Afrikan folklore into stereotypic programming of universities as a discipline, I aver that the best location to institutionalise Afrikan folklore is in the mind and souls of the villagers in their settings and the folk scholars who dialogue with their communities with the aim of expanding understanding and effecting adaptation to the environment as dictated to by both internal and external forces. I move that the mind should be the first site where African folklore, as a philosophy should reside. By this I propose that those of us, who make it their business to decode this lore, should have the heightened Afrikan sensibilities in their mind and soul reactivated. Afrikan folklore forums such as SAFOS should be used to refine the philosophy so that it permeates all Afrikan folklore genres, thereby affecting and modifying their methodologies to reflect an Afrikan interpretation of knowledge and wisdom. For an Afrikan scholars (folk scholars), members of SAFOS especially, Afrikan folklore philosophy could and should be positioned as an overarching, all-encompassing philosophy, in line with other Afrikan philosophies such as Ordinary Language Philosophy (Fasiku, 2008). Folk scholars should allow different folk genres to develop their own disciplines and disciplinary apparatus as in methodologies etc. without fear. Perhaps Afrikan folklore studies, given its proposed overarching status, can provide the across-theboard philosophical underpinnings Afrikan academic discourse and associated rallying platforms such as SAFOS, ALASA or ISOLA need.

138

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 There are several ways Afrikan folklore philosophy can be allowed to permeate Afrikan research. To illustrate how this can be done may we consider citation method so unconventional that only the second generation of promoters and futuristic academics will be able to discern. The Afrikan Knowledge Practice (AKP), which is, among other things, a referencing system that bridges the gap between the incompatible protocols of scholarship and the established tradition of the peoples of Afrika, evolves perhaps as an addition to the so-called established research practices, if not a mark of a new way of citing Afrikan lore or sources. In this proposed referencing system, it can no longer be acceptable to render the folks (indigenous knowledge bearers) invisible and voiceless; even when this tendency is to be practiced by African scholars themselves because, factually, there is a referencing system in Afrika, which informs the AKP advocacy. Citing a Northern Sotho practice, for instance, where proverbs are invoked to strengthen an argument, the speaker would remind all that bagologolo ba bolete bare (our forbearers once remarked that) or in singular, mogologolo o bolete are (our forbearer remarked as follows), then follows the proverb or statement of fact. Or moswana o re (the black man/woman says); seswana se re (black peoples culture/wisdom says); segageu se re (my culture says). Another variation is lentu la mogolo le re (the voice of the forbearer says). This is, of cause, in addition to the citation (in the text) of individual interviewees, in this case cultural experts, whose opinion and/or contribution, normally assumed by the author, constitutes new knowledge that the author did not have before. Thus, it will be illogical to continue quoting Mnnigs The Pedi (1967), for instance, where reference to indigenous practice is made. Conclusion In conclusion, let me summarise by alluding to the fact that the concerns about the seemingly stagnant state of folklore studies in South Afrikan universities has expectantly dragged for far too long with no resolution in sight. This article has tried to indicate that because folklore studies have a colonial history; it cannot serve a postcolonial scholarship purpose that has at its core, the interest of the marginalised communities at heart. The whole Afrikan system will simply reject it, no matter how loud folklorists shout. It is for this reason that, in its place, I propose that: different genres of folklore should continue to develop along their specified disciplines. Afrikan academic environment is different from the American and the European environments. Therefore, Afrikan folklore studies, if such an abstraction is feasible, should be different from American and European versions of folklore studies, therefore calling for differing approaches. Afrikan scholars should rather occupy themselves with the development of African folklore philosophies which should be universal in application and also capable of influencing all cognate disciplines
139

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 The ascension of the second generation of Afrikan scholars mean that the academic environment is ripe for the AKP to preoccupy our scholastic might as we rethink Afrikan folklore philosophy in traditional, new and innovative spaces. Lastly, if Afrikan life defies compartmentalisation why then do we begin to debate foreign concepts such as interdisciplinerity? Why embark on a selfish ego trip of expansive versus delimit approaches (Zeitlin, 1999) to folklore studies? Notes
1. 2. In this article, I substitute the term Afrika for the corrupted version Africa as a way of reminding the reader of the debilitating effects of uncritical ingestion of orthogonal (mis)conceptions. Within the African languages there is a raging debate about the appropriate terminology that should represent collective dialects generally and collectively referred to as Northern Sotho. Bapedi who are largely concentrated in the eastern part of Limpopo province of South Africa have had a history of occupying political office during the apartheid era. This potency presented a scenario where authoritative dialects trying to hegemonise, so to speak, the Northern Sotho groups under their influence.

References Adedeji, F. 2008. Conpositional techniques in African Art Music: The meta-musical dimension. African Musicology Online, 2(2), 60-80. Agawu, K. 2003. Representing African Music. New York: Routledge. Asante, M. 1987. The Afrocentric Idea. Philadenphia: Temple University Press. Asante, M. 1990. African Culture: The Rhythm of Unity. Trenton: African World Press. Brunvand, J. 1978. The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction (2 ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. Diop, C. 1989. The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: the domains of patriarchy and of matriarchy in classical antiquity. London: Karnak House. Du Bois, W. E. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago. Cambridge, U.S.A.: A.C. McClurg & Co. Farrar, T. 1997. The Queenmother, Matriachy, and the Question of Female Political Authority in Precolonial West African Monarchy. Journal of Black Studies, 27(5), 579-597. Fasiku, G. 2008. African Philosophy and the Method of Ordinary Language Philosophy. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(3), 100-116. George, R. A. 1991. Earning, Appropriating, Concealing, and Denying the Identity of Folklorist. Western folklore, 3-12. Mabelebele, J. 2006. Folklore Studies in South Africa: Towards a provocative intradisciplinary debate. Southern African Journal for folklore Studies, 16(1), 5366. Makgamatha, P. 1993. The Writing of Folklore. A paper read at the Maskew Miller Longman workshop on folklore. Pietersburg. Makgopa, M. 2008. Contesting Space in Folklore Studies. Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 18(2), 48-58. Mashige, M., & Thosago, C. 2005. Teaching an Eccentric Subject? Why folklore studies is, almost, a non-existent discipline. Journal of Educational Studies, 68-77. Monnig, H. 1967. The Pedi. Pretoria: J.L.van Schaik.
140

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies Vol. 22 (1) July 2012 Naithani, S. 2010. The Story-Time of the British Empire: Colonial and Postcolonial Folkloristics Jackson. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. Nketia, K. 1986. African Music and Western Praxis: A Review of Wester Perspecties on African Musicology. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Etudes africaines, Vol. 20 No. 1., 36-56. Prahlad, S. A. 2005. Africana Folklore: History and Challenges. Journal of American Folklore, 253-270. Rafapa, L. 2010. Es'Kia Mphahlele's Afrikan Humanism. Johannesburg: Steinberg & Associates (Pty) Ltd. Reviere, R. 2001. Toward an Afrocentric Research Methodology. Journal of Black Studies, 31(6), 709-728. Sims, C. M., & Stephens, M. 2005. Living folklore: An Itroduction to the Study of Poeple in Their Traditions. Logan: Utah State University Press. Thosago, M. C. 1999. Changing theoretical trends in the study of folklore in South Africa. Retrieved 10 17, 2011, from FindArticles.com: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6466/is_2_13/ai_n28756611/pg_5 /?tag=content;col1 Zeitlin, S. 1999. I'm a Folklorist and You'r not:Expansive versus Delimited Stratergies in the Practice of Folklore. Journal of American Folklore, 3-19.

141