“Feeling their way through their cultural roots”: theorising the Khoisan revivalist critique of authenticity from below

Abstract

Authenticity is a longstanding concern in Khoisan Studies. Most scholarship has examined how stereotypical, essentialist and static notions of “authentic” Khoisan identity and culture are habitually reproduced and demanded of the Khoisan for economic or political gain. Recent work instead emphasises agency, hybridity and dynamism, and increasingly draws attention to interlocutors’ own views on authenticity. I make a contribution to this literature by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Cape Town between 2014 and 2022 among “Khoisan revivalists”, whose authenticity as urban-based and newly identifying indigenous people rarely goes unquestioned. My non-exhaustive examples of Khoisan revivalist aesthetics demonstrate the intermittent rejection, reinforcement and ignoring of dominant representations and notions of accuracy in pursuit of authenticity. This critique of authenticity sheds new light on how indigenous peoples reclaim their heritage. In addition, as an example of theorising from below, it prompts consideration of the politics of anthropological writing on the subject.