Meet the Day 1 âUnlearningâ panellists! Luan Staphorst @luan.staphorst
Reading Beyond Decoloniality: A Speculative Critique of Decolonisation-as-Ontology in Relation to Literary Studies, Tricksterly Knowledge, and |xam Bushman Folklore
Although âdecolonisationâ is a signifier with a long and messy history that transcends both academic and popular domains of knowledge production, the decolonial turn of the past two decades is linked to a central tension between two ontological states. Nelson Maldonado-Torresâs (2007) discursive distinction between âcolonialityâ and âdecolonialityâ has become central reference points in thinking through the possibilities and limits of decolonisation as an incomplete project. That these two phenomena are grounded within an ontological conception is particularly clear from the full phraseology of Maldonado-Torresâs binary: the â(de)coloniality of beingâ.
In this paper I propose a speculative critique of this focus on decolonisation-as-ontology through turning towards literary studies broadly construed, and questions of reading which is traditionally the ambit of this discipline more specifically. I note âtraditionallyâ, since questions of decolonisation in the field has, for the most part, shifted the focus away from how we read towards what is read. Decolonisation, in the context of literary studies, has largely meant the transformation of reading lists and a radical deconstruction of the âcanonâ â something to be welcomed.
Despite the importance of this intervention, I discuss a key text from the marginal, Southern, and indigenous African oral tradition of the |xam Bushman on ways of reading as basis for a novel conception of decolonisation-as-reading. I argue that the text, relayed by the 19th century |xam man ||kabbo, who was illiterate in the Western conception of the term, playfully deconstructs the Western notion of reading. His exploration of the |xam notion of !gwe could, I argue, serve as inspiration for a new way of regarding decolonisation as best pursued through playful, tricksterly reading that resists totalising ontological precepts.
Vandag het Jeanne-Marie Jackson-Awotwi Oxford se Postkoloniale- en WĂȘreldletterkunde-seminaar op 'n besonders prikkelende bespreking van haar nuutste monograaf getrakteer. Ons is al 'n geruime tyd Facebook-vriende, maar vandag het ons vir die eerste maal ontmoet. Ek het ook geweet dat sy Afrikaans kan lees - sy is seker die enigste Amerikaanse letterkundige wat kan - maar ek was totaal oorbluf om te hoor sy kan Afrikaans praat. Hoe lieflik was dit nie om met haar - in Afrikaans, en in Oxford nogal - te mog gesels nie.
"In hierdie berge," my vertaling van Suid-Afrikaans gebore Amerikaanse digter, skilder en letterkundige Peter Sacks se epies-eske titelgedig uit sy debuutbundel, is op Versindaba gepubliseer.
Shortly before Easter, one of my latest publications. On the university as an empty, hollowed out space. Unlike Easter, I'm not certain of life in what comes after this space.
Another recent journal article, based on a paper I wrote in a seminar I was enrolled in as part of my Honours (Literary Studies) degree in 2017. The seminar was presented by the enigmatically brilliant Helize van Vuuren, distinguished professor emerita at Nelson Mandela University. At the time she was already retired, and as such she had neither an office nor wanted to present the seminar on campus. Since I was the only student enrolled, it ended up being a year of weekly seminars at her home, starting late morning, going through lunch and often ending with dinner and wine. Nominally focused only on oral traditions, she would invariably bring debates on comparative literature, German post-expressionism, literary theory, and leading Afrikaans poets including Breyten Breytenbach, Antjie Krog, and Marlene van Niekerk to bear upon our discussions. A more robust, stimulating, and sociably critical atmosphere I have never known. This article is one of many on Von Wielligh's |xam transcriptions I have published over the years, but in many ways it is the first.
Nuut. New.
Alongside my recently published article on "Woordeboekapartheid," I regard this new piece on Kaapse Afrikaans language politics as some of my most important work. The critiques articulated through these articles will by no means be popular in an intellectual climate that seems all the more amenable to nationalism and ethnocentrism - specifically, and perhaps most insidiously, relative to those discourses that purport to be progressive.
Reading my backtranslation into |xam of an extract from Antjie Krog's Afrikaans version of ||kabbo's "The Girl of the Early Race, who made Stars". The story was relayed to ||kabbo by his mother, !kwi-an, and was first published in "Specimens of Bushman Folklore" (1911). Read during the book launch of Elleke Boehmer's "Southern Imagining" on the 15th of January 2026 in Oxford University's Museum of Natural History.
Krog's version:
die sterre word wit as die son uitkom
die sterre taan rooi as die donkerte uitkom
mense gaan uit in die nag omdat dit voel asof die grond lig afgee
want die melkweg gloei saggies
die melkweg lĂȘ wit al langs die lug
die melkweg wat soos vuur-as voel
die aarde sou geen lig gehad het
as die melkweg nie die melkweg was nie. dit en die sterre
|xam backtranslation drawing on ||kabbo's original narration:
|kua|kuatten ||khau !kuiten, au ||koin |hin ssa
|kua|kuatten |ne ||khau !ki, au ||gagen |ne |hin ssa
!ke |ne !kagen i, au hin tatti, ||ga-g |ne e
au !kogen ttamÊpua !koeya
!kogen ssin |ne !kuiten !a tta !gwaxu
!kogen tatti e, !kui ||kuan e
!kau kââauki ssin !koeya
au !ko kââauki ||na. hin koa |kua|kuatten
Video credit: @chishimba_kasanga
A year ago, this Mantis - also known as |kaggen, Hottentsgod, Bidsprinkaan - felt comfortable enough to sit on my desk light and enjoy his dinner. A few days before I was in |xam- ka !au - also known as Boesmanland - where the earth knows its thirst. There I was, writing a paper on Bidsprinkaan in Afrikaans folklore of the Karoo whilst spending Christmas with family in the lush Gamtoos valley, when he decided to wander across my path. I wonder whether one of my Khoe foremothers, Catharina Mauritz, worshipped him as Hottentotsgod, and whether one of my |xam foremothers, Susanna Hasselaar, respected him as |kaggen, the trickster god. I cannot know. What I do know is that now, here, in the darkness of English winter, no goggas - holy or otherwise - grace my writing desk.
