Resumo

BASSON, Earl  e  BURGER, Bibi. (Self)portraits in Uit die kroes by Lynthia Julius: A culturally sustaining pedagogical approach to the teaching of Afrikaans literature. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2023, vol.63, n.4, pp.860-877. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2023/v63n4a6.

The legacy of apartheid continues to impact South African education, specifically the teaching of Afrikaans literature. After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, curriculum design for schools in post-apartheid South Africa was aimed at correcting historical injustices. Efforts have been made to transform the teaching and learning of Afrikaans at school level by, among other things, making the literature prescribed at school level more inclusive. The current school curriculum (the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement [CAPS]) builds on previous curricula in that it also aims to address the historical injustices of the South African educational model. In the CAPS for Afrikaans Home Language grades 10 to 12, it is advised that social transformation is to be achieved by promoting a sensitivity to diversity and an appreciation for indigenous knowledge systems (Department of Basic Education [DvBO] 2011:9; Schultz & Le Cordeur, 2019:549). Although the CAPS in principle regards learners' lived experiences as valuable, Schultz and Le Cordeur (2019:555) find that teachers and postgraduate education students are of the opinion that the aforementioned principles are not realised in practice in the literature classroom. This gap between the principles and practice can be attributed to the selection of prescribed literary texts that do not represent the socio-cultural diversity of the learners in the Afrikaans classroom as well as a preference for the "universal value judgement" approach to literature teaching which leaves little room for interpretations of literary texts that are informed by the diverse socio-cultural lived experiences of the learners in the Afrikaans classroom. As a response to the lack of diversity in the prescribed poetry as well as the need for pedagogical approaches empowering marginalised communities and valuing their knowledges, this paper proposes applying culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) principles to teaching Lynthia Julius's debut poetry collection, Uit die kroes (2020) in the Afrikaans Home Language classroom. CSP is a pedagogical approach developed by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim which centres students' culturally embedded ways of knowing, rather than viewing their existing knowledge as a stepping stone to sanctioned knowledge. By validating linguistic and cultural diversity, CSP can be employed to address the ongoing influence of apartheid on contemporary Afrikaans literature instruction while fulfilling the previously mentioned curriculum goals of social transformation. CSP offers an approach to education that positions marginalised students' own cultural backgrounds and linguistic practices as essential rather than supplementary to the pedagogical endeavour. Paris and Alim argue that the sustainment of non-dominant cultures and languages should be as important a pedagogical goal as the transference of subject knowledge. This article argues that CSP can provide significant benefits for the teaching of Afrikaans literature by considering students' own language varieties and cultural knowledge as classroom resources, while also enabling critical examination of hegemonic linguistic ideologies and the erasure of non-standard varieties and cultures. Rejecting assimilationist models, CSP validates fluidity and heterogeneity within communities. It also fosters critical examination of learners' own cultural practices including intracultural oppressive aspects, such as the sexism or homophobia within marginalised groups. CSP aligns well with the ways in which Julius's collection thematically engages history through what Barbara Boswell following on Gqola) calls the "re-memorying" of silenced perspectives. Its restorative ethics centre marginalised subjects and uphold pluralism, showing literary analysis' potential for recognition and engagement with the process of identity construction and marginalisation. As a case study, we examine how two poems from Uit die kroes, "Ouma Xhau" and "Ontheemding," could be productively taught to highlight features of the Oranjerivierafrikaans language variety, Nama cultural and its linguistic influences on Oranjerivierafrikaans, oral literary traditions, and personal experiences of cultural displacement and discrimination. The article outlines practical classroom strategies grounded in CSP for teaching these poems in order to centre marginalised cultural histories and sustain non-standard varieties of Afrikaans. We contend that "Ouma Xhau" can be considered a lyrical portrait of a historicalfigure, whereas "Ontheemding" rather functions as a type of autobiographical self-portrait. "Ouma Xhau" portrays an indigenous woman in what is today the Northern Cape, sharing her people's dispossession by colonialism. A CSP analysis of this poem involves contextualising oral traditions 'importance as knowledge systems by explaining literary conventions like collective storytelling. As assessment, we suggest that students could create oral histories or rap "portraits". Opportunities arise for learners from varied backgrounds to engage marginalised perspectives and enrich one another interculturally. "Ontheemding" depicts intergenerational displacement from the Nama language and culture caused by, amongst other things, urbanisation. Taking a CSP approach to teaching this poem acknowledges linguistic heterogeneity by validating students ' own backgrounds and experiences. Building sociolinguistic awareness, assessments like the writing of "self-portrait" poems encourage critical examination of the learners' linguistic experiences and community norms. Inclusion of diverse voices resists monolingual framings of literary pedagogy. Together, the teaching of these two poems offer opportunities for the sustaining of culture by focussing on absented histories through creative reimaginings. Themes of loss, identity negotiation and societal constraints promote development of analytical skills when approached via CSP. Its restorative ethics uphold pluralism through the inclusion of marginalised subjectivities. The teaching of literature can serve as a vehicle of reconstructing knowledge pluralistically when analysed through frameworks attentive to lived diversity and the power dynamics shaping meaning-making. Research into CSP's impacts is still emerging but indicates benefits for empowering marginalised learners and transforming discriminatory educational dynamics. Its varieties-inclusive, community-centred nature demonstrates potential for decolonising curricula historically privileging monolingual, Afrikaner-centric canons. Most essentially, CSP shows how literary analysis situates aesthetics within the socio-political by fostering critical thought around linguistic justice, cultural recognition and plurality through including and championing silenced subjectivities in knowledge production. Adopting CSP principles allows the teaching of Julius's collection to address the lack of non-standard language representation in Afrikaans literature curricula while achieving curriculum goals through a transformative lens attentive to diversity and social problems. Its restorative ethics reconstruct education as community-oriented rather than a process of assimilationist knowledge transfer. Analysis of the two poems highlights literature's capacity for enrichment when diverse experiences, marginalised histories and fluid cultural realities are taken as point of departure. Most significantly, CSP validates plurality as an intellectual and pedagogical strength central to knowledge formation compatible with democratic principles of inclusion and multivocality.

Palavras-chave : Afrikaans education; Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy; Literature education; Lynthia Julius; Nama-Afrikaans; Oranjerivierafrikaans; Poetry; Variational Linguistics.

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