ABSTRACT
Frustration with the pace of societal change has reinvigorated the decolonisation debate in post-apartheid South Africa in recent years. However, the ambiguity and controversy surrounding the concept of indigeneity, which is frequently linked to the marginalised Khoisan ethnic group, constitutes an underexamined stumbling block. This chapter takes stock of the different perspectives on indigeneity among the main groups concerned: the Khoisan, government officials, and academics. Drawing on articulation theory, I distinguish ‘etic-critical’, ‘etic-analytical’, and ‘emic’ articulations of indigeneity. These articulations elicit different features of indigeneity, such as prior occupancy and distinct forms of marginalisation, but they are habitually conflated by all stakeholders involved, resulting in misunderstandings, frustrations, and people talking past one another. This in turn renders the recipients and aims of decolonisation unclear, which frustrates the Khoisan in particular. I reframe this dissonance as “conflicting logics of autochthony” by introducing the concepts of belonging and autochthony. This refurbished analytical toolbox delineates competing positions within the politics of indigeneity more clearly. Crucially, it also identifies marginalised perspectives as well as productive ways of moving decolonisation forward.
