{"id":3,"date":"2025-02-06T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/soundingindigenous\/homepage\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T11:55:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T15:55:05","slug":"homepage","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/soundingindigenous\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Welcome\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n
\"An
People gather for music and dance around a fire in the \u201cCultural Village\u201d during the 2024 Nama Cultural Festival.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounding Indigenous in South Africa: Music and Performance Heritage in Khoisan Revival\u201d is a collaborative research project concerning the music and performance heritage of Indigenous communities in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This project investigates and archives the music and performance practices of people in South Africa\u2019s Northern Cape region who identify as Khoesan (also Khoisan, Khoi-San, Khoe-S\u0101n) and who are known as the \u201cfirst people\u201d. Settler colonialism in southern Africa and centuries of violence against the region\u2019s indigenous peoples decimated their populations. Today, the ancestors of numerous and distinct social groups across South Africa identify as \u201cKhoesan\u201d and claim Indigenous status under this name. Buoyed by global indigenous rights movements, Khoesan activists have made considerable effort in recent decades to revive indigenous practices in South Africa, including languages, cosmological beliefs, song repertoires, and performance heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With community permissions and in collaboration with Indigenous partners, the project\u2019s team of academic researchers and Khoesan scholar-activists will collaboratively archive and study Khoesan heritage performances of music and dance with communities across the Northern Cape. Of central concern is how heritage performance\u2014in particular, of dances and song lines\u2014functions in the contemporary imagination and telling of Khoesan social history in South Africa. What role does performance heritage serve in the contemporary construction of Khoesan identity? How are performances leveraged in the ongoing Khoesan cultural revival and political movement? And how does heritage performance support the interests of Khoesan communities as against those of the South African government, private organizations, and tourists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This collaborative project aims to recognize and conserve Khoesan cultural knowledge as well as produce new research data for the future comparative study of cultural strategies deployed by Indigenous groups in diverse contexts. Project outcomes\u2014including open-access and digitized community archives of Khoesan music and dance heritage\u2014will proffer concrete materials for Khoesan communities to use in their cultural conservation and political mobilization efforts. Many Khoesan activists make recourse to inherited cultural practices, such as music, dance, and storytelling, as evidence of their Indigenous legal status and right to land. We anticipate that this research will be of special relevance to Khoesan Councils engaged in state policy reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounding Indigenous in South Africa\u201d is funded by Canada\u2019s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Sharon Gabie in interview with Mr. Andries Snyders in Keimoes, Northern Cape, South Africa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n
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\n Recent News\n <\/h2>\n\n <\/header>\n \n \n