Writing History, produced segregation: a historiography of apartheid kindergarten (1899-1928).

• Grant number: 23/10729-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Lúcia Helena Oliveira Silva
• Grantee: Marcos Paulo Amorim dos Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the discussion on the formation and consolidation of apartheid¸ three tripods are nominally elected for its construction. First, the wars are analyzed, such as the Anglo-Zulu War (1879) and the South African Wars (1880-1881; 1899-1902). Afterward, restrictions on the passage and transit of native populations culminated in the Color Bar Act (1894) and the Land Law (1913). Finally, the intellectual construction itself revolves around professors at the University of Pretoria, such as Geoffrey Cronjé (1907-1992) or Werner Eiselen (1899-1977). Although academic construction is an important point of this definition, this project aims to reflect other forms of construction of the idea of racial segregation. Investigating, through texts compiled by travelers, religious people, and scholars of South African native populations, other forms of propagation of the idea of inequality between races, culminating in a wide dissemination of racial segregation even before political elaboration. To this end, it is intended to proceed with research in the archives united under the "Travel to the Cape of Good Hope and Beyond" fund, available at the Edgar Leuenroth Archive of the State University of Campinas (AEL/Unicamp). This collection contains renowned titles in studies on Zulu peoples, such as Reverend Alfred T. Bryant's "Olden Times in Zululand and Natal" (1929) and others less known, such as "Initiation Rite of Banasemola", by Werner Max Eiselen (1934). Although the works were written, as in the case of Eiselen, by people who would occupy political posts in the state in the future, the research among these documents will allow recording the movements of these characters in the production of differences between black and white populations in the southern space. African, even before its consecration via politics. In addition, it will allow the comparison of texts in order to understand that even the intended forms of segregation are not unanimous and vary according to the social and cultural conditions of the individuals who assumed such a construction role.