Lauren Dyll

The Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa has contributed to the intellectual growth, pedagogy, and practical implementation of communication for social change over the past two decades. During this time our approach has evolved considerably. These transitions speak to both the structural and political situations in a transforming South Africa, as well as the personal and theoretical interests of the Centre’s staff.

This article critically examines the conventional researcher-researched relationship that empowers the researcher over the researched. The orthodoxy of objectivity - claimed to locate the researchers as neutral observer - is here argued to be a power relation that has an excluding effect where subject communities are concerned. By means of an archaeological case study that included mapping and interpretation of ancient rock engravings we offer a new way of negotiating interpretations.

The dividing practice of separating indigenous and scientific knowledge should be avoided. The article illustrates how these forms of knowledge are negotiated in development projects where research participants are included as co-researchers. Data were collected through interviews and participant observation during fieldtrips to the Kalahari. !Xaus Lodge, the first research site, a poverty alleviation tourism asset built by the South African government and owned by the ǂKhomani and Mier communities.

Within the current South African “research education” context, characterised by the call for decolonisation, massification of education (yet a lack of resources) and neoliberal managerialism, graduate students and academics face challenges in conducting “culturally literate” research that is transformative. This article establishes that language, in rethinking indigeneity, means more than just linguistic symbolic expression, and extends to include local, cultural and spiritual expressions by research participants.