Imagery of Identity in South African Education, 1880-1990

Book excerpt: Imagery of Identity in South African Education examines the role that images embedded in the language and discourses of colonialism and apartheid have played in shaping diverse and conflicting identities in South Africa. It explores images and modes of discursive representation in South African education, and the associated struggles for constitution and hegemony of group identities over years. Images should be understood in the context of "the struggle in words and by words," in the sense that images and representations of group identities are not neutral intellectual activity. They are action and practice with profound implications for the affirmation of desire, power and interests within society. Cross shows how the question of group identity has dominated the history of intellectual and cultural production in South Africa, particularly within the educational field.