Youth Theory in South Africa: An Indigenous African Perspective Derived from Sepedi Idioms and Proverbs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1016-8427/4292Abstract
While there is general underdevelopment of social theory within African scholarship, where the latter tends to rely heavily on borrowing from other scholarships, and in some instances adapt theories developed from elsewhere in a creative manner, notably from Northern scholarly discourses—this does not however, suggest the absence of theory within indigenous African knowledge systems. This article demonstrates, in a constructivist tradition pioneered by African scholars such as Akiwowo and Mafeje that there are rich theoretical and conceptual insights within the indigenous African folklore such as proverbs, poetry, and legends. It is observed that there is elaborate youth theory within South African indigenous communities’ cultural heritage and folklore—especially proverbs and idioms. The article discusses such proverbs and idioms in a manner that deciphers their rich theoretical content and insights on young persons as an important social category of African communities, using idioms and proverbs of the Bapedi people of South Africa as examples.
Â
Â
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright will be vested in Unisa Press. However, as long as you do not use the article in ways which would directly conflict with the publisher's business interests, you retain the right to use your own article (provided you acknowledge the published version of the article) as follows:
- to make further copies of all or part of the published article for your use in classroom teaching;
- to make copies of the final accepted version of the article for internal distribution within your institution, or to place it on your own or your institution's website or repository, or on a site that does not charge for access to the article, but you must arrange not to make the final accepted version of the article available to the public until 18 months after the date of acceptance;
- to reuse all or part of this material in a compilation of your own works or in a textbook of which you are the author, or as the basis for a conference presentation.
Accepted 2018-05-14
Published 2018-09-10