Paper short abstract:

In the 1930s Agnes Winifred Hoernle? inspired a cohort of young South Africans to become critical, scholarly witnesses to the grim politics of "race relations" in their country. Among them were Monica Wilson, Eileen Krige, Ellen Hellman and Hilda Kuper, all of whom became significant figures in the field.

Paper long abstract:

In the 1930s Agnes Winifred Hoernle? inspired a cohort of young South

Africans to become critical, scholarly witnesses to the grim politics of

"race relations" in their country. Among them were Monica Wilson, Eileen

Krige, Ellen Hellman and Hilda Kuper, all of whom became significant figures

in the field.

Eileen Krige and Hilda Kuper produced classic accounts of African

chiefdoms, but Krige also carried out urban studies, and Kuper analysed the

politics of race in the British enclave of Swaziland. Monica (Hunter)

Wilson's monograph "Reaction to Conquest" laid out the social dislocation

caused by white settlement. Their fieldwork was politically fraught, and

their situation uneasy, even risky, not least as women in a conservative,

patriarchal and racist society.