Anthropology Southern Africa

ISSN: 2332-3256 (Print) 2332-3264 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rasa20

Socio-economic rights and anthropology? The

case of Deaf people who use South African Sign
Language (SASL) in a university setting

Marion Heap

To cite this article: Marion Heap (2007) Socio-economic rights and anthropology? The case of
Deaf people who use South African Sign Language (SASL) in a university setting, Anthropology
Southern Africa, 30:3-4, 135-142, DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2007.11499957

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2007.11499957

Published online: 25 Sep 2015.

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 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4) 135

Socio-economic rights and anthropology?

The case of Deaf people who use South African
Sign Language (SASL) in a university setting 1

Marion Heap
Health and Human Rights Division, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town
Marion. Heap@uct.ac.za

As a response to Van der Waal and Ward's (2006) invitation, this article suggests human rights, particularly socio-economic
rights, as a conceptual framework to take forward anthropology in post-apartheid South Africa. Entrenchment of human rights
in South Africa's Constitution marks a break with the country's past. South Africa's Constitution is relatively unique in its
comprehensive inclusion of socio-economic rights as enforceable rights. The article draws on the unexpected consequences of a
postdoctoral fellowship in public health and human rights. These consequences, based on participant observation in a university
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setting, supply the ethnography for the article. The ethnography traces the process that saw Deaf people who use signed
language enter a university department as research assistants on a rights-based project, and thereafter transform the social
relationships and day-to-day interactions of the hearing people around them. The reasons provided for the integration of the
Deaf into the university include a 'signing space', a Deaf strategy (described earlier in Heap 2003), a supportive staff and a
commitment to and teaching of, human rights. On the basis of the ethnography, I suggest that socio-economic rights as a
conceptual framework allows the debates in anthropology and human rights to take an additional social dimension. This
additional social dimension allows the anthropologist to work for socio-economic rights, and in doing so, combine social
activism and anthropology. Then the social activism itself becomes the means to the ethnography and the exploration of the
often-unpredictable social life af rights (Wilson and Mitchell 2003).

Keywords: Socio-economic rights, social activism, ethnography, Deaf people

You can have the nicest Constitution on paper [but] if it doesn't relate to reality then there are difficulties. The
Constitution requires all of us to respect the dignity of South Africans and one can't speak of a person's dignity when
the person is living in squalor and that person can't have access to facilities, medical facilities, and it is for that reason
I presume that we have in our Constitution ... socio-economic rights Oustice T.L. Skweyiya, Constitutional Court,
October 2003).

Introduction are a defining characteristic of the current post-apartheid

Van der Waal and Ward (2006) invited anthropologists to
debate the future of their discipline in the southern African
region - its theory and practice. This article suggests human
rights, particularly socio-economic rights, as a conceptual
framework to take anthropology forward - for a number of
reasons. Human rights are emerging as a major focus in inter-
national discourse: by the second half of the 20th century it
had become a political value with global ambitions, analogous
to political meta-narratives such as 'liberal democracy' or
'socialism' (Wilson 2006:77). Human rights are increasingly
seen as a necessary ingredient of development. Amartya
Sen's (2000) 'hugely influential book' bases development pri-
marily in ideas of freedom and includes a significant discussion
of human rights (Wilson and Mitchell 2003: 13). Anthropology
is also seeing a renewed interest in human rights (see, for
example, Goodale 2006; Wilson 2006).
However, most importantly, in South Africa2 human rights
mark a crucial break with the country's apartheid past and
social context in which South African anthropologists live and
work. In 1996, just two years after the country's first-ever
democratic election, the final Constitution of the Republic of
South Africa (1996) and Bill of Rights (Chapter Two of the
Constitution) were adopted. This constitution has been
hailed as one of the most progressive in the world. It commits
the state to redress for past injustices ' ... to [i]mprove the
quality of the life of all citizens ... 'to deal with the legacy of
racial discrimination and to correct the social imbalances it
created (1996, Preamble). Importantly it is almost unique in
that it enshrines the civil and political as well as social and
economic rights. :J"his comprehensive inclusion of social and
economic rights fs a world first (Aibertyn 2006: 195). South
Africa has become an international role model by including
social and economic rights as enforceable rights in its Consti-
tution (Liebenberg and Pillay 2000: 17). By enshrining civil and
political as well as social and economic rights, South Africa's
Constitution promises the right to life, equality, freedom, and

I. Acknowledgements: My very sincere thanks to colleagues, Deaf and hearing who cooperated so generously with me on this project. I
would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft of this article. Funding from the National Research Foundation
(NRF), the Medical Research Council (MRq and University of Cape Town (UCT) is gratefully acknowledged. The research projects
on which this paper is based were approved by the UCT Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee- REOREF 198/2004; 423/2004.
2. The focus of the paper is primarily on the South African situation because this is where my experience lies.
 136
dignity (Sections, 7, 9, 10, II) as well as those rights that con-
cern our day-to-day existence, such as education, health,
housing, justice, social security and social assistance (Sections
26, 27).
The Republic of South Africa (RSA) Constitution's almost
unique promise of social and economic rights, it has been
argued, is a key to post-apartheid South Africa's efforts to
remedy the injustices of the past. According to justice Skwey-
iya (2003) and, as has been argued in the Constitutional
Court in the Grootboom case judgement:' ... there can be no
doubt that human dignity, freedom and equality, the founda-
tional values of our society are denied those who have no
education, health, housing, justice, social security and social
assistance. Affording socio-economic rights to all people
therefore enables them to enjoy the other rights enshrined in
Chapter 2 .. .' (see para 23, Government of the Republic of
South Africa and Others v Grootboom and Others 2000).
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Despite the RSA Constitution's almost unique promise, as
yet, apart from a few exceptions (see, for example, Malan
2005) not many South African anthropologists have chosen to
focus on socio-economic rights. During apartheid, anthropol-
ogists of the expose tradition (Gordon and Spiegel 1993)
worked to expose the iniquity (the human rights abuse) of
apartheid. David Webster of the University of Witwatersrand
was assassinated for his anti-apartheid activism. After 1994,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) drew many
anthropologists (see, for example, Ross 2002; Wilson 200 I)
from here and across the world. Since the TRC, others have
written on the socio-economic rights activism of the Treat-
ment Action Campaign (Robins 2006) or worked with local
people on land claims (see, for example, Sharp and Boonzaier
1994; Cape Argus, October 20, 2006:2; Cape Times, October
27, 2006:5). Comaroff and Comaroff (2005) have problema-
tised the RSA Constitution, examining it for its notion of cul-
ture and the contradictions for South African citizenship and
difference that it promoted.
For those anthropologists who may be interested in
working for socio-economic redress, a narrow focus on 'cul-
tural' identity and minority indigenous rights that reflects the
Canadian and New Zealand experience is inadequate (Leh-
mann 2004). Apartheid denied the majority both socio-eco-
nomic as well as civil and political rights. Black people were
denied the right to vote, the right to freedom of speech and a
fair trial. Apartheid also meant dispossession from their land
and housing. It meant deliberate underdevelopment and dis-
crimination in the quantity and quality of education, housing,
health care and social security (see, also, Liebenberg and Pil-
lay 2000: 18). By 1995 up to 48 percent of the population -
estimated to be nearly 40 million - were living below the pov-
erty line (Landsman and Mackay 2006: 12).
This article will suggest that, by including socio-economic
rights, the RSA Constitution provides an opportunity for
anthropology to extend the debates in human rights and
anthropology beyond 'cultural' rights alone. It allows the
debate around human rights to take a different - or at least
additional - social dimension. This additional social dimension
allows the anthropologist to work for redress, socio-eco-
nomic rights and social justice. This is not applying but rather
exploring anthropological knowledge. It explores by combin-
ing anthropology and social activism. The social activism itself
Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4)
becomes the means to the ethnography and the exploration
of the social life of rights {Wilson and Mitchell 2003). Like all
social life, rights activism may be messy, and unpredictable.
But by participating and observing in the process, the anthro-
pologist is in the position to explore what human rights mean
for the actors at the local level.
This article draws on my doctoral work (Heap 2003), a
postdoctoral fellowship in public health and human rights and
in particular, on the unexpected consequences of the fellow-
ship. Tracing these consequences provides the ethnography
for the article. I commence the body of the article with the
ethnography. Then against this background, I return to the lit-
erature and argue the points the article endeavours to dem-
onstrate.
The ethnography opens with a vignette. The vignette,
drawing on field notes, introduces Deaf people in Cape
Town. Deaf (capitalised) refers to the social group - those
who are born deaf or who become deaf as children and
whose first language is South African Sign Language (SASL)
(see, for example, Padden and Humphries 1988:2). Deaf peo-
ple were the focus of my earlier work (Heap 2003). They are
the focus of my post-doctoral research and this article. The
vignette also illustrates a major problem faced by Deaf people
in Cape Town and in South Africa more widely - that is, a
severe shortage of professional SASL interpreters. In 2005
there were only six professional accredited SASL interpreters
for the entire country and a population of Deaf people that is
estimated to be between 500 000 and I 500 000 people
(Heap and Morgans 2006) and since then little has changed. It
was this shortage and its consequence for the human rights of
Deaf people (see Heap and Morgans 2006) that led me to
take up the post-doctoral fellowship. When I was offered the
fellowship I could not say no. I saw it as a chance 'to do some-
thing practical' at least where health care was concerned.
Knowing the problems, it was not easy to walk away when
the thesis was over. I could not just cut my ties, even if I had
wanted to. Cape Town is my hometown and I live and work
here.
The post-doctoral fellowship (and my current research)
works towards integrating professional SASL interpreters in
health care in Cape Town. When I started the fellowship my
intentions were purely practical. Nothing was going to dis-
tract me from my purpose. I saw my time as short and my
task considerable. I had no intention of pursuing human rights
as a new anthropological interest area. Then the unexpected
happened. The postdoctoral human rights orientated project
began to take on a social life of its own (cf Wilson and Mitch-
ell 2003). The Deaf people whom I had employed for the
research came to the Department and began to transform
the social relationships and the day-to-day interactions of the
hearing people around them. In a relatively short time they
had penetrated the university department, where I was
based, at a number of levels.
I trace the process of the Deaf making their way into the
university. It is based primarily on my participating and
observing in a university setting3. This participant observation
began somewhat unwittingly and then more consciously. It
did not include any formal interviews, only conversations
with colleagues as well as participation in day-to-day depart-
mental activities, research projects, and teaching of both
 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4) 137

undergraduate and postgraduate health science students.
A vignette:
When Flora4 was diagnosed in 29 july 2006, she was the third of
my Deaf acquaintances to be diagnosed with a brain tumour.
May and Makhaya died in 2005. Uke Flora (aged 54 years) they
were relatively young:May was 60 and Makhaya 54 years of age.
At Makhaya's funeral/ remember wondering: would it have made
a difference - would he still be alive - if he had had the services of
a professional South African Sign Language (SASL) interpreter?
One can never be certain. But it took a long time before
Makhaya's brain tumour was diagnosed. He went to a number of
general practitioners, clinics and community health centres (for-
merly the Day Hospitals) when the headaches and vomiting first
began. Health care focused on the vomiting, gave him antacids,
sent him for x-rays and gave him dietary advice. It was difficult
without an interpreter for health care to take a proper history
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business, justice and health care, is severely limited because
of the lack of professional accredited SASL interpreters (Mor-
gan 200 I; Heap and Morgans 2006). A long history of flawed
educational policy that emphasised speech and lip-reading
ahead of signed language (Ree 1999/2000) can account, at
least partly, for the poor supply. For people who were sup-
posed to speak and lip-read- to be like the hearing- profes-
sional SASL interpreters were not a policy consideration. In
addition, South Africa generally has a poor record where
interpreters and translation are concerned. In all the years
leading up to 1994, there were no official interpreter posts in
the public service, outside of the judiciary (Drennan and
Swartz 2002: 1854). Continuing this trend in post-apartheid
South Africa, no provision was made for official interpreter
posts in health care in a recent revision of the public service
post structure (see Drennan and Swartz 2002: 1854).
Communication is key to the health care encounter.

and probe the other symptoms. Makhaya had no way to express
himself. He could not explain that in addition to the vomiting his
headaches were severe, he was slurring his signs, his eyesight
was failing and he was finding it difficult to walk in a straight line.
In due course he became very ill, worn out by the vomiting and
the pain. He was admitted to a regional hospital and from there
he was transferred to the local academic hospital. The academic
hospital diagnosed a tumour in the post-occipital area of his
brain. An emergency shunt relieved the inter-cranial pressure
and later the tumour was removed surgically - but it re-
appeared. In the end Makhaya died at a hospital for the chroni-
cally ill. Flora was admitted to the same hospital, Thursday
August /8, 2006, following surgery for the tumour. She died
there Sunday night, August 20, 2006. At her funeral a week later
I wondered again: would a professional SASL interpreter have
made a difference?
Flora, May and Makhaya were Deaf. By the time of their
death I knew them well, for close on I 0 years, since the start
of my fieldwork. My thesis (Heap 2003) focused on how Deaf
people strategise creatively to deal with being deaf and mar-
ginalised in a dominantly hearing society. It identified a key
strategy, a signing space. A signing space, identifiable on the
basis of signed-based 5 language communication, is a set of
social networks that is developed as a process over time. It
extends from the Deaf individual to include Deaf and hearing
people who use signed language. By means of the signing
space and related to this language, Deaf people make life
meaningful for themselves and those hearing people with
whom they interact. Within the networks of the signing
space, Deaf people love, marry, parent and party just like
everyone else. They are free to take up their social and voca-
tional roles. However, the signing space tended to be con-
fined to the relationships of family, friends and
neighbourhood.
Beyond the networks of the signing space, Deaf people's
access to the public sector, including education, employment,
When interpreters are lacking, effective health care is com-
promised. There is misunderstanding and diagnosis may be
delayed or missed as the vignette suggests. It is also very dis-
tressing to find yourself left in the waiting room at the end of
a long and busy day in a state health care facility, because you
could not 'hear' - or lip-read - when your name was called. It
is heartbreaking to find you have been given 'a morning after
pill', when all you wanted was a pregnancy test (in conversa-
tion on the way home from the annual Health and Human
Rights Workshop6, March 2006, University of Stellenbosch).
Professional interpreting services is a human rights issue.
The RSA Constitution promises the right to health care on
the basis of equality and freedom from any form of unfair dis-
crimination on a number of grounds, including, race, gender,
as well as disability and language (Pillay 1999: I). To overcome
language barriers and to ensure equal access to effective non-
discriminatory health care, Pillay has argued that professional
interpreter and translation services must become an integral
part of service delivery ( 1999:5).
My down-to-earth research plan to improve professional
SASL interpreting services involved a survey. The survey
would document what had been up to then largely anecdotal
evidence of the communication experiences of Deaf people
in health care. And then armed with a 'scientific' report based
on this survey, I hoped to lobby the health care authorities
and create awareness for the interpreting needs of Deaf peo-
ple.
The survey employed four Deaf people as research assist-
ants because they had the necessary skills. They knew the
language and could 'find' Deaf people who are generally not
easy to access for research purposes. Being Deaf themselves
the researchers could tap into the extraordinary networks of
social relationships that I have described as comprising the
'Deaf community' of Cape Town (see Heap 2006).
The survey introduced four Deaf people to the staff of the
university department where I was employed. At first the

3. To use my experiences based on participant observation, I have had the cooperation - and the permission - of the Deaf involved, the
Head of Department as well as my colleagues on the Floor where I work.
4. I use pseudonyms throughout to protect the identity of the people involved.
5. I have used the term sign-based in my thesis (Heap 2003) to make the point that the degree of SASL fluency varied.
6. Every year around Human Rights Day (21 March) the four Health Science Faculties in the Western Cape (that is Cape Peninsula Uni-
versity of Technology, Stellenbosch University, University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town) take turns to mark
the occasion with a Workshop on the right to health and health care.
 138
Deaf research assistants came to the department for the nec-
essary research training and meetings. Then when the field-
work was complete, the two younger workers - Andile and
Thabile - who had computer experience, moved into the
Researchers' Office to capture and clean the survey data.
Following this move into the Researchers' Office noticea-
ble changes began to occur. Deaf and hearing colleagues
working together, encouraged by a supportive public health
context, began to negotiate a cultural space around SASL. I
remember remarking on it to Sally Frankental, my doctoral
supervisor, when she asked after my postdoctoral research. 'I
think they [the Deaf] are creating a signing space in the
department and in the Faculty'. 'Well write about it!' she
urged. Thereafter, I began more consciously to participate
and observe in the process of the creation of a signing space
in a university setting. The next section of the article traces
this process.
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Sign names and noon meetings
The open-plan Researchers' Office where Andile, Thabile and
I worked, hosts three or four other researchers. It was here
that I first noticed the beginnings of the signing space as the
Deaf began to integrate into the department. The first real
development was the 'sign names'. I noticed, when they were
chatting among themselves that Andile and Thabile had given
sign names to my immediate colleagues in the Researchers'
Office - Xolela and Zola - as well as to the Professor.
The Deaf use 'sign names' among themselves and for the
hearing with whom they associate regularly and with whom
they establish relationships. Sign names by means of a single
or a combined sign define an individual uniquely. The names
are often very astute in the way they home in to detail a
unique characteristic, or a physical feature, even a personality
trait. Some even have a history dating back to school days.
Sign names rarely have a written equivalent. For instance my
name is clumsy to describe in words: the first finger and the
thumb are extended from a fist of one hand to make a three
quarter circle around the eye followed by the initial M along-
side the eye. But it is a nimble and efficient sign that defines
me uniquely as the M who wears round spectacles.
Beyond the office, Andile and Thabile were also coming
into contact with other members of staff, especially in the
room that housed the photocopier and tea-making equip-
ment. As in any department this room is an important infor-
mal meeting place for staff who would otherwise not see
each other regularly. Anna, a hearing colleague, was meeting
Thabile nearly every day and she was beginning to feel awk-
ward because she was unable to greet her and converse with
her. She wanted to learn how to communicate in signed lan-
guage.
Anna asked me for some contacts and went ahead and
arranged a slot in the regular weekly staff seminar series. The
non-governmental organisation, SLED (Sign Language Educa-
tion and Development) supplied a Deaf teacher and two pro-
fessional SASL interpreters. Anna advertised the meeting by
email to all members of the department. Almost the entire
department attended. The turnout was extraordinary, stand-
7. Gadija was away - on maternity leave - for most of the time that Andile and Thabile were in the office on a day-to-day basis
contribution to the general ambience of the office while she was part of the staff must be acknowledged.
Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4)
ing room only (which is rare) and included all levels, from
professors to administrative staff. Led by a dynamic and
attractive young Deaf teacher, it was a lively occasion, with
much fun and fumbling as the staff practiced sign greetings
and sign names.
After the Noon Meeting the Deaf fieldworkers began to
take part in numerous other activities. They attended - with
professional SASL interpreting - workshops and conferences.
They were invited to and attended an inaugural lecture. They
addressed the Faculty Administrative staff, which included the
Deputy Dean. They have interacted with students and have
taken part in the teaching of both second- and third-year
health science students. They collaborated with students to
produce a set of guidelines for health-care staff interacting
with Deaf people (Heap et a/ 2006). They are now regular
part-time members of staff. And from the beginning of 2007,
the Disability Unit of the university commenced SASL classes
across the university. Four members of staff from the floor
where the Deaf people work attend these classes.
This level of integration of the Deaf in the Health Science
Faculty was quite unexpected. I had hoped that the Deaf net-
works would work to access Deaf people for the survey and
they did. But I did not expect their networks to push back a
hearing boundary in a university and university department.
The question then is: what are the factors that account for
the expanding signing space? Andile and Thabile, as Deaf,
brought their strategies with them. They have been dealing
with hearing people all their lives. But context also counts. To
look at the context, I start with the Researchers' Office.
A researchers' office, monthly birthday teas, anti-
apartheid activists and human rights
'You got a cool place here bru ... ' was how one of our visi-
tors described the 'Researchers' Office'. The Researchers'
Office, where Thabile, Andile and I worked is a hive of diver-
sity. If you look at the demographics we vary on almost every
criterion, such as age, residence, religion, old apartheid cate-
gories, place of birth, education and language. Some days you
can hear and see four languages in use - Afrikaans, isiXhosa,
English and SASL and sometimes even more. Most recently
we have also had visiting interns speaking Dutch and Spanish.
The Researchers' Office brings together in one place
many of the strands that make up the university. Xolela, Zola
and Gadija7 are permanent research staff. Beth, a medical
doctor, class medallist and Rhodes scholar, spent eight
months in the office before she left for Oxford. Ellen spent
three months on a prestigious internship before she returned
to the USA to complete her medical residency. Students also
visit from adult education, anthropology, health sciences and
the Public Health Master's Programme. And not to forget the
'corns': Zola is the resident trade unionist and worker repre-
sentative. He regularly holds meetings with his comrades or
consults in the Researchers' Office.
The residents appear very different with different South
African histories. They have different likes and dislikes, enjoy
different music, different movies, and even different food.
They support different sports teams. Xolela supports
but her
 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4)
Orlando Pirates and Zola, Andile and Thabile support Kaiser
Chiefs. Yet we work well. We debate. We tease. We com-
miserate. We share ups and downs. We laugh. Sometimes we
cry. We may get angry but it is rarely with each other.
The Researchers' Office, I suggest, is like the best of what
'working class township' life has to offer. It was in the Cape
Town township setting that I first noticed Deaf and hearing
people mixing easily. I argued (Heap 2003) that the density of
township living, the multigenerational households and tightly
packed neighbourhoods have their problems but they also
have certain advantages. These advantages contributed to the
formation of the signing space. When people live or work
face to face, they are much more likely to need to communi-
cate. It may even start, as it did in the Researchers' Office,
with names and with greetings.
Beyond the Researchers' Office there were a number of
almost routine departmental sociable occasions that also facil-
itated the integration of the Deaf, such as the Monthly Birth-
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day Tea On the last Thursday of every month at morning
teatime (10h30 - llhOO), the department celebrates the
birthdays that have occurred during the month. This is also an
occasion to congratulate staff on marriages, births, as well as
career successes or promotions. It is a time to welcome new
members and visitors and to say farewell to those leaving.
A typical Monthly Birthday Tea begins with a timely e-mail
reminder to all members of the department from the admin-
istrator in charge of the occasion. The staff members who
have a birthday in the month are responsible for supplying the
eats. At I Oh30, the staff assembles in the department's 'tea
room'. The tea room is large, comfortably furnished and
attached to a well-appointed kitchen. The tea is well
attended and is always hosted by the head of department or,
if not available, the deputy. The administrator, who has
responsibility for the tea, briefs the head on all the happen-
ings for the month. Halfway through the tea, when all are
comfortably settled with tea and cake, the head stands up
informally - but appropriately - to pass on the good wishes
on behalf of the staff.
The Monthly Birthday Tea fulfills a number of functions.
Especially it works to integrate and hold together a large staff
dispersed across a number of floors and buildings. Without a
deliberate effort to bring the staff together; months could go
by and they would not see each other. It works well because
the senior staff takes it seriously. I remember a visitor
remarking on the numbers attending, the friendliness and the
congeniality of the occasion. She said they had something
similar at the organisation where she worked but only the
administrative staff attended, and never the senior staff. As a
result there were many people she had never met, and
whose names she did not even know.
In addition to the Researchers' Office and the routine
sociable occasions, there is also an 'historical' factor. Many of
the senior academics and other members of staff have a long
history of a commitment to social justice, having been active
in the anti-apartheid struggle from their student days. Their
research and teaching activities continue to reflect this com-
mitment. As well, after 1994, at the TRC, Leslie London and
Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven were instrumental in arranging the
health professional hearings. One of the recommendations of
these hearings was the inclusion of human rights in the educa-
139
tion of health professionals (Truth and Reconciliation Com-
mission Report 1998: I 09-164; Baldwin-Ragaven 1998;
London et a/ 1997). Currently at UCT, teaching of human
rights takes place at undergraduate and post-graduate levels
as well as in the form of a Train-the-Trainer Course - a
weeklong course directed at the teachers of health profes-
sionals.
The hard question is: does human rights play a role in the
facilitation of the signing space? That is, would the depart-
ment and the faculty have been as supportive of the Deaf
people if it did not have the Health and Human Rights pro-
gramme? There is no simple answer. The answer is partly the
Deaf themselves. As I have said, for most of their lives the
Deaf have been making social life meaningful for themselves
and hearing people in predominantly hearing situations. The
answer is also a supportive university context, as I have tried
to demonstrate. But I would also say that human rights have
had an impact. They have enhanced sensitivity to human dig-
nity, respect and vulnerability. They have enhanced a sense of
accountability for what not only governments do but also
what people do. This accountability in the department and in
the faculty has been practical. The department and the faculty
fund professional SASL interpreters. Interpreters are now
almost routine practice when Deaf people are to be present,
certainly at formal functions, such as lectures and confer-
ences.
Thus far I can say that human rights have played a role in
the unexpected integration of Deaf people into the univer-
sity. A human rights framework has facilitated the more for-
mal aim of my postdoctoral research. In 2008 I hope to pilot
the first professional SASL interpreter service in health care in
Cape Town, although professional SASL interpreters are still
few. However, the question remains: what does human
rights as a conceptual framework suggest for the future of
anthropology in South Africa? The next section of the article
returns to the suggestions this article makes to examine these
in the light of the literature.
Anthropology and human rights
I have suggested earlier that socio-economic rights provide
an additional social dimension to take anthropology and
human rights beyond the culture versus rights debates. This
debate has a long history beginning in 1947. Then Herskow-
itz, writing on behalf of the American Association of Anthro-
pologists (AAA) and from a cultural relativist perspective,
challenged the universality of the United Nations' proposed
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (AAA 1947). The cul-
tural relativist per'$pective, as is well known, viewed cultures
as numerous neatly bounded, ahistorical, homogeneous enti-
ties. The 'lens of cultural relativity' made the 'world appear as
culture gardens separated by boundary-maintaining values -
as posited essences' (Malkki 1992, quoting Prakash 1990,
cited in Preis 1996:290). Herskowitz's Statement (AAA
1947), some would argue, has been widely misunderstood
and misinterpreted (Goodale 2006). His warning of a 'moral
imperialism' (Hernandez-Truyol and Esperanza 2002, cited in
Goodale 2006:2) based on certain preferred largely 'western'
standards was, in fact, based on a deep concern for, what I
would term social justice. He was concerned that none
should be excluded from 'the freedom of full participation'
 140
(AAA 1947:543, cited in Goodale 2006:2)- basically because
of different ways of doing things.
After 1948, anthropologists were sidelined and human
rights became largely the prerogative of political theorists,
legal scholars, and philosophers (Messer 1993:223-235). For
these scholars, whether rights were universal or relative
became a key topic despite anthropology's marginalisation
from these debates (Washburn 1987; Renteln 1988; Cohen
1989; Messer 1993; Engle 200 I). Their view of cultures as
homogeneous, integrated and consensual systems that must
be accepted or criticised as wholes has persisted up to the
present (Merry 2003:3). 'Human rights continues to be a bat-
tlefield of fierce, heated and passionate debate, with
researchers making strong - and strongly varying - philo-
sophical, political or moral commitments' (Preis 1996:288).
Since 1948, however, anthropological theories about cul-
ture have changed a great deal. Ortner ( 1984) and even ear-
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lier work turned the focus to fluidity, to practice and power,
actors and actions, variation, process, context, and the inter-
relationships of the local and the global. Interestingly, in South
Africa, an interest in and an awareness of process or fluidity
came early. Monica Hunter's Reaction to Conquest ( 1936) 'a
study of the Pondo, not only in their 'tribal' setting but also as
labourers on European farms and in the towns of South
Africa, has been singled out as a notable example of a dia-
chronic or historically-dimensioned study at a time when
ahistorical and static studies are said to have dominated the
field' (Brown 1973: 187, cited in Moore 1993:36, see Note
I 0). Anthropology in South Africa also had trouble embracing
the cultural relativist paradigm in the ways that it was used in
the USA because of the use of the culture concept by the
apartheid government. Towards the end of the 1980s the
changes in anthropology began to have a noticeable influence
on debates around human rights (Messer 1993; Goodale
2006). Increasingly, human rights were being viewed as 'cul-
tural practice' (Preis 1996), to be seen in context (Wilson
1997) and inevitably more complex (Merry 2003).
Over time, two major approaches or themes are said to
have emerged in anthropology and human rights (Goodale
2006). In a recent 'In Focus' section of the American Anthro-
pologist, dedicated to taking anthropology and human rights
into a 'new key', Goodale (2006) makes a 'constructive dis-
tinction' (Wilson 2006:81) between anthropological
approaches to human rights that are motivated by an 'eman-
cipatory activism' (see, for example, Turner 1997) and those
that establish an analytical distance to undertake 'an ethnog-
raphy' of human rights claims and their concrete conse-
quences (see, for example, Wilson 200 I; Cowan et a/ 200 I ,
and Ross 2002 for a South African example). An 'emancipa-
tory activist' approach, in line with Turner ( 1993; 1997), uses
expressions of cultural difference to explore underlying struc-
tural inequalities of race and class, and uses these to work for
redress. It advocates engaging with minority indigenous cul-
tural rights struggles. In contrast, an ethnographic approach
stands somewhat back from the rights struggle and explores
the social life of rights (Wilson and Mitchell 2003) - the per-
formative dimensions of human rights, the dynamics of social
mobilisation and the attitudinal changes of elite and non-elite
actors towards formulations of rights and justice, both inside
and outside the legal process (Wilson 2006: 77).
Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4)
To go forward, Goodale has proposed an 'ecumenical
anthropology of human rights' (2006:5). Such an anthropol-
ogy of human rights combines approaches motivated by
'emancipatory activism' (Turner 1997) and those motivated
by an ethnography of human rights' (Wilson 2006:81 ). I draw
on Goodale (2006) to suggest human rights, particularly
socio-economic rights, as a conceptual framework to take
forward anthropology in post-apartheid South Africa. This
conceptual framework in the South African context retains
the notion of emancipation to emphasise the action for free-
dom and redress it implies. It expands this notion to include
an emancipatory activism motivated by social and economic
justice. By focusing on socio-economic rights, a South African
anthropology of human rights goes beyond an emancipatory
activism that historically has tended to focus on the rights of
indigenous minorities to embrace an additional social dimen-
sion. The social dimension allows the anthropologist to work
for and at the same time undertake ethnography of the often-
unpredictable social life of socio-economic rights (Wilson and
Mitchell 2003) as this article has attempted to demonstrate.
In conclusion
My formal research in public health and human rights -work-
ing to make professional SASL interpreters integral to health
care in Cape Town - took me on an unintended and unex-
pected journey. The journey is not over. At this point I would
like to suggest that anthropology in South Africa explore
socio-economic rights as a conceptual framework. I am sug-
gesting engaging in social, especially socio-economic rights
activism to pursue ethnography, even though whether to
engage or not will always be contested. Combining social
activism and ethnography allows the South African anthropol-
ogist to engage constructively but critically (Spiegel 2006)
with the promise of the RSA Constitution, both as a citizen
and as an anthropologist. This is asking for more than the
usual understanding of 'citizen anthropologist', which tends
to refer only to the relationship with the study population of
the anthropologist who works at home (see, for example,
Becker, Boonzaier and Owen 2005). I am asking for engage-
ment with a human rights issue, both actively and critically. In
the process, the anthropologist explores what making real
the promise of the RSA Constitution actually means at the
level of the lived experience of ordinary people. Anthropol-
ogy can provide rich ethnographic texture and theoretical
innovation about the lived experience of marginalisation and
human rights discourse and practice. Anthropologists are
known to 'get off the verandah' (Wilson 2006:79) and go
where few others venture to find the 'poorest of the poor'
(de Jongh 2002). The poorest of the poor and vulnerable
groups are a key focus for redress by the RSA Constitution.
As Justice Denis Davis puts it:' ... our Constitution is [about]
dealing with the poorest of the poor first' (Davis 2006).
 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2007, 30(3&4)
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