Wits University Press

John Marnell is a researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His work uses various forms of storytelling to interrogate the lived experiences of LGBT migrants on the African continent.

SEEKING SANCTUARY

Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration Written and Compiled by JOHN MARNELL

A glimpse into the lives of LGBTQ migrants in Johannesburg, in their own words

Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator’s arduous journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards self-love and self-acceptance. The narrators reveal their personal battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators’ resilience in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems. Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious communities who are working towards justice, diversity and inclusion.

September 2021 288 pages • 6 x 9 Paper • 9781776147106 • $30.00S Cloth • 9781776147113 • $89.00X

Sociology

BONES AND BODIES

How South African Scientists Studied Race

ALAN G. MORRIS

Alan G. Morris critically examines the history of evolutionary anthropology in South Africa, uncovering the often racist philosophical motivations of these physical anthropology researchers and the discipline itself

South Africa is famed for its contribution to the study of human evolution. In Bones and Bodies Alan G. Morris takes us back over the past century of anthropological discovery in South Africa and uncovers the stories of the individual scientists and how they contributed to our knowledge of the peoples of southern Africa, both ancient and modern. Not all of this history is one which we should feel comfortable with, as much of the earlier anthropological studies have been tainted with the tarred brush of race science. Morris critically examines the work of Raymond Dart, Thomas Dreyer, Matthew Drennan, and Robert Broom who all described their fossil discoveries with the mirror of racist interpretation, as well as the life and times in which they worked. Morris also considers how modern anthropology tried to rid itself of the stigma of these early racist accounts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ronald Singer and Phillip Tobias introduced modern methods into the discipline that jettisoned much of what the public wished to believe about race and human evolution. Modern methods in physical anthropology rely on sophisticated mathematics and molecular genetics but are difficult to translate and sometimes fail to challenge preconceived assumptions. In an age where the authority of the expert and empirical science is questioned, this book shows the battle facing modern anthropology in how to explain science in a context that seems to be at odds with life experience. In this highly accessible insider account, Morris examines the philosophical motivations of these researchers and the discipline itself. Much of the material draws on old correspondence and interviews as well as from published resources.

Alan G. Morris is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town. Professor Morris has published extensively on the origin of anatomically modern humans, and the Later Stone Age, Iron Age and historic populations of Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa, as well as forensic anthropology. He has an additional interest in South African history and has published on the history of race classification, the history of physical anthropology in South Africa and on the Canadian involvement in the Anglo-Boer War. His current research is on ancient DNA in African populations and the history of physical anthropology in South Africa.

January 2022 304 pages • 6 x 9 Paper • 9781776147236 • $30.00S Cloth • 9781776147243 • $89.00X

Anthropology