'n Parergonale blik op transmissie en verandering in Batswana bou- en muurkuns / Elizabeth M.M. Conradie

Abstract

The central issue at stake in this study can by formulated by asking the question as to how transmission and change in Batswana building and wall decoration in the North West Province can be opened up and interpreted via an intrinsically parergonal approach. Transmission and change in the context of Batswana building and wall decoration offer important parameters for the development of an African nation within the contemporary postmodern view of society. These insights are of importance for a parergonal understanding of essential changes in the multi-cultural situation in South Africa. The notion of living space is of central importance for mankind. This constitutes the space within which the individual lives and completes his lifecycle. The living space in influenced by the processes of transmission and change which in turn are essential for growth and progress. The Batswana arts of building and wall decoration in North West cannot be seen in isolation from its socio-cultural and historic past because it provides a specific framework with a fixed viewpoint for purposes of viewing realities such as transmission and change; a framework aimed at making it possible to uncover perception of the hidden, the parergonal. The uncovering of the parergonal fulfils a central role in the socio-cultural imperatives for action among the Batswana. The framework thus established has to be constructed against a background of socio-cultural and parergonal values such as the cosmology and the cosmography as well as the symbolic values of the Batswana. The over-arching aim therefore was to do research in order to be able to indicate how transmission and change of the arts of building and wall decoration of the Batswana in North West could be uncovered and interpreted through such an intrinsically parergonal approach. The study is essentially embedded in a post-colonial context. It can also be seen as imbricated in further post-colonial contexts such as feminism and deconstruction. Post-colonialism is a wide-ranging term within the wider context of post-modernism. In this study the concepts pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial are linked to the historic colonial development of the Batswana in the present North West Province. The terms pre-Phatlalatsa, Phatlalatsa and post-Phatlalatsa are linked with post-colonial concepts. As regards the work method, the general formative principle was the following, viz. that the study rests on exploration, description and contextualization (within which the parergonal is embedded). Essentially it was discovered that Transmission and change give a good indication of parergonal socio-cultural presence; The parergonal imperative is adjusted through socio-cultural concepts and factors effected through the transmission and change of alien influences; The parergonal concepts are found to have changed the hierarchical internal layout of space and the working of space within a settlement pattern; The parergonal notion of architectonic symbolism has changed from the notion of the house as fortified symbol of protection to the house as expression of individual preference and taste; The parergonal concepts of the cosmological and the cosmographic as controlled by the individual did not change; Transmission and change through the re-use of building materials to some extent maintain parergonal continuity; and There is a parergonal link between culture and production that is reflected in financial wealth and production. The further proposed contribution made by the study is to be found in the multimedia package constituting an essential part of the total manuscript.