Sanele Ntshingana, 'Theorizing political authority from vernacular concepts: the political discourse of iXhosa-speaking African intellectuals from South Africa 1836-1914'

In-person and livestreaming at youtube.com/hutchinscenter

Sanele Ntshingana is a lecturer in the African Languages section of the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town, with over five years of experience in the higher education sector. His PhD research explores how isiXhosa-speaking African intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th centuries conceptualized political authority through vernacular concepts. By analyzing thinkers such as Gciniswa Noyi, Tiyo Soga, William Wellington Gqoba, and John Tengo Jabavu, his work challenges Eurocentric political frameworks and contributes to the decolonization of African historiography.

Theorizing political authority from vernacular concepts: the political discourse of isiXhosa-speaking African intellectuals from South Africa 1836-1914

Ntshingana's project traces how isiXhosa-speaking intellectuals, thinkers, and activists from 1838 to 1938 conceptualized political authority using vernacular concepts such as umbuso and umthetho during a period of intense social and political transformation in South Africa. It brings renewed attention to figures often dismissed as mere “informants” or “colonial collaborators,” such as Gciniswa Noyi and William Kekale Kaye, and reinterprets more widely recognized thinkers like Tiyo Soga, William Wellington Gqoba, and John Tengo Jabavu—not just as Christian leaders but as significant political theorists. Ntshingana analyzes both their ideas and the ontological frameworks shaping their discourse, while also examining how these notions of authority have been reframed by later historians, translators, and scholars. This multilayered inquiry contributes to African political theory and epistemic decolonization by foregrounding African intellectual traditions in their own terms.