Ben Carton, John Laband and Jabulani Sithole (Eds) (2008). Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present (Book Review‪)‬

Ben Carton, John Laband and Jabulani Sithole (eds) (2008). Zulu Identities: being Zulu, past and present. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Zulu Identities is an impressive achievement; it will certainly become an important reference for scholars working on Natal and southern Africanists more generally. Almost encyclopaedic in scope, the collection assembles 52 chapters on topics ranging from the archaeology of pre-colonial farming to the tourism industry of contemporary Natal. The editors have deliberately avoided perpetuating the acrimonious divisions that have sometimes characterized the historiography of KwaZulu-Natal--for example, the debates around the so-called mfecane--by including articles reflecting a sweeping variety of methodological and political viewpoints. If a central claim of this volume is that Zulu identity is complex, multiple, and contested, the editors have certainly demonstrated that the field of Zulu studies is now richly developed, including vibrant and evolving research in literary and performance studies, anthropology, material culture and art history, urban sociology, and the history of medicine. Importantly, this volume includes an unprecedented number of Zulu-speaking intellectuals and showcases a new generation of scholarship much more strongly grounded in the Zulu language. In this respect, it provides a timely model for the reorientation of South African scholarship, particularly history, toward vernacular language sources and popular traditions.