Analyzing political formation through historical isiXhosa text analysis: Using frequency analysis to examine emerging African Nationalism in South Africa
Year: 2023
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This paper showcases new research avenues made possible by applying computational methods to historical isiXhosa text.I outline a method for isiXhosa computational text analysis which adapts word frequency analysis to be applied to isiXhosa texts focusing on root words.The paper showcases the value of the approach in a study of emerging political identities in early African nationalism, examining a novel dataset of isiXhosa newspapers from 1874 to 1890.The analysis shows how a shared identity of 'Blackness' (Abantsundu and Abamnyama) dynamically emerged, and follows the impact of leading intellectuals as well as African voter mobilization in shaping communal political discourse.
Author: Jonathan Schoots
Institution: Stellenbosch University
Language: English
Subfield: General Social Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Funder: National Research Foundation
Award: G8975268289
OpenAlex ID: W4386576878