Bafokeng, Inc.—Power of the nation/corporation amalgam

Abstract

The concept of ‘Ethnicity, Inc.’ so thoroughly conjoins the ethnic nation with the ethnic corporation that it becomes increasingly difficult to think of one without the other. This article aims to deconstruct this relationship by demonstrating how the ambiguity between nation and corporation affords Bafokeng, Inc. several beneficial statuses. Power brokers play the boundaries, skilfully blending, equivocating, mediating, and otherwise working the spheres of nation and corporation, of bureaucracy and market. The strength of Ethnicity, Inc. organisations lies in significant part in their ability to adopt different statuses in the context of a politics of recognition and representation.