Bogosi in Limpopo, South Africa: Exploring Political Sovereignty from Its Underside

This paper explores how the annual event to celebrate Kgosi Matsebe Sekhukhune I becomes instrumental in creating a sense of solidarity among the Bapedi community in the Limpopo province of South Africa. It examines the narrative around the ‘Bapedi Kingdom’ challenges it poses to the notion of sovereignty as derived from the state and asserts its own form of sovereignty within the South African state. In so doing, the Bapedi community extends the understanding of local governance, power, and the limits and re-imagination of the state. This chapter further postulates that by invoking the past, correctly or incorrectly, the Bapedi creates a sense of ‘shared’ memory to consolidate solidarity among the Bapedi, which is premised on notion of common struggles against colonialism, apartheid, and contemporary South African states which is cast as undermining to the Bapedi ‘kingdom’. Moreover, the Bapedi solidarity is contrasted with the state’s forms of solidarity, which is seen as antithetical to the very existence of the Bapedi ‘kingdom’ and solidarity