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This study uses a close reading of a series of major commission reports into the "Native Question" to examine the formation and reproduction of state power in South Africa. Analyzing the framework governing authoritative ways of speaking of, for, and to Blacks (once called "Natives"), Ashforth demonstrates how officially-approved forms of knowledge of "Native Life" substitute for political representation by Africans and continually serve to justify repression. He examines the terms used by those who, acting in the name of the state, strive to represent apartheid as necessary, practical, and just. Tracing the history of official discourse on the political status of African labor, the work illuminates the central contradictions in the politics of this repressive and exploitative regime.
"The standard of contribution is high . . . the reader gets a good sense of the cutting edge of historical research." – African Affairs
This detailed and authoritative volume changes our conceptions of 'imperial' and 'African' history. Frederick Cooper gathers a vast range of archival sources in French and English to achieve a truly comparative study of colonial policy toward the recruitment, control, and institutionalization of African labor forces from the mid 1930s, when the labor question was first posed, to the late 1950s, when decolonization was well under way. Professor Cooper explores colonial conceptions of the African worker and shows how African trade union and political leaders used the new language of social change to claim equality and a share of power. This helped to persuade European officials that the 'modern' Africa they imagined was unaffordable. Britain and France could not reshape African society. As they left the continent, the question was how they had affected the ways in which Africans could reorganize society themselves.
Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 offers an inclusive vision of South Africa's past. Drawing largely from original sources, Paul Landau presents a history of the politics of the country's people, from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands, through the colonial era, to the dawn of Apartheid. A practical tradition of mobilization, alliance, and amalgamation persisted, mutated, and occasionally vanished from view; it survived against the odds in several forms, in tribalisms, Christian assemblies, and other, seemingly hybrid movements; and it continues today. Landau treats southern Africa broadly, concentrating increasingly on the southern Highveld and ultimately focusing on a transnational movement called the 'Samuelites'. He shows how people's politics in South Africa were suppressed and transformed, but never entirely eliminated.
"The standard of contribution is high . . . the reader gets a good sense of the cutting edge of historical research." – African Affairs
`Darryl Glaser supplies an illuminating overview of the scholarship since 1970 on South Africa′s political history. His emphasis is on the debates between liberals, Marxists, and to a lesser extent "post-structuralists" about the origins and the course of South Africa′s racial order′ - Tom Lodge, University of Witwatersrand `A well-researched, well-argued, readable, interesting, informative and competent study′ - Capital and Class Providing a wide-ranging and critical introduction to contemporary South Africa, this book uses an interdisciplinary lens to introduce the student to the main debates, historical context, and issues that have characterized the study of South Africa over the last three decades. Key topics include: the role of colonialism, capitalism and modernity in the formation of the racial order; changes in the South African state; questions of class, race and ehtnicity; black resistance; and the transition to democracy. A number of underlying debates are critically evaluated. For exmple, the contribution of materialist and class-analytic approaches, the application of post-structuralism and theories of modernity, and the prospects for democratic liberalism and socialism in post-apartheid South Africa.
The Griqua people are commonly misunderstood. Today, they do not figure in the South African imagination as other peoples do, nor have they for over a century. This book argues that their comparative invisibility is a result of their place in the national narrative. In this revisionist analysis of South African historiography, the author analyses over a century's worth of historical studies and identifies a number of narrative frameworks that have proven resilient to change over this time. The Griqua, in particular, have fared poorly compared to other peoples. They appear in, and disappear from, this body of work in a number of consistent ways, almost as though scholars have avoided re-imagining their history in ways relevant to the present. This book questions why that might be the case.
Since his assassination in 1828, King Shaka Zulu--founder of the powerful Zulu kingdom and leader of the army that nearly toppled British colonial rule in South Africa--has made his empire in popular imaginations throughout Africa and the West. Shaka is today the hero of Zulu nationalism, the centerpiece of Inkatha ideology, a demon of apartheid, the namesake of a South African theme park, even the subject of a major TV film. Terrific Majesty explores the reasons for the potency of Shaka's image, examining the ways it has changed over time--from colonial legend, through Africanist idealization, to modern cultural icon. This study suggests that "tradition" cannot be freely invented, either by European observers who recorded it or by subsequent African ideologues. There are particular historical limits and constraints that operate on the activities of invention and imagination and give the various images of Shaka their power. These insights are illustrated with subtlety and authority in a series of highly original analyses. Terrific Majesty is an exceptional work whose special contribution lies in the methodological lessons it delivers; above all its sophisticated rehabilitation of colonial sources for the precolonial period, through the demonstration that colonial texts were critically shaped by indigenous African discourse. With its sensitivity to recent critical studies, the book will also have a wider resonance in the fields of history, anthropology, cultural studies, and postcolonial literature.
In this single square mile hemmed in by White areas, residents engaged in what is arguably the most multi-faceted, inventive, and versatile strategy of resistance during the 1970s. Apartheid on a Black Isle brings to the fore the definitive but underappreciated role that Alexandra played in advancing human rights. Using their manufactured space, Alexandrans revolutionized the South African freedom struggle by fertilizing the underground movement, by joining in solidarity with Soweto during the student uprising and by finding unique ways to grieve. This book explores and introduces ordinary Alexandrans whose narratives challenged preconceived notions of resistance, identity, gender and space.
White working-class experiences of South Africa's transition provide a reinterpretation of how class colours race in the era of neoliberalism.