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South African History and Culture

Works Count: 35849

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This cluster of papers explores the complex social, economic, and political landscape of post-apartheid South Africa, focusing on service delivery protests, inequality, racial classification, gender-based violence, economic empowerment, and the impact of social movements. It also delves into the dynamics of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the challenges faced in the transition to democracy.

Keywords

South Africa; protests; inequality; race; gender-based violence; economic empowerment; post-apartheid; social movements; reconciliation commission; racial classification

The Shaping of South African Society, 1652-1840

1990-01-01

Kenneth P. Vickery , Richard Elphick , Hermann Giliomée

An analysis of South Africa during the first two centuries of European colonization. This edition has fuller accounts of slaves - Khoikhoi and Gruqua have been included - as well … An analysis of South Africa during the first two centuries of European colonization. This edition has fuller accounts of slaves - Khoikhoi and Gruqua have been included - as well as an analysis of the administrative and economic revolution in the Cape that precipitated the Great Trek.

Long walk to freedom: the autobiography of Nelson Mandela

1995-04-01

Nelson Mandela

Since his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela has emerged as the world's most potent moral leader since Gandhi. As president of the ANC and head of the anti-apartheid … Since his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela has emerged as the world's most potent moral leader since Gandhi. As president of the ANC and head of the anti-apartheid movement, he has been instrumental in moving South Africa toward black-majority rule. Throughout the world he is revered as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. In this autobiography Nelson Mandela details the development of his political consciousess and describes his pivotal role in the formation of the ANC Youth League. He brings to life his dramatic years underground, which lead to a sentence of life imprisonment in 1964, and sheds new light on his surprisingly eventful quarter century behind bars. And he takes us inside the momentous events of the 1990s, leading up to South Africa's first-ever multi-racial elections, and his feelings about his near landslide victory as president.

Zulu medicinal plants: an inventory

1997-07-01

Anne Hutchings

This inventory of nearly 1000 plants used in Zulu traditional medicine is based on a survey dating from the late-19th century to the present. It is augmented by Tony Cunningham's … This inventory of nearly 1000 plants used in Zulu traditional medicine is based on a survey dating from the late-19th century to the present. It is augmented by Tony Cunningham's investigation of the medicinal plant trade in KwaZulu-Natal, material gathered in interviews with traditional healers, and Anne Hutchings's preliminary herbal history survey of hospital patients.

The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence

1984-01-01

Henry Slater , J.B. Peires

In this, the first modern history of the Xhosa, the author relates the story of one of the most numerous and important indigenous peoples in contemporary South Africa, from their … In this, the first modern history of the Xhosa, the author relates the story of one of the most numerous and important indigenous peoples in contemporary South Africa, from their consolidation, through an era of co-operation and conflict with whites (whom the Xhosa regarded as uncivilized) to the frontier wars that eventuated in their present position as a subordinate group in the modern South African state. Incorporating their own oral and written testimony into a modern historical and ethnographic framework, the author examines the response of the Xhosa to the successive challenges of contact with whites; the adaptation of Xhosa cosmology to Christianity; the increasing dependence of the Xhosa on military technology in defense of their lands. The House of Phalo takes its place in a growing body of literature that measures the impact of white rule on African peoples in South Africa.

The Afrikaners: Biography of a People

2003-01-01

Newell M. Stultz , Hermann Giliomée

This book is a biography of the Afrikaner people. A historian and journalist who was one of the earliest and staunchest Afrikaner opponents of apartheid, Hermann Giliomee weaves together life … This book is a biography of the Afrikaner people. A historian and journalist who was one of the earliest and staunchest Afrikaner opponents of apartheid, Hermann Giliomee weaves together life stories and historical interpretation to create a narrative history of the Afrikaners from their beginnings with the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company to the dismantling of apartheid and beyond. The Afrikaners emphasizes the crucial role played by historical actors without underplaying the impact of social forces over which they had little control. Throughout their history, Giliomee's Afrikaners are both colonizers and colonized. Actual or virtual servants of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch burghers nonetheless owned slaves and commanded servant labor. The British conquests of 1795 and 1806 extended the rights of British subjects to Afrikaners, even as they took away the Afrikaners' political autonomy and confirmed an economic and cultural subordination that was only partly alleviated by their dominance of South African politics in the latter part of the twentieth century. Demographically squeezed between far more numerous Africans (and other nonwhite groups) and their more affluent and culturally confident English compatriots, the Afrikaners forged a language-based national identity in which die-hard defense of privilege and opposition to various forms of British domination are inextricably intertwined with fears about cultural and even physical group survival. This nationalism underlay the Great Trek, in which Afrikaners opposed the abolition of slavery and legalized racial discrimination by the British; the irony of their becoming the twentieth century's first fighters against imperial domination in the Boer War; and the Afrikaners' rise to political dominance over their English rivals and nonwhite South Africans alike, even as they remained economically and culturally subordinate to the former. This same language-based nationalism spawned the blunders and horrors of apartheid, but it also led the Afrikaners to relinquish power peacefully when this seemed the safest route to their survival as a people.While documenting and in important ways revising the history of the Afrikaners' pursuit of racial domination (as well as British contributions to that enterprise), Giliomee supplies Afrikaners' own, often divided, perspectives on their history, perspectives not always or entirely skewed by their struggle for privilege at Africans' expense. The result is not only a magisterial history of the Afrikaners but a fuller understanding of their history, which, for good or ill, resonates far beyond the borders of South Africa.

Marxism, feminism and South African studies

1983-04-01

Belinda Bozzoli

(1983). Marxism, feminism and South African studies. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 139-171. (1983). Marxism, feminism and South African studies. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 139-171.

The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900–1909

1977-07-01

Maynard W. Swanson

Infectious disease and concepts of public health, operating as societal metaphors, seem to have exercised a powerful influence on the origins and development of urban segregation in South Africa. Between … Infectious disease and concepts of public health, operating as societal metaphors, seem to have exercised a powerful influence on the origins and development of urban segregation in South Africa. Between 1900 and 1904 bubonic plague, threatening major centres, occasioned the mass removal of African urban populations to hastily established locations at the instigation of medical authorities and other government officials under the emergency provisions of the public health laws. Inchoate urban policy, under tentative consideration since the 1890s as economic development and social change began to stimulate black urban migration, was precipitated by this episode into specific legislation and permanent administration. Cape Town and Port Elizabeth were the two foci of this development in the Cape Colony, where the government locations at Ndabeni and New Brighton exemplify the process. These moves and the effort to consolidate them were to a large degree frustrated by practical administrative, legal, economic and human factors which have characterized the anomalies and contradictions of urban location policy ever since. A black ‘middle class’ resisted the loss of property rights and clung to aspirations of economic and social mobility or legal independence. Especially at Port Elizabeth, where independent peri-urban settlements proliferated, white officials and politicians laboured in an administrative and legal quagmire. White employers and black migrants proved only marginally amenable to location concepts modelled on the principles of quarantine. But ‘the sanitation syndrome’, equating black urban settlement, labour and living conditions with threats to public health and security, became fixed in the official mind, buttressed a desire to achieve positive social controls, and confirmed or rationalized white race prejudice with a popular imagery of medical menace. These issues of urban social order would be repeated again in connexion with such dire events as the 1918 influenza epidemic as the foundations of Union-wide policy and law were laid during and after World War I.

Waiting: The Whites of South Africa

1987-10-01

Alan Booth , Vincent Crapanzano

Black Power in South Africa

1978-12-31

Gail M. Gerhart

Introduction Map of Counties of California Illustrated Glossary Notes on Plant Preparation Techniques Foothills and Mountains Deserts Wetlands--Ponds, Streams, Marshes, Seashore Urban and Cultivated Areas Ornamentals Obtaining Further Assistance List … Introduction Map of Counties of California Illustrated Glossary Notes on Plant Preparation Techniques Foothills and Mountains Deserts Wetlands--Ponds, Streams, Marshes, Seashore Urban and Cultivated Areas Ornamentals Obtaining Further Assistance List of Phylogenentic Relationships Index to Plant Uses General Index

A HISTORY OF INEQUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1652–2002

2003-09-01

Brian Dollery

Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa

2000-06-01

Shula Marks , Sarah Nuttall , Carli Coetzee

Nations as well as individuals are in many ways the sum of their memories, which are shaped by perception as much as by events. This collection of essays by South … Nations as well as individuals are in many ways the sum of their memories, which are shaped by perception as much as by events. This collection of essays by South African academics looks at the ways the country is dealing with its past, a complex mixture of colonialism, slavery, apartheid, struggle, and guilt. The emphasis is on how that past is being perceived and moulded in the post-apartheid era.

Rebellion of the poor: South Africa's service delivery protests – a preliminary analysis

2010-03-01

Peter Alexander

Since 2004, South Africa has experienced a movement of local protests amounting to a rebellion of the poor. This has been widespread and intense, reaching insurrectionary proportions in some cases. … Since 2004, South Africa has experienced a movement of local protests amounting to a rebellion of the poor. This has been widespread and intense, reaching insurrectionary proportions in some cases. On the surface, the protests have been about service delivery and against uncaring, self-serving, and corrupt leaders of municipalities. A key feature has been mass participation by a new generation of fighters, especially unemployed youth but also school students. Many issues that underpinned the ascendency of Jacob Zuma also fuel the present action, including a sense of injustice arising from the realities of persistent inequality. While the inter-connections between the local protests, and between the local protests and militant action involving other elements of civil society, are limited, it is suggested that this is likely to change. The analysis presented here draws on rapid-response research conducted by the author and his colleagues in five of the so-called ‘hot spots’.

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The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman

1984-07-01

Esther Newton

The Oxford History of South Africa

1969-12-01

Timothy Augustine Coghlan , Monica Wilson , Leonard Thompson

Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of South Africa, the United States, and Brazil

1998-12-01

Robert M. Levine , Anthony W. Marx

Preface and acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part I. Historical and Cultural Legacies: 2. Trajectories from colonialism 3. Lessons from slavery 4. The uncertain legacy of miscegenation Implications Part II. Racial Domination … Preface and acknowledgements 1. Introduction Part I. Historical and Cultural Legacies: 2. Trajectories from colonialism 3. Lessons from slavery 4. The uncertain legacy of miscegenation Implications Part II. Racial Domination and the Nation-State: 5. 'Wee for thee, South Africa': the racial state 6. 'To bind up the nation's wounds': the United States after the Civil War 7. 'Order and progress': inclusive nation-state building in Brazil Comparative racial domination: an overview Part III. Race Making from Below: 8. 'We are a rock': Black racial identity, mobilization and the new South Africa 9. Burying Jim Crow: Black racial identity, mobilization and reform in the United States 10. Breaching Brazil's pact of silence 11. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.

The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa

1989-12-01

Leonard Thompson , Leroy Vail

Despite a quarter century of nation building, most African states are still driven by ethnic particularism--commonly known as tribalism. The stubborn persistence of tribal ideologies despite the profound changes associated … Despite a quarter century of nation building, most African states are still driven by ethnic particularism--commonly known as tribalism. The stubborn persistence of tribal ideologies despite the profound changes associated with modernization has puzzled scholars and African leaders alike. The bloody hostilities between the tribally-oriented Zulu Inkhata movement and supporters of the African National Congress are but the most recent example of tribalism's tenacity. The studies in this volume offer a new historical model for the growth and endurance of such ideologies in southern Africa.

Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa

1996-01-01

Gail M. Gerhart , Saul Dubow

This is the first full-length study of the history of intellectual and scientific racism in modern South Africa. Ranging broadly across disciplines in the social sciences, sciences and humanities, it … This is the first full-length study of the history of intellectual and scientific racism in modern South Africa. Ranging broadly across disciplines in the social sciences, sciences and humanities, it charts the rise of scientific racism during the late nineteenth century and the subsequent decline of biological determinism from the mid-twentieth century, and considers the complex relationship between theories of essential racial difference and the political rise of segregation and apartheid. Saul Dubow draws extensively on comparable studies of intellectual racism in Europe and the United States to demonstrate the selective absorption of widely prevalent conceptions of racial difference in the particular historical context of South Africa, and the issues he addresses are of relevance to both Africanist and international students of racism and race relations.

Of boys and men: masculinity and gender in Southern African studies

1998-12-01

Robert Morrell

Abstract Southern African historiography has become increasingly gender‐sensitive in the last decade. Primarily as a result of the impact of feminism in the world of work and in universities, research … Abstract Southern African historiography has become increasingly gender‐sensitive in the last decade. Primarily as a result of the impact of feminism in the world of work and in universities, research on women has burgeoned. The inclusion of women in the study of the past and the recognition of their agency has filled an important lacuna but also has made evident the corresponding gap in knowledge about men. The dominance of men in the public record has obscured the fact that little is known about masculinity. Men have generally been treated in essentialist terms. The socially constructed nature of masculinity is widely acknowledged and it is this insight that needs to be applied to a study of the region's history. This article introduces readers to the inter‐disciplinary work on masculinity, reviews how research on gender in South Africa has handled issues of men and masculinity and then suggests how insights taken from Men's Studies might help to broaden gender analysis and enrich the study of the South African past. In this article, a range of masculinities is identified. Colonialism created new and transformed existing masculinities. Race and class featured prominently in the configuration of these masculinities. Under colonialism positions of domination and subordination were created along the lines of race, bequeathing to the region the language of white men and black 'boys'. The particular trajectory of colonialism ended the political independence of the indigenous polities and destroyed their economic independence but the success of the defeated polities in retaining possession of land and of the policies of segregation and apartheid meant that key African institutions survived. These were the basis for an African masculinity that in certain geographical and social areas disputed hegemony with white masculinities.

People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg

2004-09-01

AbdouMaliq Simone

Research Article| September 01 2004 People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg AbdouMaliq Simone AbdouMaliq Simone Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (2004) … Research Article| September 01 2004 People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg AbdouMaliq Simone AbdouMaliq Simone Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (2004) 16 (3): 407–429. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-16-3-407 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation AbdouMaliq Simone; People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg. Public Culture 1 September 2004; 16 (3): 407–429. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-16-3-407 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPublic Culture Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2004 by Duke University Press2004 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

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Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?

2005-12-13

James L. Gibson

Throughout the world, truth commissions are being constructed under the hope that discovering the “truth” about a country's conflictual past will somehow contribute to “reconciliation.” Most such efforts point to … Throughout the world, truth commissions are being constructed under the hope that discovering the “truth” about a country's conflictual past will somehow contribute to “reconciliation.” Most such efforts point to South Africa's process as an exemplar of the powerful influence of truth finding. But has truth actually contributed to reconciliation in South Africa? No rigorous and systematic assessment of the truth and reconciliation process has ever been conducted. This article investigates the hypothesis that truth leads to reconciliation. Based on a survey of thirty-seven hundred South Africans in 2001, the author begins by giving both “truth” and “reconciliation” clear conceptual and operational meaning. The author reports empirical evidence that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's “truth” is fairly widely accepted by South Africans of all races, that some degree of reconciliation characterizes South Africa today, and that the collective memory produced by the process (“truth”) did indeed contribute to reconciliation. The author then considers whether other divided countries might be able to use a similar process to propel themselves toward a more peaceful and democratic future.

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The Kruger National Park : a social and political history

1995-01-01

Jane Carruthers

In explaining how developments in the Kruger National Park have been integral to the wider political and socio-economic concerns of South Africa, this text opens an alternative perspective on its … In explaining how developments in the Kruger National Park have been integral to the wider political and socio-economic concerns of South Africa, this text opens an alternative perspective on its history. Nature protection has evolved in response to a variety of stimuli, including white self-interest, Afrikaner nationalism, ineffectual legislation, elitism, capitalism, and the exploitation of Africans.

Wounded cities: Memory-work and a place-based ethics of care

2011-12-02

Karen E. Till

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Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in Twentieth-Century South Africa

2001-09-01

Deborah Posel

This paper is an analysis of state practice in respect of racial classification and its epistemological underpinnings in twentieth-century South Africa. It shows how apartheid racial categories—drawing heavily on those … This paper is an analysis of state practice in respect of racial classification and its epistemological underpinnings in twentieth-century South Africa. It shows how apartheid racial categories—drawing heavily on those enacted by the segregationist state—were wielded as instruments of surveillance and control by a state animated by fantasies of omniscience as much as omnipotence. The architects of apartheid racial classification policies recognized explicitly that racial categories were constructs, rather than descriptions of real essences—a version of the idea of race which enabled the bureaucratization of “common sense” notions of racial difference and which contributed direcdy to the enormous powers wielded by racial classifiers. If constructs, these categories were powerfully rooted in the materiality of everyday life. The ubiquity of the state's racial designations, and the extent to which they meshed with lived hierarchies of class and status, meant that apartheid's racial grid was strongly imprinted in the subjective experience of race.

Negotiating the Past: The making of memory In South Africa

1999-04-01

Dominic Head

Negotiating the Past: The making of memory In South Africa Get access Negotiating the Past: The making of memory In South Africa, edited by Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee. Cape … Negotiating the Past: The making of memory In South Africa Get access Negotiating the Past: The making of memory In South Africa, edited by Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee. Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa, 1998. xii+300pp. £14.99 paperback. ISBN 0-19-571503-9. DOMINIC HEAD DOMINIC HEAD University of Central England Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 391, April 1999, Pages 277–278, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a008028 Published: 01 April 1999

Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects

2012-01-01

Sharpe Christina

Arguing that the fundamental, familiar, sexual violence of slavery and racialized subjugation have continued to shape black and white subjectivities into the present, Christina Sharpe interprets African diasporic and Black … Arguing that the fundamental, familiar, sexual violence of slavery and racialized subjugation have continued to shape black and white subjectivities into the present, Christina Sharpe interprets African diasporic and Black Atlantic visual and literary texts that address those “monstrous intimacies” and their repetition as constitutive of post-slavery subjectivity. Her illuminating readings juxtapose Frederick Douglass’s narrative of witnessing the brutal beating of his Aunt Hester with Essie Mae Washington-Williams’s declaration of freedom in Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond , as well as the “generational genital fantasies” depicted in Gayl Jones’s novel Corregidora with a firsthand account of such “monstrous intimacies” in the journals of an antebellum South Carolina senator, slaveholder, and vocal critic of miscegenation. Sharpe explores the South African–born writer Bessie Head’s novel Maru —about race, power, and liberation in Botswana—in light of the history of the KhoiSan woman Saartje Baartman, who was displayed in Europe as the “Hottentot Venus” in the nineteenth century. Reading Isaac Julien’s film The Attendant , Sharpe takes up issues of representation, slavery, and the sadomasochism of everyday black life. Her powerful meditation on intimacy, subjection, and subjectivity culminates in an analysis of Kara Walker’s black silhouettes, and the critiques leveled against both the silhouettes and the artist.

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Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People.

1987-07-01

Allen Isaacman , Jean Comaroff

In this sophisticated study of power and resistance, Jean Comaroff analyzes the changing predicament of the Barolong boo Ratshidi, a people on the margins of the South African state. Like … In this sophisticated study of power and resistance, Jean Comaroff analyzes the changing predicament of the Barolong boo Ratshidi, a people on the margins of the South African state. Like others on the fringes of the modern world system, the Tshidi struggle to construct a viable order of signs and practices through which they act upon the forces that engulf them. Their dissenting Churches of Zion have provided an effective medium for reconstructing a sense of history and identity, one that protests the terms of colonial and post-colonial society and culture.

Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital, and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934-1948

1984-10-01

Leonard Thompson , Dan O’Meara

The 1982 split in the Ruling Nationalist Party in South Africa focused attention on the relationship between Afrikaner nationalism and capitalism. Volkskapitalisme (the nationalist term for Afrikaner capital) analyses the … The 1982 split in the Ruling Nationalist Party in South Africa focused attention on the relationship between Afrikaner nationalism and capitalism. Volkskapitalisme (the nationalist term for Afrikaner capital) analyses the development of Afrikaner nationalism from the early thirties to the election victory of the Nationalist Party in 1948. The book sets out to refute the commonly held belief that the nationalist policies of apartheid are simply the product of 'irrational' racial ideology. Dan O'Meara examines here for the first time the relationship between the emergence of 'Afrikaner' capital in the so-called Economic Movement of the 1940s and the political and ideological forms of development of Afrikaner nationalism. During these years, far from being a monolithic movement of an ethnically mobilised group, Afrikaner nationalism emerged as an alliance of conflicting class forces. Dan O'Meara's examination of the development of Afrikaner capital and the interplay of ideology, class and economic interests in Afrikaner nationalism is essential reading for all concerned with past political struggles in southern Africa.

THREAT (AND OPPORTUNITY): POPULAR ACTION AND STATE RESPONSE IN THE DYNAMICS OF CONTENTIOUS ACTION

2001-09-17

Jack Α. Goldstone , Charles Tilly

As compared with the fiercely repressive 1970s, the 1980s opened more opportunities to South Africa's black activists. International support for their cause was rising, black educational enrollment was increasing, color … As compared with the fiercely repressive 1970s, the 1980s opened more opportunities to South Africa's black activists. International support for their cause was rising, black educational enrollment was increasing, color bars on employment were disappearing, and black trade unions had become legal. The South African government's abortive attempt to coopt mixed race (Coloured) and Indian citizens through the creation of separate, subordinate parliaments, furthermore, made blanket repression more difficult for the state to manage. Still, up to the decade's end threats abounded. The Black Authorities Act (1983) spurred local councils to raise rents, evict defaulters, and raze illegally constructed shacks; governmental forces tightened their surveillance of militants; and in July 1985 beleaguered premier P. W. Botha declared a state of emergency.

40: THE JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY HISTORY, 1975 TO 2015

2016-12-15

André Wessels

The Journal for Contemporary History / Joernaal vir Eietydse Geskiedenis – henceforth referred to as the JCH – was established in 1975 at the University of the Orange Free State … The Journal for Contemporary History / Joernaal vir Eietydse Geskiedenis – henceforth referred to as the JCH – was established in 1975 at the University of the Orange Free State (since 2001, the University of the Free State) in Bloemfontein, South Africa. In the course of its first 40 years, the JCH had only five Editors. In the years 1975 to 2015, no fewer than 764 articles and 246 book reviews appeared in 94 editions of the JCH. In this article, written by one of the former JCH Editors, the history of this accredited, peer-reviewed academic journal is traced, and its content is critically evaluated. Issues that are addressed include the themes that have been dealt with in JCH articles, the extent to which the profile of the authors have changed in the course of 40 years, the evolution of the JCH’s Editorial Board, and what role book reviews have played. Although some of the information that has emerged from the analysis and evaluation may be regarded as merely ephemeral in nature, certain data and other information could be regarded as essential for determining the degree of success that the JCH has thus far achieved, and how itmay be of value for future planning.

The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa

1988-07-01

Bill Freund

Journal Article The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa Get access The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, edited by … Journal Article The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa Get access The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, edited by Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido. Longman, London 1987. £9.95 paperback. xiii+462pp. ISBN 0 582 64490 9 BILL FREUND BILL FREUND University of Natal Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 87, Issue 348, July 1988, Pages 479–480, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098075 Published: 01 July 1988

Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa

1981-07-01

Donald Denoon

Journal Article Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa Get access Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, edited by Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore, Longmans 1981. xi+368pp.+index. Cased £8.95, … Journal Article Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa Get access Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, edited by Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore, Longmans 1981. xi+368pp.+index. Cased £8.95, paper £3.95. DONALD DENOON DONALD DENOON University of PapuaNew Guinea Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 80, Issue 320, July 1981, Pages 425–426, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097357 Published: 01 July 1981

Black Politics in South Africa since 1945

1984-01-01

Jennifer Seymour Whitaker , Tom Lodge

Journal of Southern African Studies

1986-01-01

A history of inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002

2004-02-01

This work is an anlaysis of economic relations in South Africa. It analyses the work of numerous historians on inequality and exploitation in South Africa around a single theme: the … This work is an anlaysis of economic relations in South Africa. It analyses the work of numerous historians on inequality and exploitation in South Africa around a single theme: the systematic and progressive economic exploitation of indigenous people by settler groups. Second, the author argues that, despite South Africa's transition to democracy, its society is as unequal - if not more so - than before. He claims that in the early 1990s, parallel to the constitutional negotations, a series of informal negotations and interchanges took place behind the scenes during which the local corporate sector, backed by powerful international financial institutions, made a concerted effort to sell unfettered to ANC leaders. This attempt succeeded, resulting in the ANC replacing the RDP with GEAR. The situation of the vast majority of blacks has in fact worsened since the transition to democracy. For this reason, he considers that South Africa's transformation is incomplete. Sampie Terreblanche criticizes the corporate sector for its ruthless pursuit and protection of its own interests, to the detriment of broader South African society. He also criticizes the new black elite for its materialism and apparent indifference to the plight of the poor. In a final chapter, he argues that the current system of neo-liberal democratic capitalism is inappropriate to a developing country such as South Africa. He calls for a policy shift towards social democracy in which the state should play a more active role in alleviating poverty, redistributing wealth, and attending to social welfare.

Women and gender in southern Africa to 1945

1991-11-01

Annals of the South African Museum

1911-04-01

W. T. C.

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Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–36

1989-01-01

Saul Dubow

Terrific Majesty

1998-12-31

Carolyn Hamilton

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 … 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.

Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886-1914

1983-01-01

Frederick Cooper , Charles van Onselen

Not white enough, not black enough: racial identity in the South African Coloured community

2006-09-01

Mohamed Adhikari

The concept of Colouredness - being neither white nor black - has been pivotal to the brand of racial thinking particular to South African society. The nature of Coloured identity … The concept of Colouredness - being neither white nor black - has been pivotal to the brand of racial thinking particular to South African society. The nature of Coloured identity has always been a matter of intense political and ideological contestation. Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community is the first systematic study of Coloured identity, its history, and its relevance to South African national life. Mohamed Adhikari engages with the debates and controversies thrown up by the identity's troubled existence and challenges much of the conventional wisdom associated with it. A combination of wide-ranging thematic analyses and detailed case studies illustrate how Colouredness functioned as a social identity from the time of its emergence in the late nineteenth century through to its adaptation to the post-apartheid environment. Adhikari demonstrates how the interplay of marginality, racial hierarchy, assimilationist aspirations, negative racial stereotyping, class divisions, and ideological conflicts helped mold peoples' sense of Colouredness over the past century. Knowledge of this history and of the social and political dynamic that informed the articulation of a separate Coloured identity are vital to an understanding of present-day complexities in South Africa. Mohamed Adhikari lectures in the Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town. His books include Let us Live for Our Children: The Teachers League of South Africa, 1913-1940, and he coedited South Africa's Resistance Press: Alternative Voices in the Last Generation under Apartheid (Ohio, 2000).

The politics of storytelling: violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity

2003-02-01

Michael Jackson

Hannah Arendt argued that the 'political' is best understood as a power relation between private and public realms, and that storytelling is a vital bridge between these realms -- a … Hannah Arendt argued that the 'political' is best understood as a power relation between private and public realms, and that storytelling is a vital bridge between these realms -- a site where individualised passions and shared views are contested and recombined. In his new book, Michael Jackson explores and expands Arendt's ideas through a cross-cultural analysis of storytelling that includes Kuranko stories from Sierra Leone, Aboriginal stories of the stolen generation, stories recounted before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and stories of refugees, renegades, and war veterans. Focusing on the violent and volatile conditions under which stories are and are not told, and exploring the various ways in which narrative re-workings of reality enable people to symbolically alter subject-object relations, Jackson shows how storytelling may restore to the intersubjective fields of self and other, self and state, self and cosmos, the conditions of viable sociality. The book concludes in a reflexive vein, exploring the interface between public discourse and private experience.

Going for gold: men, mines, and migration

1995-05-01

T. Dunbar Moodie , Vivienne Ndatshe

This book tells the story of the lives of migrant black African men who work on the South African gold mines, told from their own point of view and, as … This book tells the story of the lives of migrant black African men who work on the South African gold mines, told from their own point of view and, as much as possible, in their own words. Dunbar Moodie examines the operation of local power structures and resistances, changes in production techniques, the limits and successes of unionization, and the nature of ethnic conflicts at different periods and on different terrains of struggle. He treats his subject thematically and historically, examining how notions of integrity, manhood, sexuality, work, power, solidarity, and violence have all changed over time, especially with the shift to a proletarianized work force on the mines in the 1970s. Moodie integrates analyses of individual life-strategies with theories of social change, illuminating the ways in which these play off each other in historically significant ways. He shows how human beings (in this case, African men) build integrity and construct their own social order, even in situations of apparent total repression.

Unstable Ground: The Lives, Deaths, and Afterlives of Gold in South Africa

2025-06-23

Michael Nwankpa | Politikon

A Crooked Path to Apartheid Education: Segregating the University of Natal, 1936–1959

2025-06-20

Anne Heffernan | Journal of Southern African Studies

Ciskei’s Demise and the Tricky First Decade of Reintegration into the Eastern Cape Province

2025-06-19

Luvuyo Wotshela | Journal of Southern African Studies

‘The Other Hospital Staff’: Tracing the History of an Eastern Cape Mission Hospital’s General Workers, Late 1930s to the Early 1970s

2025-06-19

Vanessa Noble | South African Historical Journal

Dynamics of the Human Element in South Africa's Information History

2025-06-19

Archie L. Dick | Routledge eBooks

Connections Across the Colonial Divide: The Colenso Family and the Zulu Royal Family in Natal and Zululand

2025-06-18

Gwilym Colenso | Genealogy

In late nineteenth-century Natal, members of the family of the missionary Bishop John William Colenso established relations with members of the Zulu royal family that were recognised as ties of … In late nineteenth-century Natal, members of the family of the missionary Bishop John William Colenso established relations with members of the Zulu royal family that were recognised as ties of kinship, mutually acknowledged by the reciprocal use of kinship terms between the two families. The Colenso family played a part in the struggle to defend Zulu sovereignty in the face of a colonial government intent on undermining the Zulu nation by diminishing the authority of the Zulu King. The visit by the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, to Queen Victoria in 1882 was seen by subsequent generations of Zulu as evidence of a connection between the British and Zulu royal families. While in exile on the island of St Helena, through adopting western dress and lifestyle, Cetshwayo’s son, Dinuzulu, sought to model his family on the British royal family. Bishop Colenso’s daughter, Harriette, played a role in facilitating this image, appearing as if a matriarch of Dinuzulu’s family in photographs which were perhaps intended to compare the two royal families, while also conveying a strong message that succession to the throne was secured by heredity, a message conveyed in representations of the British royal family from the sixteenth century to the present.

From Fiction to Ethical Encounter: Problematization as Method in J. M. Coetzee’s Oeuvre

2025-06-17

Nabit ELGARHI | International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

Abstract This article examines J.M. Coetzee's literary practice as a meticulous philosophical methodology rooted in the Foucauldian notion of "problematization." This paper contends that Coetzee's work should not be confined … Abstract This article examines J.M. Coetzee's literary practice as a meticulous philosophical methodology rooted in the Foucauldian notion of "problematization." This paper contends that Coetzee's work should not be confined to the realm of traditional philosophical fiction; instead, it operates as an ethically charged interrogation of alterity, freedom, and justice, thereby transforming literature into a platform for critical epistemological engagement. By engaging with the ideas of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida, this study situates Coetzee at a critical juncture where literary aesthetics converge with ethical critique. Problematization works not solely as a rhetorical strategy but as a critical tool for unveiling the contingencies and power dynamics inherent in historical and narrative constructions. This article posits that Coetzee's fiction is intricately connected to ethical performance and epistemic responsibility, asserting that his body of literature embodies a form of writing-as-resistance that deliberately eschews resolution in favour of continuous ethical exploration. The argument reaches its apex with the assertion that Coetzee's fiction exemplifies an ethics-first philosophy, emphasising the significance of engaging with the Other and the unsettling openness inherent in narrative. In this endeavour, Coetzee fundamentally reinterprets the function of literature within the frameworks of postmodernism and postcolonialism.

The Bloomsbury handbook to J. M. Coetzee

2025-06-17

Diana Mudura | Journal of Postcolonial Writing

Silenced languages: Probing biblical texts and South African context post-colonially

2025-06-17

Mlamli Diko | Theologia Viatorum

The marginalisation of languages by colonial and apartheid structures distorted cultural identities, obstructing the power and independence of various communities. In this article, I probe the ongoing oppression of languages, … The marginalisation of languages by colonial and apartheid structures distorted cultural identities, obstructing the power and independence of various communities. In this article, I probe the ongoing oppression of languages, especially native languages, and the concerted efforts to decolonise them by drawing parallels between Revelation 7:9, Isaiah 19:18 and Psalm 137 as well as the South African context. I aim to unmask the decolonisation of oppressed languages through the three selected biblical scriptures using post-colonial theory. This article makes three notable findings. Firstly, Revelation 7:9 depicts a varied, multilingual heavenly community, affirming that linguistic multiplicity transcends earthly segregations and mirrors spiritual inclusion. Secondly, Isaiah 19:18 presents a vision of linguistic transformation where Egyptians adopt the language of Canaan, symbolising a shift towards collective identity and religious unity, thus underlining the power of language in advancing inclusivity. Thirdly, Psalm 137 expresses the agony and resilience of the Israelites in a foreign land, exemplifying how language serves as both a repository of cultural identity and a tool of insubordination against assimilation. Collectively, these findings mean that intellectualising sidelined languages nurtures a sense of belonging and solidarity. Above all, this article draws connections with contemporary South Africa, where revitalising indigenous languages echoes the biblical themes of decolonisation. Contribution: This article contributes to the scholarship on language decolonisation by blending post-colonial sociolinguistics and post-colonial biblical critique to uncover how biblical texts inform contemporary efforts to revitalise sidelined languages and cultural identities in South Africa and beyond.

Mrs. Khoo Siew Mun: Publications and Writing

2025-06-15

Janaki Sinnasamy , Ai Peng Koh | Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies

N/A N/A

J.M. Coetzee in Kakania

2025-06-13

Robert Kusek | Journal of Postcolonial Writing

The Mpondo uprising of 1960–61: the genesis of modern rural insurgency and airborne counter-insurgency operations in southern Africa

2025-06-13

McGill Alexander | Small Wars and Insurgencies

Feministische Perspektiven auf Geschichtsdeutungen und Erinnerungspolitik in Südafrika

2025-06-11

Rita Schäfer | FEMINA POLITICA – Zeitschrift für feministische Politikwissenschaft

Ähnlich wie Deutschland inszeniert sich Südafrika als Erinnerungsweltmeister, dort wurde keine NS- oder Stasi-Diktatur überwunden, obwohl es zu beiden politische Verbindungen gab. Vielmehr wurde am Kap der guten Hoffnung die … Ähnlich wie Deutschland inszeniert sich Südafrika als Erinnerungsweltmeister, dort wurde keine NS- oder Stasi-Diktatur überwunden, obwohl es zu beiden politische Verbindungen gab. Vielmehr wurde am Kap der guten Hoffnung die rassistische Apartheid als politisches, legales und gesellschaftliches Ordnungssystem durch einen langen bewaffneten Kampf und zahllose couragierte Aktionen des zivilen Ungehorsams abgeschafft. Daran wirkten vor allem Schwarze Frauen unter Einsatz ihres Lebens in vieler Hinsicht mit. Dieser Beitrag veranschaulicht feministische Perspektiven in dortigen Auseinandersetzungen mit Erinnerungspolitik bzw. Geschichtsdeutungen. Er erläutert diesbezügliche Interessenkonflikte zwischen Staatsvertreter*innen und zivilgesellschaftlichen Aktivist*innen, diese betreffen vor allem Kontroversen über offizielle Ansprüche auf Deutungshoheit über Erinnerung. Opfer-/Überlebende aus dem Widerstand gegen die rassistische weiße Minderheitenregierung, die nun als Staatsbürger*innen argumentieren, kritisieren mangelnde Reparationsleistungen, fehlenden Gewaltschutz und die unzureichende Umsetzung von Frauenrechten. Dadurch halten sie auch die Apartheidverbrechen und deren zerstörerischen Folgen im öffentlichen Gedächtnis.

A Prophet of the People: Isaiah Shembe and the Making of a South African Church. African History and Culture. By Lauren V. Jarvis. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2024. 293 pages, Paperback.

2025-06-09

Gerald West | Church History

This Racial War: Constructing Transnational Whiteness in the Newspaper Poems of the South African War, 1899–1902

2025-06-05

Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills | Journal of War and Culture Studies

Women empowerment in evangelism and socio-economic development in South Africa: Nicholas Bhengu’s vision

2025-06-03

Daniel S.B. Lephoko | Verbum et Ecclesia

The article is a historical analysis of Nicholas Bhengu’s vision of women’s empowerment for evangelism and socio-economic development. It was during one of Bhengu’s visits to the United States to … The article is a historical analysis of Nicholas Bhengu’s vision of women’s empowerment for evangelism and socio-economic development. It was during one of Bhengu’s visits to the United States to raise funds for his Back to God Crusade, God appeared to him in a vision in Brooklyn, New York, in 1960; God asked him what he had come to do. Bhengu answered that he had gone there to raise funds for the Back to God Crusade. In a vision, God showed him an African woman wearing a doek (African headgear). God directed Bhengu to go back to South Africa and organise women like the one God showed him in the vision. It was from such women that he would raise funds for his ‘Back to God Crusade’ evangelistic campaigns. The organisation and empowerment of women, known as the Mothers’ Movement, has been a phenomenal success story of spiritual and socio-economic development in South Africa. Women in Bhengu’s churches continue to raise millions of rand for the evangelisation of South Africa and beyond, by creating entrepreneurs among themselves. They are taught to share expertise and skills in group meetings as well as in one-on-one situations - one teaches one. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The contribution of the study is to challenge church leaders to empower and create opportunities for women to be involved in missional activities through their expertise and skills sharing to become financially independent and self-sufficient in an unequal gender society.

A Pretty Piece of Protesting: Colourism as a Hidden Side of Protest Movements in South Africa and India

2025-06-02

Kameshwaran Envernathan Govender , Nalini Moodley | Communicatio

“What Do We Do With all This Dying?” : South African Time, Space, and Place in Forensic Evidence

2025-06-01

Robyn Gill-Leslie | International Journal for Crime Justice and Social Democracy

Forensic investigations during truth recovery after atrocity often apply rights-based, socio-cultural approaches to dead and missing bodies. This article suggests focusing on universal “rights”, such as the right to dignity … Forensic investigations during truth recovery after atrocity often apply rights-based, socio-cultural approaches to dead and missing bodies. This article suggests focusing on universal “rights”, such as the right to dignity in death and the right to know what happened to family members, can occlude forensic understandings stemming from local knowledge systems. Deploying the theoretical gesture of ukwakumkanya through the framing of transcorporeality, this article examines aspects of medico-legal evidence stemming from the Marikana Commission of Inquiry in South Africa—a commission established in the wake of the 2012 Marikana massacre. This article deepens discussion around how forensic information in truth recovery processes reflects not only social contexts, or opportunities to challenge state monopolies on forensic expertise, but also surfaces local understandings of time, space, and place. These offer new temporal, ecological, and relational interpretations of forensic output during truth recovery.

Embodied Resistance, Ethics of Opacity, and Critical Fabulation in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe: A Retelling of Danial Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

2025-06-01

Sajid Ali | Deleted Journal

Resilience And Resistance: Women’s Agency In Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy And Ousmane Sembene’s Xala

2025-05-30

Remmy Shiundu Barasa | East African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences

This paper provides a comparative examination of women’s agency and intertextuality in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy and Ousmane Sembène’s Xala, focusing on their roles within post-colonial African societies. … This paper provides a comparative examination of women’s agency and intertextuality in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy and Ousmane Sembène’s Xala, focusing on their roles within post-colonial African societies. The analysis explores how both authors portray the struggles of African women against the backdrop of cultural, social, and colonial oppression. In her work, Aidoo presents Sissie, a young Ghanaian woman who navigates the complexities of colonialism, diaspora, and migration. Sissie’s journey from Ghana to Europe exposes her to racial discrimination and cultural dislocation, highlighting her struggle for identity and agency. Conversely, Sembène’s work satirizes the power dynamics and polygamy in post-colonial Senegal through the character of El Hadji, a businessman whose impotency symbolizes his moral and societal corruption. The women in Xala reflect varying degrees of submission and resistance to patriarchal norms, with characters like Rama showing a nascent challenge to these structures. Both West African novels use interior monologues and flashbacks to depict the protagonists' inner conflicts and societal constraints. While Aidoo’s Sissie actively confronts and critiques the racial and cultural prejudices she encounters, the women in Sembène’s narrative are primarily portrayed within the confines of traditional and neocolonial expectations. The paper argues that despite these differences, both works underscore the persistent patriarchal subjugation and the nuanced ways African women navigate and resist these constraints. The comparative analysis reveals a shared theme of women's resilience and the therapeutic power of female solidarity, illustrating a progression from traditional subjugation to modern self-assertion in the face of ongoing patriarchal oppression. The study concludes that while resistance methods differ, Aidoo and Sembène emphasize the critical need for women's agency in overcoming the multifaceted challenges of post-colonial African societies.

The State, Sharpeville Massacre and Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa: An Historiographic Overview

2025-05-30

Isah Mohammed Abbass | International journal of human research and social science studies.

Racial discrimination in South Africa, used as a camouflage, constantly and ostensibly appeared and presented as a central focus while the primary contradictions were used under the canopy of secondary … Racial discrimination in South Africa, used as a camouflage, constantly and ostensibly appeared and presented as a central focus while the primary contradictions were used under the canopy of secondary ones in the ownership, control and utilization of the benefits of the means and relations of production. These were used and manipulated under the umbrella of apartheid rhetoric in order to violate the dignity of Blackman. The Sharpeville massacre of 1960, as a by-product of agglomeration of protests against the corrosive apartheid regime, constituted a central event in the South Africa history that upturned and continued to weaken apartheid. When the peaceful protest turned violent, killing Africans who were demonstrating against racist policies, the tragic episode marked a watershed in the anti-apartheid movement. The Sharpeville massacre, therefore, marked a turning point and shifted from a non-violent resistance to an increased and intense militancy to armed struggle. This also galvanized global solidarity with anti-apartheid movement, provoked the process of the dismantling of apartheid and paving a path to a democratic politics in South Africa.

Complicit and Implicated Testimonies: Exploring Limits and Opportunities for Transitional and Transformational Justice through South Africa&rsquo;s Institutional Hearings

2025-05-29

Michelle Anderson | Journal of Perpetrator Research

In seeking to reorient a newly democratic nation within which those who were wronged and those who perpetrated wrongs would need to coexist, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission … In seeking to reorient a newly democratic nation within which those who were wronged and those who perpetrated wrongs would need to coexist, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission created a much-critiqued moral equivalency between perpetrators from all political affiliations, as well as a stark victim-perpetrator binary. The commission’s focus on gross human rights violations precluded meaningful discussion of structural violence or colonial legacies; relatedly, it also left little room for recognition of complicity or implication in its many forms. Michael Rothberg refers to the positionality of ‘the implicated subject’ as ‘violent innocence,’ which suggests the difficulty of addressing such a position within mechanisms like the TRC. The TRC did, however, hold institutional hearings at which people could voluntarily testify about their roles in apartheid. These hearings provide terrain for exploring testimonies from complicit and implicated subjects, which this article does through the lens of the television news series, Truth Commission Special Report. The series constituted a primary news source for most South Africans on TRC happenings; many viewers would have been implicated subjects themselves. Examining complicity or implication as it appears within the TRC institutional hearings and their media coverage allows for discussion on the language of complicity and implication in testimony, its media representation in a transitioning South Africa, and the role of these testimonies in transitional justice. The mediatized nature of these testimonies also allows for reflection on how engaging with testimonies of complicity and implication may influence viewers’ understandings of their own culpability after violence.

Archaeological survey of the Modder River dongas, Free State, South Africa

2025-05-29

Felipe Cuartero , Maïlys Richard , Lloyd Rossouw +1 more | Southern African Field Archaeology

The semi-arid grasslands of the Free State Province of South Africa have produced the earliest evidence of the presence of Homo sapiens in the subcontinent, together with an extensive Pleistocene … The semi-arid grasslands of the Free State Province of South Africa have produced the earliest evidence of the presence of Homo sapiens in the subcontinent, together with an extensive Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental record based on fossil assemblages. However, the known Middle Stone Age (MSA) archaeological sites in the Free State are limited to a few major localities that cannot be integrated into a unitary narrative, thus hindering our understanding of human cultural evolution in the central interior of South Africa. Here we report the results of a survey of the dongas of the Modder River aimed at documenting new localities embedded within its alluvial terraces. We identified 43 previously unknown archaeological areas spanning the Late Pleistocene to Holocene based on the regional chronology, of which the majority are MSA sites. Four of the latter include artefacts in situ and thus hold potential for excavation and absolute dating by trapped-charge methods. The occurrence of a specific lithic type at six sites along the course of the river highlights a pattern in the occupation of the region during Marine Isotope Stage 5, which confirms the importance of the grasslands of the central interior for the characterisation of the spatiotemporal distribution of human groups in the open landscape during the MSA.

Literature and Clairvoyance: A Psychoanalytic Study of Kelechi Ngwaba’s The Generations

2025-05-28

Ugochukwu Ogechi Iwuji , Chimeziri C , Ogbedeto Ogbedeto | TASAMBO JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE LITERATURE AND CULTURE

This paper interrogates the perennial idea of literature associated with clairvoyance and the writer himself as a prophet of some sort. Literature, an artistic representation of society and its heritage, … This paper interrogates the perennial idea of literature associated with clairvoyance and the writer himself as a prophet of some sort. Literature, an artistic representation of society and its heritage, has for ages served as a repository of generational values and ethical code. While it delights and instructs, literature has essentially broken paths for humanity and rightfully predicted what may likely happen in the future. The writer is a troubadour, teacher and clairvoyant of his generation. The paper deploys the theoretical instrument of Psychoanalysis to interrogate the relationship between literature and clairvoyance in Kelechi Ngwaba’s The Generations, drawing from the activities of the major characters in the historical play, which phenomenally covers four generations. The methodology used in the study is qualitative, involving aspects of characterization and plot of the novel. In addition, relevant excerpts from critical works are used to underpin the thesis of the discourse. The major finding of the research is hinged on the reinforcement of literature as a veritable tool for predicting what lies ahead for humanity (clairvoyance) and, of course, the artist as a “prophet”.

Sharad Chari. Apartheid Remains. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2024. xxxv + 460 pp. Maps. Index. $32.95. Paper. ISBN: 9781478030416.

2025-05-28

Simon Lewis | African Studies Review

Resounding resistance: Decolonising memory through Johannesburg’s sound art narratives

2025-05-27

Stefanie Kappler , Ashley Gunter , Lorna Christie | Memory Studies

This article is drawn from findings of the research project ‘Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa’. It analyses a collaborative sound art project in Johannesburg, investigating how sound art can … This article is drawn from findings of the research project ‘Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa’. It analyses a collaborative sound art project in Johannesburg, investigating how sound art can act as conduit for the transmission of community memories, particularly as part of broader decolonial efforts. We propose that sound artists are able to activate seemingly forgotten community narratives, translating these into artistic expressions that offer a pathway towards visions of decolonisation through sonic means. This art form, we argue, serves as a potent form of activism against the deliberate historical amnesias imposed by colonialism, which have sought to efface and overwrite community memories. By harnessing sonic remembrance, communities confront these colonial narratives, resisting the appropriation of their auditory culture and the imposition of Western musical norms. The article discusses how community sound artists engage with their sonic creations to assert their identity and agency, deploying African musical instruments and elements within the post-colonial urban fabric as a means of reclaiming their narrative autonomy in community reconstitution. Through this lens, the study highlights the critical role of soundscapes in challenging colonial legacies and reasserting indigenous agency in the ongoing process of community self-definition yet shaped by its very own intersectional inequalities.

Discipline all the way down: Law and capital in Shaina Potts’ Judicial Territory

2025-05-23

Rachel Phillips

This commentary engages Shaina Potts’ Judicial Territory as a significant methodological contribution to economic geography – one that draws crucial attention to the (often opaque) relationship between law and capitalism … This commentary engages Shaina Potts’ Judicial Territory as a significant methodological contribution to economic geography – one that draws crucial attention to the (often opaque) relationship between law and capitalism and provides geographers with a set of tools to penetrate it. Highlighting three key elements of Potts’ approach to the study of capitalist sociospatial relations, I explore how her focus on the law makes visible actors, logics and modes of political and economic discipline that have largely remained hidden from view in economic geography. First, Potts frames law as a ‘structuring link’ between capitalism and imperialism, developing a theoretical perspective that sheds light on the legal production of uneven development and social difference. Second, she outlines a method of ‘geographically relational’ legal analysis that offers practical lessons for incorporating law into political-economic investigations. And third, through her analytical focus on episodes of legal struggle and contestation, Potts reveals how diverse sets of forces, actors and motivations come together to produce legal change. Here, Judicial Territory highlights the complexity of legal transformation and its relationship to capitalist globalization without losing sight of a basic motivation behind it: the drive to discipline Third World states and repress non-capitalist forms of economic life.

From nationalism to cosmopolitan (imagi)nation: a comparative reading of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and the Jesus trilogy

2025-05-22

Debasish Mishra

Narratives of Transformation in South African Publishing in the 1990s

2025-05-22

Elizabeth le Roux

2 Youth on the Witwatersrand

2025-05-21

Confronting Apartheid's Revenants: Trevor Noah's Born a Crime and/as Traumedy

2025-05-19

Nick Mdika Tembo

Raconter Pour Exister: Le Pacte Autobiographique Dans Un Long Chemin Vers La Liberté De Nelson Mandela

2025-05-17

Oyetunde Julius Oluwafemi , Barandao David D.

La présente étude examine la mise en œuvre du pacte autobiographique dans Un long chemin vers la liberté de Nelson Mandela. Loin de se limiter à une simple restitution chronologique … La présente étude examine la mise en œuvre du pacte autobiographique dans Un long chemin vers la liberté de Nelson Mandela. Loin de se limiter à une simple restitution chronologique des événements marquants de sa vie, Mandela engage, à travers ce récit, une entreprise de construction identitaire et de transmission mémorielle, à la fois personnelle, politique et collective. Son autobiographie se présente comme un espace de légitimation de son itinéraire de vie, de ses luttes et de ses convictions, tout en jouant un rôle mobilisateur dans le contexte historique de la lutte contre l’apartheid. En adoptant une démarche d’analyse littéraire, cette recherche s’attache à mettre en lumière les stratégies d’écriture par lesquelles l’auteur façonne son identité narrative et inscrit son témoignage dans une mémoire partagée. L’approche théorique s’appuie sur les travaux de Philippe Lejeune (1975), notamment sur sa conceptualisation du pacte autobiographique, perçu comme un contrat de lecture fondé sur l’identité entre l’auteur, le narrateur et le personnage principal. Les réflexions de Mineke Schipper (1989) viennent enrichir cette analyse en approfondissant la question de cette triple coïncidence identitaire, condition essentielle à la reconnaissance du texte comme œuvre autobiographique.

Youth Day Commemoration in South Africa:

2025-05-15

Pedzisai Maedza

African Voices in the Natal Native Teachers' Journal and Different Views on "Progressive Compromise"

2025-05-15

E. Phuti Mogase

Jackals with muddy whiskers: re-centering decolonized memory in South Africa through performativity and text

2025-05-14

Adam Levin , Deirdre Byrne , Gerhard Genis +1 more

Making a seen: Collen Mfazwe’s black transmasculine portraiture

2025-05-14

Mlondolozi Zondi

Interrogating the South African Garrison State (1930s–1940s): Oswald Pirow and Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr

2025-05-12

Frederik Fouché Kirsten

‘Your days are over Casanova’: Sexual Violence, Education and the Ethics of Literature in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace

2025-05-12

Emma Williams

Abstract This paper explores literature as a means for understanding the nature and implications of violence against women. In particular, it seeks to illustrate the ways a literary work can … Abstract This paper explores literature as a means for understanding the nature and implications of violence against women. In particular, it seeks to illustrate the ways a literary work can deepen and complexify discussions of violence against women, and its enabling conditions, within an individual and broader society. The work to be examined is J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, and I focus on a particular aspect of the novel—viz. the affair, and the aftermath of the affair, between middle-aged communications professor, David Lurie, and a student from his Romantic Poetry class, Melanie Isaacs. I show how the Lurie-Melanie episode links sexual violence to bureaucratic, disenchanted, and intellectualistic ways of thinking. I also suggest that, in later parts of Disgrace, the possibilities for other attitudes—to sex and to education—are glimpsed. That we glimpse these through the figure of David Lurie—who at the start of the novel believes he has ‘solved’ the problem of sex—makes Coetzee’s novel a particularly interesting case study for considering the education of literature in a time of sexual violence.

Empowerment versus (re)distribution in South Africa: the political economy of assets in elite transitions

2025-05-12

Aroop Chatterjee , Imraan Valodia , Buntu Siwisa

Mandela Comes Home

2025-05-06

One and All: A Conversation with Pang Laikwan

2025-05-06

Christian Sorace , Laikwan Pang

Mandela Memories:

2025-05-06

Infrastructure Stories

2025-05-06

David Joshua Schröder , Sezgin Sönmez

(u)Mzantsi Classics: Dialogues in Decolonisation from Southern Africa

2025-05-04

Adriana Brook

Using a dialectical framework, this book interrogates the role that classics has played in southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and especially South Africa) from diverse perspectives, from the earliest European colonizers … Using a dialectical framework, this book interrogates the role that classics has played in southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and especially South Africa) from diverse perspectives, from the earliest European colonizers to the Fallist protests of 2015/2016. While (u)Mzantsi Classics is grounded in the historical and contemporary realities of the African south, Canadian readers will find many parallels with the vital issues confronting our own universities today. Both candid and hopeful, this book makes a compelling case for the role that classics can play in helping us to understand and navigate an increasingly polarized world.

Authoritarian populism under former liberation movements in Southern Africa

2025-05-02

Henning Melber

Former liberation movements, who replaced white minority regimes in Southern Africa with the support of an international solidarity movement, have in retrospective failed to meet the expectations, also measured against … Former liberation movements, who replaced white minority regimes in Southern Africa with the support of an international solidarity movement, have in retrospective failed to meet the expectations, also measured against what they had promised. The transition towards majority rule paved the way for a new elite project, with less benefits for the ordinary people than originally hoped for. This article takes critically stock of what can be considered as the limits to liberation. It seeks to explain the context and legacy of the struggle for self-determination when it comes to the failures of true emancipation.

Hierarchy of Needs in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace: Abraham Maslow

2025-05-01

| Humanitarian and Natural Sciences Journal