Showing papers in "Journal of Southern African Studies in 1999"
TL;DR: In this article, a long-term perspective is taken, incorporating experience from elsewhere in the region, that suggests that any attempt at comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of resettlement in less than a generation is ill-advised.
Abstract: Zimbabwe's resettlement programme is nearly twenty years old. The first families were resettled in 1980, just a few months after independence, and the programme has to date resettled over 70,000 families, well short of the target of 162,000 set in the early 1980s. A tension exists over where the programme goes from here. The rhetoric of the 1996 presidential elections, which presented land reform as an urgent task to be finished (the same rhetoric is conspicuous in the run-up to the 2000 parliamentary elections), is confronted by assessments, emanating both from within and outside government, that resettlement is a failure. However, this paper argues that negative assessments of Zimbabwe's land reform are both premature and have used inappropriate criteria. A long-term perspective is taken, incorporating experience from elsewhere in the region, that suggests that any attempt at comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of resettlement in less than a generation is ill-advised. The focus is not so much the p...
173 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines some central features of the South African civil service during the apartheid era and reveals that despite the massive expansion in the size and power of the bureaucracy, its effectiveness was seriously eroded by emerging structural inefficiencies and skills shortages that arose, in part, from the determination to keep vast categories of the workforce white and Afrikaner.
Abstract: This article examines some central features of the South African civil service during the apartheid era. It sketches the context and nature of the massive expansion of the state administration ushered in by the National Party after 1948. In explaining the labour shortages afflicting the bureaucratic behemoth that emerged, the article analyzes a key paradox: despite the massive expansion in the size and power of the bureaucracy, its effectiveness was seriously eroded by emerging structural inefficiencies and skills shortages that arose, in part, from the determination to keep vast categories of the workforce white and, if possible, Afrikaner. This article also overturns the common assumption that the white civil service enjoyed a 'comfortable alliance' with the National Party government. Despite the placing of Afrikaners in 'sheltered employment' on a large scale in the civil service after 1948, the government that made the appointments lorded it over these employees, often treating them with contempt. The...
73 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the evidence for the allegations that have been made of complicity on the part of the French colonial regime in the eradication of "Malagasy cactus" (a prickly pear Opuntia) by a cochineal insect during the late 1920s.
Abstract: The eradication of 'Malagasy cactus' (a prickly pear Opuntia) by a cochineal insect during the late 1920s had a profound impact on the political economies of southern Madagascar, causing extensive hardship to local peoples and their cattle and changing irrevocably the relationship between this arid region and the colonial state. Yet the circumstances surrounding this event have never been explored in any depth. This paper initiates its study by examining the evidence for the allegations that have been made of complicity on the part of the French colonial regime. It explores the conflicting discourses on 'Malagasy cactus' that divided the colonial administration, demonstrating close links between the campaign to eradicate the plant and the 'social policy' (politique sociale) that became dominant under Governor General Marcel Olivier (1924-1930). It reconstructs the history of the introduction and propagation of the insect, highlighting the role of ideologically-motivated scientific advisors, committed to t...
54 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a situational analysis of a single case of land dispute and argue that land conflicts in the area are predominantly political power struggles and largely take place outside the state's legal arena.
Abstract: Conflicts over land, a major theme in Zimbabwe's rural history, are widely recognized as 'most serious' in the densely populated Communal Areas. Pressure on land in these areas is considerable because of population growth and the segregationist policies of the colonial government that concentrated Africans on marginal lands. Land scarcity in the Communal Areas does not, however, mean that conflicts over land are always economically motivated. As the agricultural potential of land is often limited in Communal Areas, land cases may often be better understood as socially induced. This article on land disputes in the Murambinda area of Save Communal Land aims to elucidate the different meanings attached to land. It presents a situational analysis of a single case of land dispute and argues that land conflicts in the area are predominantly political power struggles. The litigation of land cases is dominated by village leaders (vanasabhuku) and largely takes place outside the state's legal arena. Consequently, ...
50 citations
TL;DR: The Birth of the Present and the Reworking of History: Truth and Reconciliation: the Reordering of History as discussed by the authors, is a book about the birth of the present and the reordering of history.
Abstract: (1999). Truth and Reconciliation: the Birth of the Present and the Reworking of History. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 499-519.
49 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a more thorough account of the complexity of bantustan nation-building, background to its subsequent collapse and ambiguous legacy, is provided, linking apartheid's particularities and generalities: its explicit grounding within a wider generic Eurocentric framework and especially the manner in which ideas of progress and identity were played out locally within South Africa's periphery.
Abstract: Apartheid's bantustans reflected extreme forms of territorial fragmentation and (neo)colonially-derived dependency. Whilst the bantustans have been dismantled, paradoxically, the imagery of dependency which they came to symbolize has been used recently to characterize other 'nation-building' situations. In order to provide a more thorough account of the complexity of bantustan nation-building, background to its subsequent collapse and ambiguous legacy, the paper re-examines one 'independent' bantustan, namely Bophuthatswana. Unlike previous approaches, the paper links apartheid's particularities and generalities: its explicit grounding within a wider generic Eurocentric framework and especially the manner in which ideas of progress and identity were played out locally within South Africa's periphery are explored. Under the guise of 'independence', marginalized groups sought power and influence through vigorous efforts to promote a new national identity in Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana's shifting strategi...
39 citations
TL;DR: The new-found democracy in post-apartheid South Africa was bound to confront the legacies of apartheid, one of which was the segregated spaces designed to foster a separate existence of different o...
Abstract: The new-found democracy in post-apartheid South Africa was bound to confront the legacies of apartheid, one of which was the segregated spaces designed to foster a separate existence of different o...
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses the international reception of the fiction of South African novelist and critic, J. M. Coetzee, in order to examine the institutional and rhetorical conventions which shaped the selection and circulation of particular forms of writing as exemplars of 'South African literature' from the 1970s through to the 1990s.
Abstract: This paper discusses the international reception of the fiction of South African novelist and critic, J. M. Coetzee, in order to examine the institutional and rhetorical conventions which shaped the selection and circulation of particular forms of writing as exemplars of 'South African literature' from the 1970s through to the 1990s. The representation of Coetzee's novels in two reading-formations is critically addressed: in non-academic literary reviews; and in the emergent academic paradigm of post-colonial literary theory. It is argued that in both cases, South African literary writing has often been re-inscribed into new contexts according to abstract and moralised understandings of the nature of apartheid.
35 citations
TL;DR: The authors argues that the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border is hard and constraining, and has been so since the beginning of the twentieth century, and that emigration strips them of rights and privileges they enjoy in their own country.
Abstract: For Mozambicans, border-crossing is neither new nor liberating. Many current analyses of refugees, labour migrants, smugglers, and other 'transnational subjects' emphasize their range of options, arguing that they are less and less constrained by porous, politically 'soft' international borders. This article argues that, for at least a segment, the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border is hard and constraining, and has been so since the beginning of the twentieth century. Mozambican small-holders do cross it, but emigration strips them of rights and privileges they enjoy in their own country. In Vhimba, a Zimbabwean community on the Mozambican border, headmen have allocated farmland to Mozambican migrants on much less favourable terms than they have to Zimbabwean internal migrants. During Mozambique's recent war, the double standard became especially stark. Headmen and other Zimbabweans associated these destitute refugees with pre-colonial clients, and refugees behaved accordingly. In a fashion modelled loosely on n...
34 citations
Abstract: The South West African Native Labour Association (SWANLA) has received much attention by scholars of Namibia as the primary source of exploitation that eventually led to the rise of the independence movement led by SWAPO. Little attention has been given to SWANLA's predecessors, the Southern Labour Organisation (SLO) and the Northern Labour Organisation (NLO), which recruited and administered contract labour during the inter-war years. These two organizations played a fundamental role in breaking down traditional African societies in Namibia, and in creating a wage-labour economy in the southwest African territory. This study uses archival documents from the SLO and the NLO to reveal how the contract labour system was institutionalized in Namibia after World War One. This analysis confirms the centrality of the diamond industry for explaining the nature of contract labour, and much of Namibian politics itself, during the twentieth century in Namibia.
33 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a detailed historical analysis of the tranformations in amaqaba migrant culture in the city from the 1950s to the mid-1990s is presented, focusing on the external forces that shaped migrant responses to change, but also on the internal social dynamics and relations that facilitated cultural reproduction.
Abstract: This article is concerned with understanding current transformations in migrant culture and identity in South African urban areas. It approaches the topic by revisiting Philip and lana Mayer’s classic study of migrant culture and identity in the Duncan Village township of East London. The article uses the their work as the starting point from which to construct a detailed historical analysis of the tranformations in amaqaba migrant culture in the city from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. The first part of the paper attempts to show that the Mayers greatly underestimated the resilience of this cultural form in the face of far-reaching social and political change in East London. In documenting the survival of amaqaba culture well into the 1980s, it focuses not only on the external forces that shaped migrant responses to change, but also on the internal social dynamics and relations that facilitated cultural reproduction. The second part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the decline of amaqaba culture as...
TL;DR: In this paper, the Warwick Avenue Triangle (WAT), an inner city community in Durban, was investigated and the history of integrated residential development in the area and examined how slum clearance laws, the Group Areas Act and urban renewal programmes were used to try to destroy the community.
Abstract: In the urban literature in South Africa considerable attention has focused on the forced relocation and destruction of integrated communities under apartheid. The best known examples are the destruction of Sophiatown in Johannesburg, the razing of District Six in Cape Town and the annihilation of Cato Manor in Durban. In contrast, this paper focuses on the Warwick Avenue Triangle (WAT), an inner city community, and attempts to explain how one of the oldest mixed residential areas in Durban defied the apartheid state's strategies to destroy it. The paper traces the history of integrated residential development in the area and examines how slum clearance laws, the Group Areas Act and urban renewal programmes were used to try to destroy the community. Attempts by the residents to resist removal and relocation are assessed. Reconstruction and planning strategies to redevelop the area in the post-apartheid era are evaluated.
TL;DR: This article explored the range and limits of inter-racial friendships and socializing in Hillbrow, a high-rise, inner city suburb in Johannesburg, in the early 1990s.
Abstract: Hillbrow, a high-rise, inner city suburb in Johannesburg was one of the first neighbourhoods to become racially diverse in spite of the Group Areas Act of 1950. From the late 1970s, its whites-only policy started crumbling and by 1993 when the data for this study were collected, under 20 per cent of its population was white. The central questions that are addressed in this paper are: how did racial propinquity impact on race relations and interracial interaction in the neighbourhood in the early 1990s? Did it increase racism amongst residents or did it lead to its diminution? Related questions are: how were the respective racial categories and other 'races' constructed, and what traits were assigned to the various racial categories? In order to establish the extent to which an integrated, rather than a merely mixed neighbourhood emerged, this study explores the range and limits of interracial friendships and socializing. Data for the study were obtained mainly through a household survey and in-depth inter...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the contemporary significance of migration as populations are affected by the dual impacts of natural environmental variability and structural land-use change in the Kalahari of Botswana.
Abstract: Migration now features prominently both in poverty-reduction discourses, as a 'tool' for reconciling rural populations with available resources, and in sustainable livelihoods debates, as a 'coping strategy' employed in times of livelihood stress. This paper assesses the contemporary significance of migration as populations are affected by the dual impacts of natural environmental variability and structural land-use change in the Kalahari of Botswana. Three study areas, located across the arid to dry-sub-humid climatic gradient, were investigated. These had been redesignated as commercial ranching areas under the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975. Under this policy, pre-existing populations were to be resettled in specially designated Service Centres that were expected to reduce poverty and improve livelihood opportunities and household food security. The findings of this study reveal that the policy was accompanied by extensive population displacement rather than migration per se as ranch owners exerci...
TL;DR: This article is based on 150 cases of killings and alleged killings of women and girls by intimate partners and male family members in Zambia from 1973 to 1996, which indicates power and control are underlying factors in these cases of gender-based homicide.
Abstract: This article is based on 150 cases of killings and alleged killings of women and girls by intimate partners and male family members in Zambia from 1973 to 1996. The female victims range from infancy to old age, but half were women in their child-bearing years. The alleged perpetrators represent men of all ages, all social classes and from all parts of Zambia. They used a variety of weapons, and methods that parallel state-sanctioned torture, to beat, burn, stab or shoot their victims to death. Power and control are underlying factors in these cases of gender-based homicide. Suspected adultery appears to be a leading 'motive' of the killings, as does any threat or challenge to a husband or male relative, or refusal to obey orders or perform domestic tasks. For many of the victims, the punishment for deviating from their expected gender roles was death. Newspaper accounts of such killings create a secondary level of silence about domestic violence and homicide by blaming the victims and concealing the bruta...
TL;DR: It is argued that migrant labour made it possible for those at the lower level of society to rise through the emerging stratifications of the Tswana, and contributed positively to the general economies of the peasantries in Botswana's reserves.
Abstract: This article grapples with issues that have largely remained outside the realms of migrant labour studies in colonial Botswana: the positive input of migrant wages to agricultural production and the effects of migrant wages on the differentiation of the peasantry. Although this article endorses the conventional view that migrant labour had detrimental effects on crop production and animal husbandry, it departs from previous studies in that it argues that the extent to which migrant labour led to 'underdevelopment' has not been sufficiently demonstrated. It is also argued that migrant labour made it possible for those at the lower level of society to rise through the emerging stratifications of the Tswana, and contributed positively to the general economies of the peasantries in Botswana's reserves.
TL;DR: The House Gun (1998) as mentioned in this paper is the first novel by Nadine Gordimer to be set firmly in post-apartheid South Africa, and explores questions of individual and social responsibility in the context of widespread violence.
Abstract: The House Gun (1998) is the first novel by Nadine Gordimer to be set firmly in post-apartheid South Africa. In this work, Gordimer explores questions of individual and social responsibility in the context of widespread violence. The central incident is a murder that seems to have no obvious political (or even specifically South African) etiology or ramifications. Nonetheless, Gordimer uses this enigmatic crime and its repercussions to probe obliquely the complex relationship between the individual and the wider social context in post-apartheid South Africa. This article relates that investigation to the often expressed claim that Gordimer's works are predominantly concerned with the relationship between the 'personal' and the 'political'. It also considers trends in Gordimer criticism, arguing for a fuller recognition of the modernist elements in Gordimer's fiction.
TL;DR: In the first half of the nineteenth century, some missionaries in the Cape Colony suggested to those Khoikhoi and, later, ex-slaves who were associated with them that conversion would not only...
Abstract: Dutring the first half of the nineteenth century, some missionaries in the Cape Colony suggested to those Khoikhoi and, later, ex-slaves who were associated with them that conversion would not only...
TL;DR: In this paper, it was argued that the chief promoter of the colour bar clauses, it is argued, was the State Mining Engineer, A. J. Klimke, whose main goal was actually to promote safety, a function he believed black workers incapable of achieving.
Abstract: On the Witwatersrand gold mines during the 1890s, skilled white workmen's rivals were not 'ultra-exploitable' black migrant workers, but informally-trained, long-service Africans, Indians, and coloureds. As this article demonstrates, such competition laid the basis for the 'structural insecurity' of white artisans and operatives on the mines, but left the white miners (as supervisors) untouched. In the 1890s, they enjoyed relative job security. It was the white engine drivers (and not the miners proper) who demanded the colour bar for a complex set of class-cum-race reasons. But the chief promoter of the colour bar clauses, it is argued, was the State Mining Engineer, A. J. Klimke, whose main goal was actually to promote safety, a function he believed black workers incapable of achieving. He therefore reserved for whites two major job categories associated with mining accidents: hauling and blasting. The article also demonstrates that a racial ordering of production on the mines was fully supported by the...
TL;DR: In the Kuando-Kubango province in southeastern Angola, the lack of ethnic identity has been explained as a "pragmatics of identity" intended to counter the "labels" attached to refugees by local citizens.
Abstract: In debates about ethnicity it is often taken for granted that Africans developed or imagined an ethnic identity, albeit in different periods and in different forms. In the Kuando-Kubango province in southeastern Angola, however, ethnic ideology does not seem to have acquired the compelling attraction it has had elsewhere in Africa. Among refugees from this area, who now live in Rundu (Namibia), ethnicity is avoided as a category of identity as well. Very different explanations have been given for the uneven development of ethnic consciousness. Thus some have implied that ethnicity meant little for Africans living in areas where colonial control, missionary enterprise, and a migrant economy did not make a great impact. In another interpretation, specifically dealing with refugees, the lack of ethnic identity has been explained as a ‘pragmatics of identity’ intended to counter the ‘labels’ attached to refugees by local citizens. Refugees use the lack of fixed ethnic identity as a means of becoming inconspic...
TL;DR: The authors argue that many of the literary texts written in the "mission" ethos are marked by forms of aesthetic hybridity and subtextual ambiguity which require serious interpretation. But they do not consider the aesthetic, historical and political complexities of the literature.
Abstract: The essay challenges the strongly teleological emphasis in the construction of black South African literary history, which has elided many of the aesthetic, historical and political complexities of the literature. It argues that many of the literary texts written in the 'mission' ethos are marked by forms of aesthetic hybridity and subtextual ambiguity which require serious interpretation. A common feature of this writing is its desperate struggle with a sense of accelerated time. It is suggested that written narrative was undertaken as a mode of reprisal which sought to limit and, in some instances, transform the effects of an alien modernity. This undertaking is studied in two groups of texts: those which tell the story of Christian 'emergence' amongst indigenous communities, and those which re-create the traditional past. In the case of the 'Christian' texts, the subtext is found to be more secular than is often assumed, with writers using the theme to develop an active relationship with the historical...
TL;DR: In the Second World War, thousands of men from Britain's Southern African High Commission Territories (HCT) joined the British Army as discussed by the authors and although their service was a success from a military perspective, numerous problems arose that threatened their usefulness and led to serious unrest.
Abstract: Thousands of men from Britain's Southern African High Commission Territories (HCT) joined the British Army during the Second World War. Although their service was a success from a military perspective, numerous problems arose that threatened their usefulness and led to serious unrest. British regular Army officers complained about colonial administrative service officers drafted into the Army as 'experts', as did Africans themselves. Africans also complained about not being allowed commissions, and problems arose over seniority between British Non Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and their African counterparts. African service among 'demoralized' whites in newly recaptured Sicily and Italy also caused racial tensions, as did the service of Africans in close quarters with British soldiers who received more pay. A slow demobilization process, that saw the military authorities renege on a promise to repatriate Africans as soon as Hitler was defeated, led to a great deal of resentment, that manifested itself in d...
TL;DR: The interpretation of the war praise poem in honour of Ratshatsha, the chief who reigned over the Hananwa, a Northern Sotho-speaking people living at Blouberg in the Northern Province of South Africa from 1879 to 1939, offers an interdisciplinary analysis which includes the performer, family members and local inhabitants as active participants in the re-creation of their own pa... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The important role of oral tradition (folklore) in the reconstruction of the historical and cultural life of non-literate societies demands an interdisciplinary approach. Folklorists and scholars in disciplines such as anthropology, ethnography, history and linguistics have recognized the necessity of following such an approach in order to arrive at an accurate interpretation and understanding of oral texts. In a society riven by racial bigotry and ethnic animosity, the various black communities of South Africa have had very little opportunity to produce their own history and to create and affirm their own identity. The interpretation undertaken here of the war praise poem in honour of Ratshatsha, the chief who reigned over the Hananwa, a Northern Sotho-speaking people living at Blouberg in the Northern Province of South Africa from 1879 to 1939, offers an interdisciplinary analysis which includes the performer, family members and local inhabitants as active participants in the re-creation of their own pa...
TL;DR: In 1945, immediately following the conclusion of the Second World War, a major strike by African employees took place on the Rhodesia Railways as mentioned in this paper, which was the region's transportation backbone and largest single employer.
Abstract: In 1945, immediately following the conclusion of the Second World War, a major strike by African employees took place on the Rhodesia Railways. The Railways served both Southern and Northern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia), and the system was the region's transportation backbone and largest single employer. This is the second part of a two-part article seeking to provide a far more comprehensive account of the strike than has heretofore appeared. Part I was a detailed narrative account of the strike's unfolding. Part II seeks to illuminate the strike's cause, rooted in the railway workers' experience, and to place the event in its historical context. Though contemporary observers may have overstated the strike's transformative power, it deserves its place as one of the region's most dramatic episodes of resistance.
TL;DR: New Perspectives on Citizenship in Africa: A Review article as mentioned in this paper, is an extension of the article presented in this paper. But it does not address the issues raised in this article.
Abstract: (1999). Review Article New Perspectives on Citizenship in Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 139-148.
TL;DR: The authors explored the history of political myths surrounding the nineteenth century missionary leader John Philip and the changing political and ideological contexts within which it was mobilised over the course of 150 years, and foregrounded the links between the Philip myth and changing political contexts.
Abstract: Political myths have played a crucial role in legitimising apartheid and white domination in South Africa. This article explores the history of one such political myth: the mythology surrounding the nineteenth century missionary leader John Philip. I foreground the links between the Philip myth and the changing political and ideological contexts within which it was mobilised over the course of 150 years. While the roots of the Philip myth lie in the racial polemics of conservative settler ideologues in the Cape Colony during the 1830s and 1840s, Philip had slipped into historical obscurity by the middle of the nineteenth century. It was only during the 1880s and 1890s that he was resurrected by the massively influential settler historian G.M. Theal. The reasons for Theal’s construction of a full blown Philip myth are related to his political project of colonial nationalism and his growing interest in the ideologies of Social Darwinism and scientific racism. Although Philip evoked scant interest among Afri...
TL;DR: There was more to African religious life in rural colonial Natal than mission orthodoxy, traditionalism, or independent Christianity as mentioned in this paper, and many people became involved in mission Christianity without fully submitting to missionary authority.
Abstract: There was more to African religious life in rural colonial Natal than mission orthodoxy, traditionalism, or independent Christianity. Many people became involved in mission Christianity without fully submitting to missionary authority. The story of these ‘adherents’ has yet to be written, for historians have focused on the prosperous, westernised, orthodox African Christians who lived on Natal’s most famous mission stations. In districts like Mapumulo, however, where colonial evangelism seemed to the missionaries to be struggling most, many Africans sought the material and spiritual benefits of colonial evangelism without becoming church members themselves. In fact, missionaries spent more time keeping Africans out of Christianity than dragging or luring them in, as is evident in three episodes in the history of Christianity in colonial Mapumulo. The first episode concerns the first independent church in Natal, which emerged in Mapumulo around I890, not as a rejection of the missionaries, but rather as a ...
TL;DR: This article considers the food production activities of people in the Thlaping and Tlharo chiefdoms in the present-day Northern Cape and North-West Provinces between c1750 and 1830 and considers food production methods, their environmental suitability and how food produtction related to social difference.
Abstract: This article considers the food production activities of people in the Thlaping and Tlharo chiefdoms in the present-day Northern Cape and North-West Provinces between c1750 and 1830. It considers food production methods, their environmental suitability and how food produtction related to social difference. It is arguted that the Tlhaping and Tlharo chiefdoms did not arise through the migration of agro-pastoralists, but that indigenous inihabitants began stock keeping and cultivating as the chiefdoms were established in the mid-eighteenth century. Thereafter food production remained extensive and the products of pastoralism – milk – provided the staple of the diet. Food production did not provide support for all people, and a significant class of foragers, who were not ethnically differentiated from other members of the chiefdons, lived at the bottom of the society and outside of the towns. It was possible for men to move between stock keeping and foraging in a process similar to the “ecological cycle” des...