Ruth First: political journalist, researcher and teacher

Abstract

This article begins with Ruth's teaching at Durham and Dar es Salaam and teaching and research at the Centro de Estudos Africanos in Maputo. It discusses Ruth's research on how white farmers and mining houses in South Africa addressed their common problem of finding labour that was ‘abundant and … cheap’. She wrote about migrant workers to the South African mines from the South African end in ‘The gold of migrant labour’ and from the Mozambican end in Black Gold: the Mozambican miner. The address examines her analysis of the ‘power elite’ in Barrel of a Gun. It concludes with the threat that new legislation makes to investigative journalism in South Africa.