Apartheid Research Articles

Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena: Unveiling the Coloured Ghost in South Africa

Abstract Boesman and Lena, a play by Athol Fugard in 1969, explores the socio-political landscape of apartheid-era South Africa. The story centres on Boesman and Lena, a couple who are forcibly displaced from their home due to apartheid laws. This article examines how Fugard navigates the complexities of coloured history within South African modernity rather than through the lens of post-colonial discourse. It investigates Fugard’s use of modern theatre techniques, particularly his adaptation of Brecht’s Leichtigkeit, to portray the intricacies of human existence and societal tensions in his plays. Furthermore, the article discusses that Fugard’s effort offers a unique perspective on reconciling contrasting traditions within modern theatre. Further in his Fanonian anatomy of the psychology of coloured individuals, his theatre provides a remarkable narrative of South African modernity by depicting coloured people as a spectral experience of South African history and their shared humanity as a significant ideology that equals the Black Consciousness Movement.

“Mining” the Film Archive: South Africa’s Mining Industry and Film Production

This paper examines the relationship of film production and the mining industry in the forty years of the Union of South Africa, before the National Party came to power in 1948 and established its system of apartheid. It argues that the mining industry used the new technology of film to promote its exploitative system of African migrant workers, mobilized to extract the maximum natural resources of precious metals at the greatest profit. In South Africa in this period, film production and cinema exhibition were controlled commercially by the African Films Trust through its production company, African Film Productions, and its exhibition arm, African Consolidated Theatres. In the face of the rise of trade unions and collective bargaining, the Chamber of Mines commissioned African Film Productions to make documentaries, including instructional, topical, and propaganda films, from the 1920s until the 1940s. These were intended to counter overseas public criticisms of working conditions, health and safety, and racial segregation of workers on the mines. The Chamber of Mines also commissioned films to recruit African migrant workers through its recruitment agencies, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association and the Native Recruiting Corporation. These recruitment films were screened using mobile cinemas in villages throughout southern Africa. The film company made other publicity films, often co-produced with various South African government departments, to attract White settler immigration and investment by shareholders, and domestically aimed at allaying settlers’ anxieties about the growth of mass African labor systems. These films were exhibited in cinemas all over South Africa and overseas. Building on existing scholarship on the importance of cinema to the recruitment and regulation of African miners in southern Africa, particularly South Africa, this paper will excavate the intricate imbrication of filmmaking in the consolidation and expansion of mining during the first half of the twentieth century.

The Cuban Intervention and Its Role in Ending the Apartheid System in South Africa (1961-)

The Cuban Intervention and Its Role in Ending the Apartheid System in South Africa (1961-)

Exploring Forced Removals and Dispossession in the Dukuduku Forest, KwaZulu Natal, before and after 1994

AbstractGovernment‐sanctioned forced removals are a continuous theme in contemporary South Africa. This article examines four major phases of forced removals in the Dukuduku state forest – located in the Mtubatuba Municipality in northern KwaZulu Natal, South Africa – beginning in the 1930s. It places particular focus on the last phase of removals in the 1980s and 1990s, during the significant political period in South Africa in which there were talks between the liberation movements and the Nationalist government about transitioning to the new political dispensation. Land restitution efforts following the 1994 elections are explored, detailing the state's approach to addressing historical injustices related to land issues. The findings reveal that resistance was fuelled by conservationist imperatives that prioritised nature over human habitation and demonstrate that the policies of both apartheid and post‐apartheid governments have contributed to the destruction of a significant portion of this unique indigenous forest over the past five decades. The article advocates for a balanced land management approach that respects historical land claims and prioritises local needs alongside environmental preservation efforts.

South African Nuclear Necropolitics in Helmut Starcke’s Study for “Vaalputs Madonna”

Art provides a meaningful instrument with which to understand, reflect, and communicate history, humanity, scientific progress, and societal threats. Nuclear art is a particular and critical art form that deals with the duality of the nuclear chain reaction which is either used for peaceful purposes such as nuclear medicine and food irradiation, or for weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear bombs. Despite South Africa’s long nuclear history and unprecedented voluntary nuclear weapons disarmament, nuclear art as a visual practice is underdeveloped in the country. This article considers German-born South African artist Helmut Starcke’s Study for “Vaalputs Madonna” (2007) as a visual expression of South African nuclear art, and the nuclear necropolitics related to the Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. Starcke’s use of Marian iconography and his juxtaposition of European and African art symbolises the violence of nuclear colonialism, while he also confirms the realities of the nuclear necropolitics of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.

Character Identity, Struggles, and Resilience: Acting Exploration of Selected Monologues

This article examines the portrayal of identity, struggles, and resilience through theatrical monologues, focusing on Sizwe Bansi is Dead by Athol Fugard and Fences by August Wilson. Both plays present socio-political and socio-cultural challenges faced by black individuals in apartheid South Africa and segregated America, respectively. Through detailed analysis of selected monologues, the study explores how acting techniques are employed to convey these themes and resonate with contemporary audiences. The findings reveal that the systemic discrimination, hardships, and resilience depicted in the monologues remain relevant today, as issues such as racial injustice and inequality continue to affect black communities globally. The analysis also highlights how acting can powerfully communicate these experiences, shaping audience perceptions and encouraging social reflection. The paper concludes that theatrical acting is a potent tool for social change, allowing actors to embody and reflect the struggles and triumphs of their communities. The study underscores the need for actors to immerse themselves fully in character roles to effectively convey these complex narratives. The recommendations include encouraging actors to deepen their training through rigorous script analysis, accent mastery, and exploration of diverse acting techniques. Additionally, it suggests that future studies should continue to explore the role of theatre in addressing identity and socio-political issues, with a focus on how contemporary performances can inspire social change and personal reflection.

Hungarian Socialist Solidarity with Namibia

As an Eastern Bloc country, the People’s Republic of Hungary was engaged with the issue of international socialist solidarity. Except for the German Democratic Republic, none of the Eastern Bloc countries had a considerable colonial past; hence, their anti-colonial point of view seemed credible for the liberation movements in Africa and Asia. The Hungarian socialist state approved the activities of the liberation movements ANC, FRELIMO, MPLA, and SWAPO in Southern Africa. The right-wing and white supremacist systems of the Salazarist Portugal, Rhodesia, and the apartheid South Africa were seen as obvious enemies and oppressors who were contributing to the functioning of an exploiting and capitalist system based on the rule of a minority group. The anti-colonial interests of the socialist Eastern Bloc countries had various other aspects as well. In the liberation of Southern Africa, economic interests played a key role. These countries, especially Angola, South Africa, and Namibia have an incredible abundance of resources. Therefore, the Eastern Bloc countries were involved not only in the wars of liberation, but also in the restoration and rebuilding of structures. This meant a practically new market for goods from Africa in the Eastern Bloc countries, and the export of technology and manufactured goods to Africa from the Eastern Bloc countries.

Effects of Apartheid Legacy on South African Judo: A Sys-tematic Review

Presently, the sport of Judo in South Africa (JSA) has substantially failed to grow and gain publicity nationally and internationally due to the low number of judokas representing the country. Concurrently, each country has unique motivators and barriers to engagement in sports. On that note, during the period of apartheid (1948-1994), South African (SA) government enacted Group Areas Act to ensure that whites and blacks did not stay together leading in segregated sport trainings and match facilities, which culminated in skewed career opportunities in sport. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to reflect on how SA apartheid system impacted the development of judo in SA. An in-depth search strategy was conducted from inception to April 2023, which involved PubMed, SportDiscuss, Google Scholar and Web of Science. This study’s findings indicate that the system of apartheid disrupted sport in South Africa particularly with sport opportunities and resources being reserved for white athletes. Further, this study’s results indicate that JSA was segregated based on race, location, and social standing. In conclusion, sport participation and access to resources by all should be created to ensure equity and justice for all athletes and coaching staff. This leads to an all-inclusive integrated sports development plan which will increase sport involvement by the citizens. In this effect, JSA introduced free and development registration for athletes who cannot afford to pay fees and this gesture has helped poor athletes access judo.

Inclusionary housing policy and practice in South African cities: planning as a spatial transformation tool

AbstractGlobally, housing forms an integral part of accessing the wide range opportunities that cities offer, however, inequality can be exacerbated when significant segments of the inhabitants are excluded from the real estate market or through inaction by the state. The need for affordable housing in cities with hyper-property markets is of global concern for public sector authorities that are pursuing goals of socially just and economically inclusive cities. In the global south, inclusionary housing policies and associated practices have emerged as important tools to increase access for those excluded from the opportunities available in towns and cities. In South Africa, the post-1994 democratic state has continued with the apartheid era practice of providing subsidised housing for the majority urban residents on the outskirts of towns and cities, thereby further entrenching poverty traps and racially based separate developments. Contrary to practice, the state’s well-documented policy position is to reverse the legacy of apartheid through spatial transformation so that cities and towns become economically more inclusive and socially just. It is argued that this requires prioritising the provision of affordable housing in urban centres of towns and cities that offer meaningful working, residing, shopping, recreational and other social opportunities. Although inclusionary housing policy has emerged internationally as an important mechanism to spatially transform urban areas, this forms only one component of a wider range of other possible public interventions. These framework mechanisms could include broader housing development policies, legislation and programmes as well as the urban development policies, spatial planning and land use management practices and incentives. Other incentives that can be used as leverage include the use of publicly owned property (land and buildings), capital infrastructure and development incentives. The public sector can offer both direct and indirect financial assistance and tax incentives to support an inclusionary housing policy. Critically, this should be contingent on the public sector understanding the feasibility, risk and benefits associated with housing projects pursued by private sector real estate developers.

Financing white rule: How Luxembourg became a banker for the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa

Abstract In this article, I offer a historical analysis of how bankers in Luxembourg came to be important service providers to borrowers in the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa. I demonstrate how a series of unique political and cultural factors linking Luxembourg and these two (neo)colonial regimes account for the financial activities that developed between the three jurisdictions. As such, I show that officials in the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa were able to count on their Luxembourg-based bankers for a variety of finance-related services, including the provision of Eurocurrency loans and the formation of offshore companies. In doing so, the article contributes to a body of literature in the social sciences of finance that has grown significantly in recent years: on the imperial and neocolonial basis of the contemporary global financial system.

Essay review: technopolitics, development and the residues of the South African state.

It has been thirty years since the end of political apartheid in South Africa in 1994. Those decades have been marked by single-party dominance under the African National Congress (ANC), and the expansion of democratic rights and public goods like education, as well as neoliberal economic policies, growing inequality and, in recent years, corruption and maladministration scandals. On the heels of a historic election in May 2024, one which marked the end of the ANC's electoral dominance and was shaped, in part, by government mismanagement of the energy sector and extensive infrastructural decline, it is a timely moment to consider the history of South Africa's state and its relation to industries of extraction and energy production. Two new books do just that. Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures, by Gabrielle Hecht, takes a long view of the impact of extractive industries, arguing that contemporary South Africa may offer a cautionary tale of the devastating impacts of the Anthropocene, one that 'foretells planetary futures' in the way that the state has failed to reckon with the enduring communal and environmental impacts of the mining industry. Apartheid's Leviathan: Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence, by Faeeza Ballim, historicizes the development of South Africa's electricity sector under the apartheid state and traces the roots of the current energy crisis back to the pursuit of authoritarian high modernism in the mid-twentieth century.

SENSORY EXPERIMENTS, SENSORY ORDERS, AND AESTHETIC EDUCATION

ABSTRACTErica Fretwell's Sensory Experiments: Psychophysics, Race, and the Aesthetics of Feeling (2020) raises crucial questions about the making of a concept of difference through marshaling the senses to the ends of a sensory order in postbellum United States. In this essay, I argue that Fretwell's book has opened a crucial horizon for rethinking how race and ideas of difference marking gender and disability were remade through the short‐lived but deeply consequential science of psychophysics. While the study focuses on how psychophysics and its aftermaths recast questions of difference in the US, Fretwell indirectly poses a major challenge for the critique of the twentieth‐century experience of race elsewhere—for example, of apartheid in South Africa. In this review essay, I argue that, beyond the US, Fretwell's meticulously elaborated argument renews approaches to the problem and problematization of race and difference. Read in relation to the making of race in South Africa, the book inadvertently brings into view a deceptive plot of petty apartheid, a banal everyday constitution of a sensory order that shares its origins in the discourse of psychophysics. When placed alongside the more pronounced forms of grand apartheid, the resultant psychophysical aesthesis conscripts the human sensorium to a cybernetic mode of power that shifts between a racialization of labor and a racialization of desire. Fretwell effectively invites us to consider the endpoints of psychophysics in a hierarchy of the senses, for which an aesthetic education may yet be required to short‐circuit and reroute the senses through intervals of synesthesia.

Nakba and the US-Israel Imperial Regime

Abstract The US-Israeli genocide is best understood as the end game of empire, the culmination of failed Anglo-American and Zionist policies in the Middle East and, indeed, virtually the entire non-Western world. It is the outcome of a US-sponsored apartheid system in Israel, largely carried out by the IDF and other militarist forces in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Israel itself and funded by American financial assistance and weapons transfers to the Israeli army. The threats of multipolarity to US/NATO hegemony, Britain being the major junior partner, pushed the Trump and Biden administrations, along with the British Tories and post-Corbyn Labour Party, to support de facto the “final solution” in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. This article puts the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza, the Hamas-led attack on October 7 being the main pretext, in historical perspective. It argues that it is a logical sequence of the pre-war Zionist idea of an exclusive Jewish state and US and UK post-war power politics in the Middle East and in two imperial states’ respective domestic electoral politics.

Segregation in the Reserves: The Winter Family in Sekhukhuneland 1913–1948

ABSTRACT The role of the reserve areas in both the genesis and implementation of segregation and apartheid is an especially well-worn topic in South African historiography. But much less attention has been given to the impact of the implementation of racial segregation in society in the areas set aside as rural locations and reserves in the ninteeenth and early twentieth centuries. The experiences of the Winter family of the Sekhukhuneland area provides an illuminating case study of the processes at work in the interregnum between the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts. Their family history highlights the emergence in reserve areas of networks of interconnected families spanning both old and new elites and the racial boundaries a segregationist ideology sought to entrench. It also shows how rapidly, profoundly, and painfully these emergent social forms were dismembered after 1936, long before the enforcement of apartheid policies after 1948.

“Her Prim Answering Smile”

To date, disability readings of J. M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K have engaged with the implications stemming from the protagonist’s neurodiversity; however, this discourse can be expanded to account for his physical alterity. From birth, K is stigmatized for his cleft lip, a defining corporeal trait that aptly informs his “life and times.” In response, this article argues, K develops a method for negotiating the ableist politics underscoring apartheid South Africa. He studies the body part for which he is stigmatized—mouths. Encountering a series of oral expressions, K gauges each to determine the extent of his participation within his war-torn milieu. Whereas his mother’s smile conjures happiness and prompts engagement, the soldier’s mocking grin is a threatening gesture from which K distances himself. This article suggests Coetzee’s novel questions the state of personhood, asking not who is granted the dignities afforded to the liberal individual in apartheid South Africa, but what that individual must look like in order to experience affections such as compassion and respect.

A scoping review of street homelessness: What can Papua New Guinea learn from South Africa?

Homelessness is a global social issue that has affected various nations around the world, including South Africa. The instances of homelessness began during the apartheid era in South Africa and have since risen to alarming levels in provinces such as Gauteng, Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal, as reported in the 2022 census. Despite the lack of comprehensive research on homelessness in South Africa, this study conducted a scoping review to evaluate research completed on homelessness from independence to 2020 in the country. The scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and involved a systematic search of the Development Southern Africa and Urban Forum databases. A total of 72 research articles were identified, with 10 meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review, which were then analyzed using thematic analysis. The study identified several key themes, including homelessness as a reflection of patriarchal systems, gender-based conflicts leading to homelessness, proactive and reactive interventions by non-state actors for homeless individuals, and the quantitative focus of research on homelessness in South Africa from independence to the present day. The study presents the applicability of these findings to tackle homelessness in Papua New Guinea and recommends the use of mixed methods approaches to research homelessness in South Africa to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the various dimensions of homelessness in the country.

“Twists and Turns”: Chief Leabua Jonathan and Cross-Border Collaborations with South Africa, 1965–1976/7

Chief Leabua Jonathan’s term as prime minister of Lesotho (then Basutoland) began in 1965, the year before the nation’s independence from Britain. During his tenure, he remained one of the few regional leaders whose leadership until the end of his term in 1976/7 was marked by a pattern of inconsistency and contradiction towards apartheid South Africa. This article attempts to illuminate the nexus between his relationship with South Africa and the consequences thereof. Furthermore, it discusses how the mid-1960s and late 1970s became a crucial period for his leadership. His prime ministership and the “twists and turns” in his foreign policy vis-à-vis South Africa are discussed. Here the diplomatic role he played within the ambit of “small states theory” and his country’s foreign policy is investigated. The article shows how under Jonathan, state politics and regional cross-border struggles and collaborations led to disputes regarding the sovereignty of Lesotho.

Engineering under oppressive regimes: exploring the role of engineers during apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT Engineers’ contribution to society tends to be located in rational, technical constructs devoid of social and political interests. This paradigm presents a challenge to engineering educators tasked with undergraduate engineering curriculum content that links to society in some way. This article reports on a study undertaken by engineering educators who were motivated to understand the role of the social and political on the work of engineers. It explores how engineers conceived of their role during apartheid, an oppressive political regime for the majority of South Africans that officially ended in 1994. Interviews were conducted with engineers and academic staff to examine how participants’ navigated engineering practice and academic work during that period. The thematic findings allow for a conceptualisation of the apartheid ‘system’ they encountered, depicts how they saw their role in this system and explores the underlying reasons for why they behaved in the ways that they did.

The Carnage of Hopes: Appropriating Movements to Sustain Educational Apartheid

The article begins with South Africa as a false metaphor for racial progress, clarifying how the removal of apartheid policies ultimately justifies ongoing anti-Black structures that reinforce societal segregation. While educational sectors appropriate movements to decolonise racially disparate systems, minor educational reforms proliferate across the globe under the notion that tinkering towards a better world is transformative. By presenting three US-based examples of symbolic progress and retrenchment that model critical race theory’s notion of interest convergence, this article shows how each racialised improvement effort ultimately maintains apartheid conditions. Examples include: (a) The appropriation of the US-based Movement for Black Lives, including a focus on defunding the police instead of abolition and eradication of the school-to-prison pipeline; (b) an appropriation of efforts to increase educator diversity, including a focus on racial representation rather than the removal of structural barriers; and (c) the appropriation of US-based ethnic studies movements, including a dismissal of student demands and denial of the need for ethnic-studies prepared teachers of colour to teach ethnic studies. These systemic appropriations continue apartheid conditions, enabling schools to perpetuate intersectional racism as an intentional outcome, and offer stark warnings about countries aiming to decolonise educational systems while maintaining the infrastructures of anti-Blackness.

Julius Malema, from Masupatsela to the Formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF): Historical Narrative

Julius Malema was born in 1981 during the apartheid era in South Africa and began his political journey at an early age. As he rose in the political space, he became prominent, playing a critical role in reviving the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). He was exposed to formal politics from the age of nine when he joined Masupatsela (Trailblazers), the youth brigade of the African National Congress (ANC) at the time. He rose to positions of power through joining the ranks of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the ANCYL, and post his expulsion from the ANCYL, established his own organisation, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), of which he is the current president, also known as the commander in chief (CiC). The article interrogates Malema's role in South African politics, and how he contributed to growing factionalism in the ANC. First, the article discusses Malema's early stages of joining politics, and his gradual growth, until he became the president of the ANCYL in 2008. Second, the article discusses his role in the politics of the mother body, the ANC, that is, in policies. Third, the article scrutinise why Malema was expelled from the ANCYL and, last, the emergence of the EFF in 2013 and its radical stance in the politics of South Africa.