Segregated Landscapes in South Africa, 1800–1994

This chapter investigates the origins of the segregation in South Africa and analyzes how a white minority established political and economic hegemony over the country’s black majority. It recounts the establishment of the apartheid government in 1948, which intensified the processes of exclusion and segregation under colonialism and white rule. It also looks at historical work that highlights important facets of the history of land segregation and keeps sight of the power dynamics and violence that accompanied centuries of segregation in South Africa. This chapter looks at several streams of scholarship around land segregation, including the intersection of gender and land. It examines debates on South Africa’s highly segregated land system and massive landownership inequalities.

Exploring the Challenges of Ethnic Fluidity within the Writings of Ronnie Govender

"This paper explores how the fiction writer and playwright, Ronnie Govender, narrates Asian diasporic identity in the context of South African society. I shall depart from the premise that this Indian presence is ambiguous inasmuch as its subjectivity must negotiate the ontological categories of both whiteness and blackness. With this triangulated relationship in mind, I shall proceed to evidence how Govender delivers a layered reading of ethnic fluidity and how this was historically curtailed by a white minority who, systematically, dynamited conviviality as a means to shore up its own privilege. The principal texts employed in this study shall be: The Lahnee’s Pleasure, At The Edge and Other Cato Manor Stories, and Black Chin White Chin: The Song of the Atman."

Introduction

Shortly before the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela, on 26 June, 1990, delivered an address before the US Congress in Washington, DC in which he discussed the aspirations of black South Africans. Seeking American support in ending white minority rule, he spoke of his movement’s struggle to ‘ensure that the rights of every individual’, regardless of ‘race, colour, creed or sex’, were protected under a new democratic constitution and bill of rights. ‘To deny people their human rights’, he asserted, ‘is to challenge their very humanity.’...

South Africa: Restitution, equality and justice

The article is a review of the book Another Country. Everyday Social Restitution by Charlene Schwartz (Cape Town; 2016). The author believes that the history of South Africa is complex and contradictory, and the problem of equality, justice and regulation of race relations is actual under overcoming the apartheid - when passions ran high, and black South Africans want to put an end to the shameful past, when their human dignity was violated, their children did not have a decent future, because they could not get education and profession, and the cherished dream of the black child was to become white. Schwartz shows that the life of the black majority has improved in both financial and educational terms, and all changes were enshrined in law; however, in the psychological perspective, there is still a feeling of inferiority, which determines not only pain and shame, but also anger and aggression, especially among young people, and leads to calls for violence against the white minority. On the other hand, the white minority is stressed due to the transition from the privileged position to the outcasts, is often removed from prestigious jobs and elite residential areas, and the very survival of the white population often demands self-isolation. Several generations of Afrikaners consider South Africa their homeland and do not want to leave it despite all threats. Thus, the question is how to reconcile two opposing groups and ensure racial peace. This difficult situation is studied by Schwartz with trainings at the University of Cape Town - together with her students she searches for a decision urgently needed for survival and a civilized society.

Raewyn Connell and the Making of Masculinity Studies in South Africa

The study of masculinity in South Africa scarcely existed in 1990. A minor interest in gender was focused on women and inequality. South Africa was emerging from four decades of apartheid. It was into this environment that Raewyn Connell’s ideas were introduced, adopted and adapted. Raewyn herself made a number of trips to South Africa in the 1990s and 2000s and found a ready reception for her theories about masculinity. South Africa was in transition feeling its way from white minority rule and authoritarianism toward democracy and a commitment to ending poverty, inequality, racism, and the oppression of women. In this article, I describe how Raewyn’s idea energized scholarship, created a new research interest in men and masculinity, and contributed to gender activism.

The ‘Tyranny of Numbers’

Affirmative action is the most contested policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with most Indians getting the sense that they are the ‘twice-discriminated’, first by the white minority government and now by an African majority government. This chapter examines the different dimensions of the debate, and especially who will be hardest hit amongst Indians, and why this policy requires some re-jigging.

Workshop Negative: Political Theatre in Zimbabwe in the 1980s

In 1980 the Republic of Zimbabwe became recognized internationally as an independent state. This independence marked a shift from white minority rule to black majority rule in the form of ZANU–PF in a transition in government that was fraught with brutal violence, tense negotiations and tremendous hope for the democratic state that would emerge. This article begins with a brief overview of key political-theatre and public-arts funding practices that emerged in the newly independent Zimbabwe in the 1980s and continues with an examination of an influential political play from the era by Cont Mhlange entitled Workshop Negative (1986). This article's analysis of Workshop Negative considers how the economic pressures explored in the play mirror the precarious working conditions that arts-funding models placed on political-theatre practitioners in Zimbabwe at the time.