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‘Employment intensive growth’ has become a centrepiece of government policy and implies that at any given level of growth, the economy needs to become more labour absorbing. State intervention (or the lack of it) is examined in two areas that are important for employment – agriculture and manufacturing. In the case of agriculture, it is argued that declining and ineffective state support has accelerated the rationalisation of commercial agriculture and failed to regenerate agriculture in the former Bantustans. With regard to the manufacturing sector, we argue that since 1994 the government has set a multiplicity of objectives but, de facto, there has been a surprising level of continuity in the overly generous assistance for heavy, capital-intensive industry. This paper argues that the negative impact of previous ‘distortions’ requires much more than a levelling of the playing field via market-based reforms. Pro-employment policies have to be placed at the centre of the policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper attempts to contextualise and explain an extraordinary incident of public violence which occurred in Qwaqwa in the mid-1980s and which involved a collective assault on working women by unemployed men in the bantustan town of Phuthaditjhaba. To explain this event, the paper explores the changing material context and cultural constructions of households in this bantustan over time. The central argument developed below is that, while the actions of the unemployed men were certainly a direct response to their deteriorating employment prospects, the violence itself cannot be explained without appreciating, firstly, the differential impact of changing material conditions on the culturally specific understandings of gender relations in urban and closer settlement households and, secondly, the manner in which these changes challenged existing notions of masculinity in Qwaqwa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is, in part, an overview of the research done in Qwaqwa in the 1980s by members of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, and it seeks to reflect some of the concerns that characterised that body of work - in particular the concern to place key anthropological issues, such as the internal organisation of domestic groups and the relationships between domestic groups, in the context of historical changes in Qwaqwa in the 1970s and 1980s. In this respect the paper serves as an introduction that locates the papers by two of my co-researchers that follow. It also, however, seeks to examine the relationship between processes of social and material differentiation amongst working-class households in Qwaqwa's closer settlements in these two decades, on the one hand, and the different patterns of migration from Qwaqwa in the period after the lifting of influx control restrictions in 1986, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cynical objectives and coercive actions of the apartheid state in engineering forced removals to the Bantustans have been well documented. These ‘dumping grounds’ were notorious examples of the poverty and human suffering produced in the name of ‘separate development’. Processes of mass resettlement in the Bantustans had multiple meanings, far-reaching effects and uneven political dynamics and outcomes. This paper traces local dynamics of power and clientelism in two resettlement townships in the northern Ciskei, as the apartheid government set about establishing indirect rule under this self-governing Bantustan. It explores the role of resettlement in extending the reach and the influence of the state by tracing the history of local administration and institutions of indirect rule, their everyday operations and political effects. The relations of patronage constructed under the ‘white chiefs’ of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development (BAD), which had starkly gendered dimensions and consequences, formed the critical basis upon which new Tribal Authorities were superimposed, becoming subject to new political imperatives. One of the outcomes of mass resettlement was to foster, through clientelism, new political constituencies for the Ciskei. Through the provision of housing, particularly to former farm-dwellers, the apartheid authorities were able to encourage, albeit temporarily, a limited compliance in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1970s and 1980s bore witness both to a consolidation of the controversial bantustan system in South Africa – accompanied with the notorious neglect of key services such as health care in these areas by the apartheid state – and the revival and development of a radical global vision of primary health care encompassed by the World Health Organisation's mandate of ‘health for all’. This paper describes the influence of these diverse forces on mission hospitals operating in the ‘homeland’ of KwaZulu, which were eventually taken over by the KwaZulu government. While existing literature about the bantustans has tended to focus on the enormous financial constraints and the inadequacy of service provision, I argue that the period of ‘homeland’ rule in fact provided a certain degree of autonomy from the prescriptions of the central state, along with a relative increase of funds which, though inadequate, nonetheless created an opportunity for these hospitals to develop and implement a progressive model of community-based care. By using this example, I do not intend to challenge the many indisputable critiques of ‘homeland’ rule, but rather to suggest that some of the nuances of its diverse operations may have been overlooked as a result of the polemical approach of earlier scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the Broadcasting Amendment Act of 1960, the South African government began to regulate forms of entertainment intended for public and private consumption. Radio broadcasts were controlled and musical recordings were regulated under this and subsequent legislation, with over 100 albums being banned outright and many more individual songs classified as ‘undesirable’. This legislation was applicable in the ‘homelands’, and musical productions – especially for SABC Radio Bantu – were censored. However, enforcing censorship laws in terms of live performances in the ‘homelands’ proved more problematic. Whilst the evidence from Venda lends some support to the established, romantic notion that musicians – and their music – were deeply embedded in the struggle against apartheid, there is equal evidence to suggest that many musicians at the time had little interest in revolutionary activity. Whilst self-censorship was prevalent on many levels, the motivation for this was not clear-cut. Christian convictions that those in power had been put there by God, or the liberating conviction that musicians were ‘simply entertainers’ and not politicians, prompted musicians to abide by censorship laws. Even for those who were politically aware, challenging the system was generally perceived to be not worth the risk. In the former ‘homeland’ of Venda, important exceptions to this stem from one family – the Mukwevho of Tshitomboni – whose most famous son, Colbert, made himself a target of the state by adopting reggae as his genre of choice. By charting Colbert's transition as a musician from the late 1970s to the present day, this paper demonstrates that musicians in the former ‘homeland’ of Venda had more freedom to record and perform ‘undesirable’ songs than has previously been accepted. However it does not follow that they all did so. The story of the Mukwevho family shows how different artists reacted in diverse ways to the political situation in which they found themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Poverty in South Africa in general has not declined since 1994, and it is particularly severe in the former Bantustans. This paper discusses two important issues related to rural poverty in the Eastern Cape Province. It questions the applicability of the notion of legacy to explain recent trends in rural poverty and constructs an argument that explains these trends in relation to post-1994 segregationism. It argues that the notion of legacy is not useful in explaining why rural poverty remains entrenched, long after 1994. Rural poverty today cannot be explained as something left behind after the end of apartheid, because its causes and drivers are the same now in 2012 as they were in 1970. The continuity between the pre- and post-1994 periods is best described by exploring and understanding post-1994 policy decisions and power configurations as an expression of contemporary segregationism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The'black film industry' was established in 1 South Africa in the early 1970s following the introduction of a differential state subsidy for film production in African languages. This paper is a critical examination of some of the productions of this B-Scheme film subsidy. The'black films' analysed here are identified as those that fall in the 'back to the homeland' category. These films represent an urban/rural binary that reflects the apartheid government's preoccupation with spatial separateness, most notoriously in the policy of separate development in ethnic homelands or bantustans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic studies on Southern Africa have recorded intense levels of marital instability and domestic disorganisation. Yet little attention has been focused on new forms of households that have emerged in this context. With reference to case material on the town of Phuthaditjhaba in Qwaqwa, this paper suggests that co-operative relations between siblings have become a central principle underlying household formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses family crisis in Bantustan, South Africa. According to the author, there is rising concern about worsening family relations, violent youths and impoverished children. Based on a study in Great Britain, rising unemployment is linked to the increasing number of crimes being committed. He asserts that women are being blamed for insufficiencies in families.

Our article concerns the decline in arable production in the former homelands of South Africa – part of a longer-term trend that has probably accelerated since the mid 1990s. Our material is taken largely from interviews in Mbotyi village on the Eastern Cape coast, where rainfall is high. Even here, arable fields have largely been left fallow in recent years. Our interviews confirm that people in Mbotyi believe that there has been a marked and sharp decline in cultivation. While the general phenomenon that we are exploring is quite widely accepted in academic literature, explanations are less certain and it is difficult to rank the causes. Our aim is to contribute to this debate by considering especially people’s own perceptions. An investigation on a micro-scale allows for a multi-faceted analysis of the range of issues that confront cultivation in Mbotyi – a complex mix of disincentives that includes environmental problems, cost and risk, declining patriarchy and changing attitudes to work. We believe that it is important to engage with popular perspectives and understandings of these issues. Our analysis places at its centre a shortage of labour for agricultural purposes, despite high unemployment in the village. We conclude by suggesting some of the implications of this analysis for land reform and the priorities for agricultural policy in the former homelands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses traditional leadership laws that entrench the ‘tribal’ boundaries which make up the former homelands, and recent policies that foreclose landownership for the majority of rural people. I argue that these laws and policies reinforce, rather than address, the legacy of the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts. Distorted constructs of unilateral chiefly power are mobilised in attempts to create a separate legal zone of customary authority that undermines the citizenship rights of those living within the boundaries of the former bantustans. The article points to tensions between the new policies and the Constitution's promise of land rights to remedy past discrimination, discussing restitution as a case in point. The example of platinum mining on communal land in North West Province is used to illustrate the significant resources at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article I explore how ordinary people gained access and lost rights to land over the course of the twentieth century in Letaba (present-day Mopani) District, Limpopo Province. I provide a periodised account of this process, focusing on homesteads and individuals rather than on ‘communities’. I show that rights to land were less static, and personal histories of access to and loss of land less linear than is often imagined in popular narratives and official discourse. The 1913 Natives Land Act was one part of a process that made it increasingly difficult for ordinary people to access land independently, whether as owners or as tenants, and to be mobile and respond easily to new opportunities. I continue this narrative into the post-apartheid era, and consider how this particular historical context, as well as pervasive imaginings of the centrality of ‘community’ and ‘tribe’ in rural people's historic relationships with land, have influenced the way the post-apartheid land restitution programme has been implemented. I argue that people's capacity to choose where and how to access land continues to be constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Both quitrent tenure and the village model of settlement in the former Ciskei region of the Eastern Cape have been through a sequence of changes since their introduction and gradual entrenchment following the conquest of local African chiefdoms during the nineteenth century. Initially planned around mission stations west of the Kei River, in what became the Ciskei, quitrent was extended to some districts in the Transkei as well. Under the Glen Grey Act (1894), nuclear families were provided with indivisible individual plots, heritable only by the oldest male son. Over time, complex local politics and social dynamics evolved around this landholding system. This article examines developments over the years, especially following the 1936 Native Land and Trust Act, which brought the reserve areas of the Cape Province in line with those in other provinces. By the mid twentieth century most quitrent villages of the Ciskei were re-planned under countrywide ‘betterment’ planning, mainly because they were deemed to be heavily congested, ecologically vulnerable and difficult to administer. Their rehabilitation and re-planning created new residential plots, enabling the National Party government to foster a supposedly more egalitarian system by granting rights to hitherto landless families. The processes paralleled intense villagisation and the inception of ‘tribal authorities’ in the Ciskei, as it was brought under the homeland system in the apartheid years. How do we understand these wide-ranging historical processes that have shaped relationships to land in these villages? How have potential solutions to unequal land rights been articulated and negotiated at local level? What challenges have confronted post-1994 land reform policy in resolving uneven access to land within these settlements? These are the questions that this article explores. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The historiography of South Africa's apartheid-era Bantustans has commonly focused on their repressive role. New approaches to this history have suggested that some undertook educational initiatives that broke with the dominant apartheid model. Bophutatswana's Primary Education Upgrading Programme (PEUP) was such an initiative. This article focuses on the actors, origins, aims and practices of the programme and assessments by contemporaries and its strengths and weaknesses. Using documentary evidence on the project, interviews with its initiators and participants in the programme, as well as assessments by contemporaries at the time, it argues that the project involved a contradictory alliance of conservative Bantustan leaders and Christian liberals. The project drew on progressivist, child-centred ideas borrowed from Europe and the United Kingdom but these were encased within the broader ethnic apartheid project and served a legitimatory purpose. PEUP included both innovative aspects within the context of Bantu Education but also continuities with its broader ethnic purposes. Miserly budgets, Bantustan politics, and limitations specific to progressivism ultimately undermined the success of the PEUP. Nonetheless, the project survived in memories of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the aspirations and achievements of 10 Bantustan departments of health in trying to develop integrated district healthcare for their African populations from the 1970s to 1990s. These aimed to prioritise preventive and promotive rather than curative medicine, and to decentralise healthcare in an expanding network of clinics. The departments were both helped and hindered in their innovative work by their relationship with South Africa which, whilst aiding them with resources, at the same time caused growing problems because of a migrant labour system in which many people worked in South Africa but were forced to reside in the Bantustans. In addition the article suggests that, within a wider South African context, Bantustan healthcare provided a hidden link between the progressive but abortive proposals for a national health service proposed in the Gluckman Report (1944) and attempts by the democratic government half a century later to provide a district system of primary healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interim government during which the apartheid era homeland of Bophuthatswana in South Africa transitioned into becoming part of the North West Province, South Africa in 1994. Particular focus is given to the role of the Bophuthatswana government's temporary Office of Joint Administrators (OJA), which relies heavily upon the author's experience as a Joint Administrator (JA) in 1994. An overview of the recommendations which the JAs gave to the incoming North West Provincial Government (NWPG), including in regard to civil service workers, is provided. An overview of role that South African political parties played in the Bophuthatswana's interim government, including the African National Congress (ANC), is also provided.

The article discusses the history of South African rural areas under the country's apartheid homeland (bantustan) system. An overview of the literature on the political resistance and popular politics in the homelands is provided. The relationship between communal land tenure and agricultural productivity is discussed. The South African government's subsidizing of bantustans, including welfare payments and investments in education, is also discussed. An overview of the politics within South African homelands is also provided.

The press has, from time to time, reported on the occurrence of episodes of witchcraft-related violence in the northeast of South Africa. Social analysts often attribute witchcraft beliefs and accusations to the persistence of ‘traditional’ beliefs in the contemporary world. This article challenges such interpretations and asks whether it is possible to see witchcraft beliefs and accusations as a product of people's exposure to the South African system of Native Reserves and bantustans. Drawing on multi-temporal fieldwork in Bushbuckridge, a district of the South African lowveld, I endeavour to show how witchcraft beliefs have been structured by the historical processes of population relocation, the implementation of agricultural betterment schemes, labour migration, and by ideologies of cultural difference, that were central to the bantustan system. At the local level, I suggest that accusations have been fuelled by experiences of social confinement in ‘closed’ communities, relative deprivation and of competition for scarce resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers the social hinterland of leading members of the ANC underground who, raised in the Transkei, came of age in the late 1970s. Earlier in the twentieth century, South Africa's Native Reserves were wellsprings of nationalist leadership. Prominent ANC leaders shared a similar regionally-focused set of familial, educational and professional connections that vaulted them to the centre of the nationalist movement. These regional networks remained important feeders for the ANC into the later apartheid era. Chris Hani recruited his leading cadres from a small pool of young men educated in Transkei's élite schools and earmarked for senior posts in the Bantustan bureaucracy. This social proximity of élite ANC cadres and leading Bantustan functionaries made the boundaries between opposition and collaboration permeable. While the ANC's attempted alliance with KwaZulu chief minister Buthelezi failed, hardening the distinction between militant nationalism and apartheid-corrupted ethnicity, its relationship with the Transkei's Bantu Holomisa is a counter-example of the blurring of these political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social pension was introduced in South Africa in 1928, but eligibility was extended to African South Africans in 1944 and to African Namibians only in 1973. Botswana introduced its own social pension scheme in 1996, and Lesotho followed as recently as 2004. Initially conceived as a welfarist programme to provide social assistance to 'poor whites', South Africa's social pension was later exploited for a complex combination of political objectives, including the control of African urbanisation and maintenance of rural labour reserves (Bantustans) in South Africa, and 'winning hearts and minds' during South Africa's occupation of Namibia. Since the accession to power of the ANC and SWAPO governments in the early 1990s, equity concerns and antipoverty objectives have dominated. Racially discriminatory payment levels were declared unconstitutional and have been eradicated in both countries. While concerns have been raised about the fiscal sustainability of the social pension, its future as a social welfare programme in southern Africa and elsewhere depends mainly on political commitment from governments and taxpayers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African homelands were central to the apartheid ideology of racial segregation and separate development and as a result became the location for large segments of the African population. Apartheid-era theorizations of the homelands tended to emphasize their importance to the state, with less attention directed to the divergent and unique social formations that often existed within them. Recent geographical research has been intent on evaluating the spatial imprint of these geographies for resident populations, as well as the varied class, gendered, and institutional formations that accompanied the democratic transition. Using a case study from the former KaNgwane homeland, this article examines the diverse ways in which rural households access environmental and economic resources to produce livelihoods. It is argued that a focus on community variation is needed to interrogate the differential encounters of these places with the local politics and development processes that are emerging in the new South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]