In the past decade, hundreds of thousands of women from poorer countries have braved treacherous journeys to richer countries to work as poorly paid domestic workers. In From servants to workers, Shireen Ally asks whether the low wages and poor working conditions so characteristic of migrant domestic work can truly be resolved by means of the extension of citizenship rights. Following South Africa's 'miraculous' transition to democracy, more than a million poor black women who had endured a despotic organization of paid domestic work under apartheid became the beneficiaries of one of the world's most impressive and extensive efforts to formalize and modernise paid domestic work through state regulation. Ally explores the political implications of paid domestic work as an intimate form of labour. From Servants to workers integrates sociological insights with the often-heartbreaking life histories of female domestic workers in South Africa and provides rich detail of the streets, homes, and churches of Johannesburg where these women work, live, and socialise.

The bantustans – or ‘homelands’ – were created by South Africa’s apartheid regime as ethnically-defined territories for Africans. Granted self-governing and ‘independent’ status by Pretoria, they aimed to deflect the demands for full political representation by black South Africans and were shunned by the anti-apartheid movement. In 1972, Steve Biko wrote that ‘politically, the bantustans are the greatest single fraud ever invented by white politicians’. With the end of apartheid and the first democratic elections of 1994, the bantustans formally ceased to exist, but their legacies remain inscribed in South Africa’s contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic landscape. While the older literature on the bantustans has tended to focus on their repressive role and political illegitimacy, this edited volume offers new approaches to the histories and afterlives of the former bantustans in South Africa by a new generation of scholars. This book was originally published as various special issues of the South African Historical Journal.

Table of Contents

Preface: ‘Let’s Talk About Bantustans’ Shireen Ally and Arianna Lissoni

Introduction – Beyond ‘Homelands’: Some Ideas about the History of African Rural Areas in South Africa William Beinart

1. ‘The Bandwagon of Golden Opportunities’? Healthcare in South Africa’s Bantustan Periphery Anne Digby

2. The Renewal of Community Health under the KwaZulu ‘Homeland’ Government Elizabeth Hull

3. Bantustan Education History: The ‘Progressivism’ of Bophutatswana’s Primary Education Upgrade Programme (PEUP), 1979-1988 Linda Chisholm

4. Witchcraft and the South African Bantustans: Evidence from Bushbuckridge Isak Niehaus

5. Ethnic Separatism or Cultural Preservation? Ndebele Radio under Apartheid, 1983-1994 Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi

6. Rural Reggae: The Politics of Performance in the Former ‘Homeland’ of Venda Fraser G. McNeill

7. Bophuthatswana and the North-West Province: From Pan-Tswanaism to Mineral-Based Ethnic Assertiveness Andrew Manson and Bernard Mbenga

8. ‘If you are hungry, and a man promises you mealies, will you not follow him?’ South African Swazi Ethnic Nationalism, 1931-1986 Shireen Ally

9. South Africa’s Bantustans and the Dynamics of ‘Decolonisation’: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands Laura Evans

Memoirs

10. Autobiography of an Underground Political Activist Vha-Musanda Vho-Shandukani Mudzunga (Manapule)

11. KaNgwane: A Life in and Beyond Mabhuza Simeon Ginindza

12. Bophuthatswana and the North-West Province: The Role of the Joint Administrators Tebogo Job Mokgoro

The bantustans - or 'homelands' - were created by South Africa's apartheid regime as ethnically-defined territories for Africans. Granted self-governing and 'independent' status by Pretoria, they aimed to deflect the demands for full political representation by black South Africans and were shunned by the anti-apartheid movement. In 1972, Steve Biko wrote that 'politically, the bantustans are the greatest single fraud ever invented by white politicians'. With the end of apartheid and the first democratic elections of 1994, the bantustans formally ceased to exist, but their legacies remain inscribed in South Africa's contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic landscape. While the older literature on the bantustans has tended to focus on their repressive role and political illegitimacy, this edited volume offers new approaches to the histories and afterlives of the former bantustans in South Africa by a new generation of scholars. This book was originally published as various special issues of the South African Historical Journal.