Explaining the apartheid city: 20 years of south african urban historiography

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 1995, Pages 19-38

  Maylam, Paul ^a  

^a RHODES UNIVERSITY   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

APARTHEID; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; HISTORICAL STUDIES; HOUSING POLICY; INFLUX CONTROL; RACIAL SEGREGATION; RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION; TWENTIETH CENTURY; URBAN HISTORY; URBAN RESEARCH;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0029544421     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057079508708431     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. D. Welsh, ‘The Growth of Towns’, in M. Wilson and L. Thompson (eds) The Oxford History of South Africa (Oxford, 1971), ii, pp. 172-244.
2. M. W. Swanson, ‘The Rise of Multiracial Durban: Urban History and Race Policy in South Africa, 1830-1930’ unpublished Ph.D thesis, Harvard University, 1964.
3. T. R. H. Davenport, ‘African townsmen? South African (Natives) Urban Areas Legislation Through the Years’, African Affairs, 68 (1969); ‘The triumph of Colonel Stallard’, South African Historical Journal, 2 (1970); The Beginnings of Urban Segregation in South Africa (Grahamstown, 1971).
4. See, for instance, P. Mayer, Townsmen or Tribesmen (Cape Town, 1963); B. A. Pauw, The Second Generation (Cape Town, 1963).
5. J. Rex, ‘The Compound, the Reserve and the Urban Location: the Essential Institutions of Southern African Labour Exploitation’, South African Labour Bulletin, 1, 4 (1974).
6. The theme of the first Wits History Workshop in 1978 was the urban history of the Rand. A number of workshops on the history of Cape Town have been held at University of Cape Town during the past 15 years. A workshop on the social history of Durban was held the University of Natal, Durban, in 1983. More recently, in 1992, the history of Port Elizabeth was the theme of a workshop held at the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University.
7. See, for instance, R. Bloch and P. Wilkinson, ‘Urban Control and Popular Struggle: A Survey of State Urban Policy 1920-1970’, Africa Perspective, 20 (1982); J. McCarthy, The Political Economy of Urban Land Use’, South African Geographical Journal, 65 (1983).
8. J. Robinson, ‘The Power of Apartheid: Territoriality and State Power in South African Cities - Port Elizabeth 1923-1972’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Cambridge University, 1990.
9. D. Hart, ‘Master Plans: The South African Government's Razing of Sophiatown, Cato Manor and District Six’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Syracuse University, 1990.
10. D. Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers: Dock Workers of Durban’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Warwick, 1979, pp. 74, 241. A similar approach is adopted in André Proctor, ‘Class Struggle, Segregation and the City: A History of Sophiatown, 1905-1940’, in B. Bozzoli (ed.), Labour, Townships, and Protest (Johannesburg, 1979).
11. Among the attempts at a historiographical overview one can include G. H. Pirie, ‘South African Urban history’, Urban History Yearbook (1985) and C. C. Saunders, Writing History: South Africa's Urban Past and Other Essays (Pretoria, 1992).
12. There are, though, edited collections of essays. See, for instance, Bozzoli (ed), Labour, Townships and Protest’, J. Laband and R. Haswell (eds), Pietermaritzburg 1838-1988 (Pietermaritzburg, 1988); P. Maylam and I. Edwards (eds), The People's City: A History of African Life in Durban (Pietermaritzburg, forthcoming). Historians at UCT are also working on a history of Cape Town.
13. C. van Onselen, New Babylon and New Nineveh: Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, 1982). Some of the observations made in this introductory section have also been made by C. Saunders, ‘District Six and Urban History in South Africa’, South African Historical Journal, 26 (1992), p. 199.
14. A. Lemon (ed.), Homes Apart: South Africa's Segregated Cities (Cape Town, 1991) - this is more a collection of case studies than a synthesis.
15. A. J. Christopher, ‘From Flint to Soweto: Reflections on the Colonial Origins of the Apartheid City’, Area, 15 (1983), p. 145.
16. A. J. Christopher, ‘Port Elizabeth’, in Lemon (ed.), Homes Apart, p. 43.
17. A.J. Christopher, ‘Apartheid Planning in South Africa: The Case of Port Elizabeth’, The Geographical Journal, 153, 2 (1987), p. 197.
18. Ibid. G. Baines, ‘The Origins of Urban Segregation: Local Government and the Residence of Africans in Port Elizabeth, c. 1835-1865’, South African Historical Journal, 22 (1990), pp. 74-75.
19. R. Fox, E. Nel and C. Reintges, ‘East London’, in Lemon (ed.), Homes Apart, p. 58; E. L. Nel, ‘Racial Segregation in East London, 1836-1948’, South African Geographical Journal, 73 (1991), pp. 60-61. See also K. Tankard, ‘The Development of East London Through Four Decades of Municipal Control 1873-1914’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Rhodes University, 1990, Ch. 10.
20. V. Bickford-Smith, ‘A “Special Tradition of Multi-racialism”? Segregation in Cape Town in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, in W. G. James and M. Simons (eds), The Angry Divide (Cape Town, 1989), p. 48; see also V. Bickford-Smith, ‘The Background to Apartheid in Cape Town: The Growth of Racism and Segregation from the Mineral Revolution to the 1930's’, unpublished Wits History Workshop paper, 1990, p. 6.
21. S. Parnell, ‘Sanitation, Segregation and the Natives (Urban Areas) Act: African Exclusion from Johannesburg's Malay Location, 1897-1925’, Journal of Historical Geography, 17, 3 (1991), p. 273.
22. Davenport, Beginnings of Urban Segregation, p. 5.
23. A. Mabin, ‘Labour, Capital, Class Struggle and the Origins of Residential Segregation in Kimberley’, Journal of Historical Geography, 12 (1986), p. 22; see also G. H. Pirie, ‘Kimberley’, in Lemon (ed.), Homes Apart.
24. M. W. Swanson, “The Asiatic Menace: Creating segregation in Durban, 1870-1900’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 16 (1983).
25. Fox et al. ‘East London’, p. 58; Nel, ‘Racial Segregation in East London’, p. 60.
26. Robinson, ‘Power of Apartheid’, p. 323.
27. Hart, ‘Master Plans’, pp. 267-268.
28. M. W. Swanson, ‘The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909’, Journal of African History, 18 (1977); M. W. Swanson, ‘ “The Durban System”: Roots of Urban Apartheid in Colonial Natal’, African Studies, 35 (1976).
29. See, for instance, Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers’, pp. 73-74.
30. Swanson, ‘The Sanitation Syndrome’, p. 392; C. C. Saunders, ‘Segregation in Cape Town: The Creation of Ndabeni’, Africa Seminar: Collected Papers (University of Cape Town), 1 (1978), p. 47.
31. Swanson, ‘The Sanitation Syndrome’, p. 400; Christopher, ‘Apartheid Planning’, p. 197.
32. Swanson, ‘Durban System’, p. 171; Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers’, pp. 102-11; P.la Hausse, ‘The Struggle for the City: Alcohol, the Ematsheni and Popular Culture in Durban, 1902-1936’, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Cape Town, 1984, p. 29; C. Dyer, ‘A Case of Money and Life: An Examination of the Relationship Between Health and the Political Economy in Durban at the Turn of the Century’, unpublished honours dissertation, University of Natal, Durban, 1986.
33. S. M. Parnell and G. H. Pine, ‘Johannesburg’, in Lemon (ed.), Homes Apart, p. 130.
34. C. C. Saunders, ‘From Ndabeni to Langa’, Studies in the History of Cape Town, 1 (1984), pp. 194-195.
35. Parnell, ‘Sanitation, Segregation’, p. 278.
36. See, for instance, R.M. Packard, White Plague, Black Labor (Los Angeles, 1989), pp. 52-53, 134-135, 194-195; Mabin, ‘Labour, Capital, Class Struggle’, pp. 20-21; H. Sapire, ‘African Settlement and Segregation in Brakpan, 1900-1927’, in P. Bonner, I. Hofmeyr, D. James and T. Lodge (eds), Holding Their Ground (Johannesburg, 1989), pp. 154-157.
37. Swanson, ‘The Sanitation Syndrome’, p. 409; see also, S. Parnell, ‘Creating Racial Privilege: The Origins of South African Public Health and Town Planning Legislation’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 19 (1993).
38. Parnell, ‘Creating Racial Privilege’, p. 387.
39. Swanson, ‘Asiatic Menace’, pp. 404-416.
40. Nel, ‘Racial Segregation in East London’, pp. 62-63.
41. Bickford-Smith, ‘Special Tradition of Multi-racialism?’ p. 57; B. Kinkead-Weekes, ‘Africans in Cape Town: State Policy and Popular Resistance, 1936-73’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992, pp. 13-20, 109, 219; Baines, ‘Origins of Urban Segregation’, pp. 64, 80; P. Maylam, ‘The Evolution of Urban Apartheid: Influx Control and Segregation in Durban, c. 1900-1951’, in W. Guest and J. M. Sellers (eds), Receded Tides of Empire (Pietermaritzburg, 1994), p. 269; Proctor, ‘History of Sophiatown’, p. 56.
42. Parnell, ‘Sanitation, Segregation’, pp. 272-273, 280.
43. Mabin, ‘Labour, Capital, Class Struggle’, pp. 5, 11-13, 21-22; Pirie, ‘Kimberley’, p. 120.
44. Parnell, ‘Creating Racial Privilege’, pp. 473-416.
45. J. Robinson, ‘The Politics of Urban Form: Differential Citizenship and Township Formation in Port Elizabeth 1925-1945’, unpublished paper, 1992, p. 4.
46. D. Scott, ‘The Destruction of Clairwood: A Case Study on the Transformation of Commercial Living Space’, in D. M. Smith (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond (Johannesburg, 1992), p. 94.
47. See, for instance, S. Parnell, ‘Racial Segregation in Johannesburg: The Slums Act, 1934-39’, South African Geographical Journal, 70, 2 (1988), p. 116; Parnell, ‘Sanitation, Segregation’, p. 278.
48. Christopher, ‘Apartheid Planning’, p. 199; Christopher, ‘Port Elizabèth’, pp. 45-46.
49. T. M. Wills, ‘Pietermaritzburg’, in Lemon (ed), Homes Apart, p. 92.
50. A. Mabin, ‘Origins of Segregatory Urban Planning in South Africa, c. 1900-1940’, Planning History, 13, 3 (1991), p. 9; Christopher, ‘Apartheid Planning’, p. 199; E. L. Nel, ‘The Making of Territorial Apartheid: The case of East London's Locations’, unpublished Wits History Workshop paper, 1990, p. 4.
51. Ibid.-, Mabin, ‘Origins of Segregatory Urban Planning’.
52. Parnell, ‘Slums Act’, pp. 112, 116-117, 123-124; S. Parnell, ‘Land Acquisition and the Changing Residential Face of Johannesburg, 1930-1955’, Area, 20.4. (1988), p. 311.
53. Mabin, ‘Origins of Segregatory Urban Planning’, pp. 10-12.
54. Parnell, ‘Land Acquisition’, p. 313.
55. Deon van Tonder, ‘ “First Win the War, Then Clear the Slums?” The Genesis of the Western Areas Removal Scheme, 1940-1949’, in P. Bonner, P. Delius and D. Posel (eds), Apartheid's Genesis 1935-1962 (Johannesburg, 1993); Hart, ‘Master Plans'; Saunders, ‘District Six’, p. 203.
56. B. Maharaj, ‘The “Spatial Impress” of the Central and Local States: the Group Areas Act in Durban’, in Smith (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond, pp. 75-76.
57. A. Mabin, ‘Comprehensive Segregation: The Origins of the Group Areas Act and its Planning Apparatuses’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 18 (1992), p. 147.
58. See J. Lazar, ‘Conformity and Conflict: Afrikaner nationalist politics in South Africa 1948-1961’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Oxford University, 1987; D. Posel, The Making of Apartheid 1948-61: Conflict and Compromise (Oxford, 1991).
59. Mabin, ‘Comprehensive Segregation’, pp. 406, 419-420, 425-426. See also U. Mesthrie, ‘Tinkering and Tampering: A Decade of the Group Areas Act (1950-1960)’, South African Historical Journal, 28 (1993).
60. See W. Worger, South African's City of Diamonds (New Haven, 1987); R. V. Turrell, Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1890-1971 (Cambridge, 1987); S. Moroney, ‘The Development of the Compound as a Mechanism of Worker Control 1900-1912’, South African Labour Bulletin, 4 (1978).
61. Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers’, p. 33.
62. M. Ramphele, A Bed Called Home (Cape Town, 1993); S. Jones, Assaulting Childhood (Johannesburg, 1993).
63. M. Wilson and A. Mafeje, Langa (Cape Town, 1963), pp. 6-7.
64. A. L. Torr, ‘The Social History of an Urban African Community: Lamont, c. 1930-1960’, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1985, p. 72; A. L. Torr, ‘Providing for the “Better-Class Native”: The Creation of Lamontville, 1923-1933’, South African Geographical Journal, 69 (1987), p. 35.
65. Robinson, ‘Power of Apartheid’, p. 219.
66. S. M. Parnell, ‘The Ideology of African Home-ownership: The Establishment of Dube, Soweto, 1946-1955’, unpublished Wits History Workshop paper, 1990.
67. G. H. Price, ‘Ethno-linguistic Zoning in South African Black Townships’, Area, 16.4 (1984), pp. 295-296.
68. Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers’, pp. 140-141; Swanson, ‘Durban System’, pp. 174-175.
69. K. Eales, ‘Patriarchs, Passes and Privilege: Johannesburg's African Middle Classes and the Question of Night Passes for African Women, 1920-1931’, in Bonner et al. (eds), Holding Their Ground, pp. 114-115.
70. Robinson, ‘Power of Apartheid’, pp. 133-141.
71. G. Baines, ‘The Contradictions of Community Politics: The African Petty Bourgeoisie and the New Brighton Advisory Board, c. 1937-1952’ unpublished workshop paper, 1992, p. 4.
72. H. Sapire, ‘Apartheid's “Testing Ground”: Urban “Native Policy” and African Politics in Brakpan, South Africa, 1943-1948’, Journal of African History, 35 (1994), pp. 102-107, 113-116.
73. Saunders, ‘From Ndabeni to Langa’, p. 219.
74. Robinson, ‘The Politics of Urban Form’, p. 13.
75. La Hausse, ‘The Struggle for the City’, pp. 253-270.
76. See particularly C. van Onselen, ‘Randlords and Rotgut, 1886-1903’, in New Babylon-, Crush and Ambler (eds), Liquor and Labour in Southern Africa (Athens, Ohio, 1992); La Hausse, ‘The Struggle for the City’.
77. J. Baker, ‘Prohibition and Illicit Liquor on the Witwatersrand, 1902-1932’ in Crush and Ambler (eds), Liquor and Labour, pp. 141-145.
78. See, for instance, P. la Hausse, ‘Drink and Cultural Innovation in Durban: The Origins of the Beerhall in South Africa, 1902-1916’, in Crush and Ambler (eds), Liquor and Labour, pp. 101-102.
79. E. Koch, ‘The Destruction of Marabi Culture - Urban Segregation in Johannesburg, 1923-1938’, unpublished Wits History Workshop paper, 1984, pp. 192-193.
80. M. Musemwa, ‘Aspects of the Social and Political History of Langa Township, Cape Town, 1927-1948’, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993, pp. 70-76.
81. Nel, ‘Racial Segregation in East London’, p. 64.
82. Musemwa, ‘Langa Township’, pp. 58-86.
83. Baines, ‘The Contradictions of Community Polities’, p. 6.
84. See, for instance, Torr, ‘Lamont, c. 1930-1960’, pp. 128-131; Baines, ‘Origins of Urban Segregation’, p. 6.
85. H. Sapire, ‘The Stay-away of the Brakpan Location, 1944’ in B. Bozzoli (éd.), Class, Community and Conflict (Johannesburg, 1987), pp. 337-388; T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg, 1983), p. 78; Baines, ‘The Contradictions of Community Polities’, p. 19; Musemwa, ‘Langa Township’, pp. 172-174.
86. D. Hindson, Pass Controls and the Urban African Proletariat (Johannesburg, 1987); Posel, Making of Apartheid.
87. Hindson, Pass Controls, pp. 97-98.
88. Posel, Making of Apartheid, pp. 75-76, 129-144.
89. Baines, ‘The Contradictions of Community Polities’, p. 15.
90. Maylam, ‘The Evolution of Urban Apartheid’, pp. 265, 269.
91. Kinkead-Weekes, ‘Africans in Cape Town’, pp. 563-566.
92. See Hindson, Pass Controls, pp. 21-24.
93. Hemson, ‘Class Consciousness and Migrant Workers’, pp. 24-26.
94. See, for instance; A. Stadler, ‘Birds in the Cornfield: Squatter Movements in Johannesburg, 1944-1947’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 6 (1979), pp. 116-117; Koch, ‘Marabi Culture’, pp. 187-188, 193;Sapire, ‘African Settlement and Segregation in Brakpan’, pp. 162-168; Robinson, ‘Politics of Urban Form’, p. 7; P. Maylam, ‘Municipal Fraud: The Operation of Durban's Native Revenue Account, 1908-1953’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, 11 (1988).
95. See G. H. Pirie, ‘African Township Railways and the South African State, 1902-1963’, Journal of Historical Geography, 13 (1987).
96. S. B. Greenberg, ‘The State in Contemporary South Africa: The Contradictions of Control’, unpublished paper, 1984, p. 25; P. Maylam, ‘The Rise and Decline of Urban Apartheid in South AfricaAfrican Affairs, 89 (1990), p. 72; Hindson, Pass Controls, p. 99.
97. Posel, Making of Apartheid, p. 263.
98. See S. Bekker and R. Humphries, From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa, 1971-1983 (Pietermaritzburg, 1985).
99. Koch, ‘Marabi Culture’, pp. 196-197.
100. See Maylam, ‘Municipal Fraud’.
101. E. L. Nel, ‘The Making of Territorial Apartheid: The Case of East London's Locations’, unpublished Wits History Workshop paper, 1990, pp. 9-11.
102. Maylam, ‘The Evolution of Urban Apartheid’, pp. 272-273.
103. See Posel, Making of Apartheid, pp. 50-60.