South African Politics and Society

Southern Africa/South America: The physical framework for regional development

by Mike Muller

Affirmative action in Malaysia-Costs and benefits

by Mike Muller

Bafana, Bafana Spitzensport soll die Identifikation mit dem neuen Südafrika fördern Nationenbildung durch Spitzensport in Südafrika

by John Nauright

Abridged material from my larger work on South African sport and national identity published in 1998 for a German speaking audience.

Toward a Political Sociology of Conjugal-Recognition Regimes: Gendered Multiculturalism in South African Marriage Law

by Michael Yarbrough

While conjugal-recognition policies are often a subject of political debate, scholarly attempts to explain such... more While conjugal-recognition policies are often a subject of political debate, scholarly attempts to explain such policies are relatively rare and typically focused on discrete policies—same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, etc.—with comparatively little investigation of potential connections among policies. This article begins to develop a more holistic approach focused on explaining and understanding what I call conjugal-recognition regimes. Adapting the concept from the existing literature on welfare regimes, I argue that conjugal-recognition regimes exist when an identifiable pattern or principle organizes an institution’s conjugal-recognition policy and thereby shapes social relations at multiple levels, from the individuals in conjugal relationships to the multiple institutions (state, religious, and so on) that confer official conjugal recognition. I argue that these organizing patterns or principles emerge out of historically specific, institutionally situated, and discursively constructed political debates on specific conjugal issues and go on to shape subsequent conjugal-policy controversies. I demonstrate these ideas through an extended analysis of post-apartheid South African marriage law, which has recently incorporated numerous previously excluded conjugal formations but has also assigned each new form to its own statutory and administrative structure or, as I call it, “silo.” I argue that these silos entrench a principle of “gendered multiculturalism” that officially defines cultures in terms of their supposedly characteristic gender relations. This principle increasingly tends to favor religious and cultural elites’ understandings of their respective traditions.

Research and the Development Bank of Southern Africa

by Mike Muller

"Precarious Liberation: A Rejoinder

by Franco Barchiesi

Published in "South African Review of Sociology" 43 (1): 98-105.

Response to Eddie Webster and Ben Scully on Franco Barchiesi, "Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State and... more Response to Eddie Webster and Ben Scully on Franco Barchiesi, "Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State and Contested Social Citizenship in Postapartheid South Africa" (SUNY Press 2011).

Local' Writing, 'Global' Reading, and the Demands of the 'Canon': the Case of Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country

by Andrew van der Vlies

South African Historical Journal 55 (2006): 20-32

Reading Banned Books

by Andrew van der Vlies

Wasafiri 22.3 (November 2007): 55-61. [DOI: 10.1080/02690050701565810]

Annexing the Global, Globalizing the Local

by Andrew van der Vlies

With Patrick Denman Flanery. Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa 13.1 (2008): 3-17. [DOI: 10.1080/18125440802085258]

On the Ambiguities of Narrative and of History: Writing (about) the Past in Recent South African Literary Criticism

by Andrew van der Vlies

Review essay. Journal of Southern African Studies 34.4 (December 2008): 949-61. [DOI 10.1080/03057070802456870]

An Interview with Jeremy Cronin

by Andrew van der Vlies

Contemporary Literature 49.4 (Winter 2008): 514–39. [DOI: 10.1353/cli.0.0039]

‘Writing the Now’.

by Andrew van der Vlies

Art South Africa 9.1 (Spring 2010): 30, 32.

‘Citizen of the World: Nadine Gordimer’s essays and stories.’ Review of Nadine Gordimer, Life Times: Stories, 1952-2007 and Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954-2008.

by Andrew van der Vlies

Times Literary Supplement, 3 December 2010: 23-24.

Dockside Prostitution in South African Ports

by Henry Trotter

History Compass 6/3 (2008): 673-690

Prostitution has been a staple of dockside social life for centuries. In South Africa, it dates from the Dutch East... more Prostitution has been a staple of dockside social life for centuries. In South Africa, it dates from the Dutch East India Company's establishment of a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope. But unlike other prostitution sectors—streets, brothels, agencies—the women of the dockside sex trade in Cape Town and Durban participate in a global traffic of ideas, diseases, DNA, contraband, and currency through their ceaseless interactions with foreign sailors. They exploit their knowledge of the seamen's languages and cultures so as to more effectively solicit their marks in a competitive and cosmopolitan environment.

Social historians provide passing glimpses of dockside prostitution in their consideration of larger historical themes—Company rule, slavery, British colonial governance, the Mineral Revolution, the Anglo-Boer War, and apartheid—but they have yet to treat it as a distinct analytical category through which to view the past. Yet popular intellectual trends suggest that research into the dockside sex trade would add new dimensions to the histories of cosmopolitanism, gender, globalization, maritime recreation, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

This article provides a quick and accessible introduction to the historiography of dockside prostitution in South Africa.

The Virtues of Dockside Dalliance: Why Maritime Sugar Girls are Safer then Urban Streetwalkers in South Africa's Prostitution Industry

by Henry Trotter

in Susan Dewey & Patty Kelly (Eds.), Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy and the State in Global Perspective (New York: NYU Press, 2011), pp. 86-99

South African sex workers are exposed to different amounts of violence depending on the prostitution sector that they... more South African sex workers are exposed to different amounts of violence depending on the prostitution sector that they work in, such as the street, truck stop, hotel, agency, brothel, and dockside trades. By comparing the structural features of these sectors, we can not only gauge the likelihood of violence within each, but also devise more precise policy instruments to reduce violence at an industry-wide level. I focus here on the neglected dockside prostitution sector, showing how its structural characteristics enhance the women’s power vis-à-vis their clients. Detailed policy recommendations conclude the article.

Navigating Risk: Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry

by Henry Trotter

Sexuality Research & Social Policy: Journal of NSRC, 4/4 (Dec 2007): 106-119

The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street,... more The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street, truck stop, hotel, agency, brothel, and dockside trades are characterized by different structural features that determine the prevalence of client, police, and third-party abuse against prostitutes. Comparing the structural elements of each sector allows not only gauging the likelihood of violence within a given niche but also devising more precise policy instruments to reduce violence at an industry-wide level.

This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:

* the social and legal status of the client
* the location of the negotiation
* the location of the sexual act
* the level of discretion in the solicitation process
* and the role of third-party involvement

Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument.

Trauma and Memory: The Impact of Apartheid-Era Forced Removals on Coloured Identity in Cape Town

by Henry Trotter

in Mohamed Adhikari (Ed.), Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2009), pp. 49-78

Communities often cohere around memories of historical suffering: yet coloured South Africans, a people whose diverse... more Communities often cohere around memories of historical suffering: yet coloured South Africans, a people whose diverse ancestry experienced enslavement, dispossession, genocidal extermination, and apartheid degradation, for the most part, they do not invest in remote historical traumas. Most coloured Capetonians instead focus upon a painful experience within living memory: the forced eviction of 150,000 coloured people from their homes and communities in the Cape Peninsula between 1957 and 1985 under the Group Areas Act. It is this experience that gives coloured identity vital resonance, especially amongst working class people, many of whom have yet to overcome the losses of that trauma.

Based on over one hundred life history interviews with coloured and African forced removees, this article examines the impact of Group Areas evictions on contemporary coloured identity. It suggests that, in the wake of mass social trauma, coloured removees coped with their pain by reminiscing with each other about the "good old days" in the destroyed communities. Their removal to racially defined townships ensured that they mainly shared their memories with other coloured people, and much less with African or Indian removees.

Apartheid social engineering to a large extent thus determined the spatial limits within which coloured memories circulated, creating a reflexive, mutually reinforcing pattern of narrative traffic. Over the past four decades, the constant circulation of these nostalgic stories has developed a "narrative community" amongst coloured people in the townships. This experience of popular sharing and support in the context of loss today gives coloured identity in Cape Town a dimension that would be lacking if it were only mobilized for political or economic purposes.

Sailing Beyond Apartheid: The Social and Political Impact of Seafaring on Coloured South African Sailors

by Henry Trotter

in Carina Ray & Jeremy Rich (Eds.), Navigating African Maritime History (St John's, Newfoundland: Int'l Maritime Economic History Association, 2010), pp. 189-213

Historians of maritime culture show that, during the Revolutionary Era, the ship was an important site for the... more Historians of maritime culture show that, during the Revolutionary Era, the ship was an important site for the development and dissemination of anti-authoritarian ideals, that seamen were important carriers of revolutionary political consciousness to distant ports, and that the Atlantic basin was radicalized by this maritime traffic. They further suggest that seafarers embraced rebellious strategies because, on land, their rights were often restricted, their property expropriated and their labour exploited while, at sea, many were press-ganged or shanghaied into service, others were bonded into debt-service agreements and all were subject to the capricious rule of an elitist officer class. But these “motley crews” found new opportunities to connect as fellow subalterns, both on ships and on docks, producing a radical maritime tradition.

The question this article poses is: to what extent was this bound to the revolutionary era? Did the cauldron of maritime labour continue to imbue seafarers with a radical political sensibility beyond the age of sail?

To answer this question, I focus on the fortunes of “mixed race” coloured South African seamen who sailed on South African ships during apartheid (1948-1994). I chose this group of Cape Town men because they share structural similarities with their Atlantic ancestors: they were politically oppressed, their land was expropriated by the government and they were physically exploited. By assessing their experiences at home, at sea and abroad, we can better understand how modern seafaring has affected their political consciousness.

The Archive, the Spectral, and Narrative Responsibility in Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light

by Andrew van der Vlies

Journal of Southern African Studies 36.3 (September 2010): 583-98. [DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2010.507553]

July’s People in Context: Apartheid’s dystopias abroad

by Andrew van der Vlies

In Brendon Nicholls, Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. London: Routledge, 2010 [dated 2011]. 115-30. [ISBN: 978-0-415-42072-3]