Schedule of Seminar Sessions and Readings

Introduction: Contested Transitions in South Africa (9 January)

Our principal concerns in this initial session are to introduce the course content and organize the seminar, to explore the interests of course participants, and to begin to address general issues of approach and method in the study of contemporary South Africa.

Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, Introduction and Chapter 1

South African History: An Overview (16 January)

What are the major roots of the contemporary transitions in South Africa? How can we use our knowledge of the past, itself contested, to understand the interactions and conflicts of the present? And how does the present inform and revise what we (think we) know of the past? To address those questions, we must explore both history and historiography—who has written the history of South Africa? whose history has been written? what have been the principal tools for writing that history and what are the consequences of using those tools? who tells the story differently?

Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, Part I, Chapters 1-3, 5

supplementary readings

Leonard Thompson, A History of South Africa, Chronology; Chapters 1-4

<Back to Top

From Generations of Resistance to Negotiations (23 January)

The struggle against apartheid in the late 20th century had deep roots. Resistance to white rule in South Africa has taken many forms, including direct armed confrontation, infiltration and subversion, collaboration, negotiation, boycott, individual protest, mass demonstrations, assertion of local culture and experience, nationalism of several sorts and forms, and more. Our first task in this session is to understand the history of resistance in South Africa—ideas, contexts, forms, practices, and outcomes. How has each generation sometimes built on, sometimes ignored, and sometimes rejected earlier approaches? We will consider as well the path to majority rule, which traversed both armed struggle and extended negotiations. Who were the negotiators? For whom did they speak? On whose support could they rely? What made a negotiated transition possible?

Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, Part I, Chapter 4; Part II, Chapters 6, 8, 9-10
Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, Chapter 2
WS Z. Pallo Jordan, “Socialist Transformation and the Freedom Charter, in Bernard Magubane and Ibbo
Mandaza, editors, Whither South Africa?, pp. 89-110

supplementary readings

[Note: The list of supplementary readings is especially lengthy today to help you work on: (1) developing a clear sense of an author’s major concerns and argument after a quick reading, (2) reviewing multiple readings quickly to determine which best meet your needs (and therefore to which you will return),(3) associating authors with a particular approach or school of thought, (4) exploring readings that are available only in the library, and (5) building on previous reading. Hence, you should look at all of these readings and then select a few for careful attention.

Bernard Magubane, South Africa: From Soweto to Uitenhage: The Political Economy of the South African

Revolution, Chapters I-II, IV, and VIII
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Part Four, “The Struggle is My Life” and Part Ten, “TalkingWith the Enemy”
Mzwanele Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa, Chapters 1, 3, 7, 8, 11

Martin Murray, The Revolution Deferred: The Painful Birth of Post-Apartheid South Africa, Chapters 3-6 Alister Sparks, Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Negotiated Revolution,

Chapters 4-5 (and skim)
Robert M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis: Political Transformation in South Africa, 1975-1990, Chapters 5-6, 8-9

South Africa: Contested Transitions (History 48Q, Winter Quarter, 2006/2007: Course Syllabus, Page 5

Stephen Zunes, “The Role of Non-Violent Action in the Downfall of Apartheid,” Journal of Modern African Studies 37,1 (March 1999):137-169

Thompson, A History of South Africa, Chapters 5-8

<Back to Top

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Historical Construction and Reconstruction (30 January)

With its long history of racial discrimination and systematic exploitation and repression, what was to be the foundation for constructing the new South Africa. Political participation, universal suffrage, and a majority government were and are essential. But what might promote unity in this very divided society? The demand to convict and imprison apartheid's leaders and administrators was loud and strong. But the new South African government opted for reconciliation. A very visible and very prestigious Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to expose what had happened and for those who cooperated, including assassins and torturers, to grant amnesty. Political compromise, popular theater, an effort to shape attitudes, morals, and ethics, the TRC remains enigmatic. Whose interests were served? With what consequences?

The primary reading assignment for this session is to explore the web site of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission <http://www.truth.org.za> . You should be sure to locate and skim a copy of the Commission’s Final Report (which may not be available on the TRC site).

To support that review of primary source materials, each student should locate and list at least three sources (print or electronic) on the TRC, including analyses that are sharply critical of the TRC and its role, and read and be ready to report on one of those sources.

supplementary readings

Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull (a very personal account of the TRC)

WS Elizabeth Stanley, ““Evaluating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Journal of Modern African Studies 39,3(September 2001):525-546

WS Fullard and Rousseau, “An imperfect past: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Transition,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004 [Note that the annual editions of the State of the Nation and other HSRC publications are available online: www.hsrc.co.za.]

James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws, “Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Attributions of Blame and the Struggle Over Apartheid,” American Political Science Review 93,3 September 1999):501-517

Wilmot James and Linda van de Vijver, editors, After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, especially Colin Bundy, “The Beast of the Past: History and the TRC”

Back to Top

Constructing the New South Africa: Mass Democracy and the Entrenchment of Privilege (6 February)

Today we focus on the first of the series of overlapping transitions that we will consider. A major challenge of this era, both before and after the 1994 election, is to write the rules for what has been termed the New South Africa. What interests are to be given the strongest protection? Why? How? What is the appropriate division of authority and responsibility among national, provincial, and local leaders? What are the desirable, and reasonable, boundaries between public and private? between individual and community? How should the rules themselves be written and modified? How can broad participation be assured and minority interests recognized without entrenching privilege or impeding change?

Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, Chapters 3, 8
CR Richard Calland, “Democratic Government, South African Style 1994–1999,” in Andrew Reynolds, editor, Election ‘99 South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki, pp. 1–15

CR Roger Southall and John Daniel, “The State of Parties Post-Election 2004: ANC Dominance and Opposition Enfeeblement,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2004–2005, pp. 34–57

supplementary readings

CR Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster, “South Africa: Class Compromise . . .” Southern Africa Report 15,2 (2nd Quarter 2000): 3-7

CR Carolyn Bassett and Marlea Clarke, “South Africa: . . . Class Struggle,” Southern Africa Report 15,2 (2nd
Quarter 2000): 7-10

Tshidiso Maloka and David Gordon, “Chieftainship, Civil Society, and the Political Transition in South Africa,” Critical Sociology 22, 3 (1996): 37-55

Ashwin Desai, We are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa,Chapter 13:

Mpumalanga’s New War

Murray, The Revolution Deferred, Chapters 8-9

Andrew Reynolds, editor, Election '99 South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki (Oxford: James Currey,1999)

Roger Southall, "The South African Elections of 1994: The Remaking of a Dominant-Party State." Journal of Modern African Studies 32, 4 (December 1994): 629-655

Thompson, A History of South Africa, Chapter 9

<Back to Top

Identities: Persistence and Transition (13 February)

At one level, the history of South Africa is the story of the creation and mobilization of identities, especially those of race and ethnicity. Yet for many South Africans, that assertion is itself a contentious claim. We are born Black, or Zulu, or Indian, or female, they insist. In this view, people cannot choose or easily modify who they are. Others, however, insist equally energetically that identities are socially constructed and can therefore be socially modified. Since we too face discrimination because of race and skin color, we too are black, asserted South African militants who were themselves legally categorized as Indian or Coloured. In this session we consider identities—asserted and assigned, inherited and created—as another of South Africa's contested transitions.

CR Leroy Vail, “Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History,” in Leroy Vail, editor, The Creation of Tribalism in South and Central Africa. Perspectives on Southern Africa, pp. 1-19

CR Deborah Posel, “Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in Twentieth-Century South Africa,” African Studies Review, 44,2(September 2001):87–113

WS Xolela Mangcu, “The state of race relations in post-apartheid South Africa,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004, pp. 105–117

WS Ivy Matsepe Casaburri, “On the Question of Women in South Africa,” in Bernard Magubane and Ibbo Mandaza, editors, Whither South Africa?, pp. 137-159

WS Edward Ramsamy, “Post-Settlement South Africa and the National Question: The Case of the Indian Minority,” Critical Sociology 22, 3 (1996): 57-77

Gordimer, Burger’s Daughter

supplementary readings

Dubow, Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa, Chapters 1 (Introduction) and 8 (Conclusion)

Cheryl Walker, Women and Resistance in South Africa, Chapters 1, 22, and Appendix A

“Feminism and Democracy: Women Engage the South African State,” Special issue of Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 32,2 (November 2005), including:

CR Shireen Hassim, “Voices, Hierarchies and Spaces: Reconfiguring the Women’s Movement in Democratic South Africa,” Politikon 32,2 (November 2005):175-193

CR Natasha Erlank, “ANC Positions on Gender, 1994–2004,” Politikon 32,2 (November 2005):195-215

<Back to Top

From the RDP to GEAR: Old Socialism and New Capitalism (20 February)

For much of this century, the African National Congress and its allies, especially the unions and the Communist Party, linked opposition to apartheid to opposition to capitalism as an economic, social, and political system. Yet since assuming office, that coalition has embraced an understanding of South African development, indeed of the global political economy, that seems strikingly similar to the perspective of the World Bank, the United States, and other advocates of a capitalist world system. Have South African communism and socialism become little more than political slogans? Or have South Africans assumed global responsibility for defining communism and socialism in the post-Soviet Union era? Are South African workers and employers argumentative potential allies or implacable enemies?

Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, Chapters 4-7
Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, Part II, Chapter 7; Part III, Chapter 12
South Africa, Growth, Employment and Redistribution: A Macroeconomic Strategy 14 June 1996

<http://www.polity.org.za/govdocs/policy/growth.html> [3 parts; 2005.11.29]


South Africa: Contested Transitions (History 48Q, Winter Quarter, 2006/2007: Course Syllabus, Page 7

CR Glenn Adler, and Eddie Webster, “Challenging Transition Theory: The Labor Movement, Radical Reform, and Transition to Democracy in South Africa,” Politics and Society 23,1(March 1995): 75-106

CR Eddie Webster and Glenn Adler, “Toward a Class Compromise in South Africa’s ‘Double Transition’: Bargained Liberalization and the Consolidation of Democracy,” Politics and Society 27,3(September 1999): 347-385

supplementary readings

CR Roger Southall, “Black empowerment and present limits to a more democratic capitalism in South Africa,” in Buhlungu, et al., editors, State of the Nation: South Africa 2005–2006, pp. 175–201

WS Allister Sparks, “The Great U-Turn,” in Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa, Chapter Nine

Francis Wilson, “Addressing Poverty and Inequality,” in Wilmot James and Linda van de Vijver, editors, After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, pp. 177-184

Patrick Bond, Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance, Chapter Two (Southern African Socio-Economic Conflict)

Murray, The Revolution Deferred, Chapter 7

<Back to Top

HIV/AIDS: Controversies and Contentions (27 February)

Policy making is always a conflictual process. HIV/AIDS is no exception. To explore this contested arena, we will explore two different controversies that have emerged in recent years. The first revolves around critiques of the most widely accepted understanding of HIV and AIDS and their incidence in South Africa. A few critics and their supporters inside and outside South Africa reject both the reports on the extent of HIV and AIDS and the link between HIV and AIDS. The second controversy revolves around medical research on treating human immunodeficiency virus. What risks are appropriate? For whom? In what circumstances? For these two controversies, we will explore both the substance of the disagreements and their role in policy making.

The reading for this session provides another opportunity to explore using the web to study Africa. Be sure to (1) review both text and quantitative information, (2) follow jumps and leads to other sites,(3) bookmark sites of interest, (4) record carefully the source information for documents of interest, and (5) experiment with downloading documents to your computer and printing documents. Use the sources listed below and others that you discover to develop a contemporary picture of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Note that the UNAIDS web site has been reorganized to require visitors to use the home page <www.unaids.org> and then jump to specific documents rather than using the URL for each individual document. Among the useful sources on that site are:

UNAIDS. Accelerating Action Against AIDS in Africa (Geneva: UNAIDS, 2003) <http://data.unaids.org/ UNA-docs/ICASA_Report_2003_en.pdf> [2007.01.02] UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update (Geneva: UNAIDS, December 2006) http://data.unaids.org/pub/ EpiReport/2006/2006_EpiUpdate_en.pdf [2007.01.02] UNAIDS, AIDS in Africa: Three Scenarios to 2025 (Geneva: UNAIDS, 2005) <http://www.unaids.org/unaids_resources/images/AIDSScenarios/AIDS-scenarios-2025_report_en.pdf> [2007.01.02] UNAIDS, Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2006 (Geneva: UNAIDS, 2006) <http://www.unaids.org/en/HIV_data/2006GlobalReport/default.asp> [2007.01.02] UNAIDS and ECA, AIDS in Africa. Country by Country UNAIDS and WHO, Treating Three Million by 2005 (Geneva: UNAIDS and WHO, 2003) <http://www.who.int/3by5/publications/documents/en/Treating3millionby2005.pdf> [2007.01.02]

There are many other useful sources for this topic accessible online. Among them:

Olive Shisana, et al., South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communication Survey, 2005 <http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/freedownload.asp?id=2134> [2006.11.10]

Centers for Disease Control, The Global AIDS Program <http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/gap/> [2007.01.02] (includes country-specific information) UNICEF. “My Song Against AIDS,” in The Progress of Nations 2000 (New York: UNICEF, 2000) <http://www.unicef.org/pon00> [2007.01.02]

 South Africa: Contested Transitions (History 48Q, Winter Quarter, 2006/2007: Course Syllabus, Page 8

CR Mbali, “HIV/AIDS policy-making in post-apartheid South Africa,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004, pp. 312-329

CR Gumede, “Mbeki’s AIDS Denial—Grace or Folly?,” in William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC, pp. 149-174

CR Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “U.S. AIDS Research in Poor Nations Raises an Outcry,” The New York Times, 18 September 1997

CR Peter Lurie and Sidney M. Wolfe, “Unethical Trials of Interventions to Reduce Perinatal Transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Developing Countries,” New England Journal of Medicine 337,12(18 September 1997):853-856

CR Marcia Angell, “The Ethics of Clinical Research in the Third World,” New England Journal of Medicine 337,12(18 September 1997):847-849 CR Harold Varmus and David Satcher, “Ethical Complexities of Conducting Research in Developing Countries,” New England Journal of Medicine 337,14(2 October 1997):1003-1005

supplementary readings

Charles Geshekter, “The Plague That Isn’t,” Globe and Mail, (14 March 2000) <http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/cgpoverty.htm> and “A Critical Reappraisal of African Aids Research and Western Sexual Stereotypes” <http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/data/cgpoverty.htm>

WS Castro Hlongwane, Caravans, Cats, Geese, Foot & Mouth and Statistics: HIV/AIDS and the Struggle for the Humanisation of the African (Johannesburg: African National Congress, 2002)

WS Anthony Butler, “South Africa’s HIV/AIDS Policy, 1994–2004: How Can It be Explained? African Affairs 104,417(2005):591-614

Helen Epstein, “The Mystery of AIDS in South Africa,” New York Review of Books (20 July 2000)<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9> [2007.01.02]

Patrick Bond, Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance, Chapter Eight (Pharmaceutical Corporations and U.S. Imperialism)

<Back to Top

From People's Education to the National Qualifications Framework (6 March)

At critical moments education was clearly at the center of South African struggle. Just as Bantu Education was designed to allocate roles and constrain aspirations, so was People's Education conceived as a strategy for mobilization against discrimination and oppression. Many people expected post-apartheid South Africa to have a radically different education system. Yet much of the debate today seems to assume that once they have been desegregated, schools will be organized and function pretty much as they have in the past. Here, then, is another of South Africa's contested transitions. What are the competing agendas? Whose agendas are they? What are the current forms of struggle in this domain?

WS Michael Cross and Linda Chisholm, “The Roots of Segregated Schooling in Twentieth-Century South Africa,” in Mokubung Nkomo, editor, Pedagogy of Domination: Toward Democratic Education in South Africa, pp. 43-74

CR Clive Harber, “Redress and Process: Educational Reform in the New South Africa,” in Lene Buchert, editor, Education Reform in the South in the 1990s, pp. 75-87

CR Linda Chisholm, “The State of South Africa’s Schools,“ in John Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2004–2005, pp. 201-226

CR African National Congress, The Reconstruction and Development Programme: A Policy Framework, “Developing Our Human Resources,” pp. 58-68

CR The Children’s Charter of South Africa (Adopted by Children’s Summit of South Africa, 1 June 1992)

supplementary readings

WS Jonathan Jansen and Nick Taylor. Educational Change in South Africa 1994–2003: Cse Studies in Large-Scale Education Reform (Washington: World Bank, 2003). [http://www1.worldbank.org/education/globaleducationreform/pdf/SouthAfricacasestudy.pdf {2007.01.02}]

Jonathan D. Jansen, “The Race for Education Policy After Apartheid,” in Yusuf Sayed and Jonathan D. Jansen, editors, Implementing Education Policies: The South African Experience, pp. 12–24

Jonathan Jansen, “Knowledge and Power in the World System: The South African Case,” in Jonathan Jansen, editor, Knowledge and Power in South Africa: Critical Perspectives Across the Disciplines

<Back to Top

Reconstruction and Development: Policy Choices (13 March)

We conclude the Quarter by exploring the broad transformation agenda in contemporary South Africa, as it has evolved from the Reconstruction and Development Programme of the 1994 election to Growth, Employment, and Redistribution through the 1999 election. What has been the trajectory of these efforts to build the new South Africa on the legacy of apartheid? Why? With what consequences for the future?

WS John S. Saul, “Cry for the Beloved Country: The Post-Apartheid Denouement,” Monthly Review
52,8(January 2001):1–51

WS Michael MacDonald, “The Political Economy of Identity Politics,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103,4 (September 2004):629–656

Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa, Part III, Chapters 11, 13
Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change, Chapters 8-9

supplementary readings

Roger Southall, “The state of party politics: Struggles within the Tripartite Alliance and the decline of opposition,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004

Maré, “The state of the state: Contestation and race re-assertion in a neoliberal terrain,” in Daniel et al., State of the Nation: South Africa 2003–2004, pp. 25–52

Roger Southall, “Introduction: Can South Africa be a developmental state?,” in Buhlungu, et al., editors, State of the Nation: South Africa 2005–2006, pp. xvii–xlv

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Part Eleven, “Freedom”

Neville Alexander, An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa, Chapter 7: “South Africa: Example or Illusion?”

Ashwin Desai and Richard Pithouse, “‘‘What stank in the past is the present’s perfume’: Dispossession, Resistance, and Repression in Mandela Park,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103,4(September 2004): 841–875

Murray, The Revolution Deferred, Postscript

<Back to Top