Introduction: Rethinking Relocation in Apartheid South Africa

In: Survival in the 'Dumping Grounds'
Author:
Laura Evans
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The relocation of black South Africans to townships in the rural bantustans was one of the defining and most brutal aspects of apartheid. Survival in the ‘Dumping Grounds’ examines the makings and the meanings of relocation into Sada and Ilinge, two rural relocation townships located in the Ciskei bantustan. These townships, and others like them, have often been represented as the ‘dumping grounds’ of apartheid. While this discourse condemns apartheid in no uncertain terms, it also has the effect of homogenising the diverse experiences of those who experienced relocation and remade their lives in these places, and elides their historical agency. By examining the variety of experiences that relocation produced, the meanings people attached to it and the strategies they employed to negotiate this process, this book demonstrates how the residents of Sada and Ilinge – and not only the apartheid state – shaped this history. The regimes and repertoires of apartheid relocation were complex and multifaceted. By tracing the makings and the meanings of relocation in the Ciskei, this book explores bantustan relocation as a vital process in the making of apartheid. This introduction outlines the historiographical contribution of the book; its methodological approach; the sources employed and the scope of each chapter.

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