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Draft:Apartheid Studies

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Apartheid Studies (AS) is an emerging interdisciplinary field of study from the global south that systematically utilizes the notion of apartheid as the basis for a theoretical and interpretive framework, paradigm, corpus, heuristic, and methodology.[1] Its aim is to formally study the persistence of oppression, injustice, inequality, poverty, and harm in human affairs and institutions, and what to do about the condition of persistent harm.[2][3] It promotes theoretical advances in the understanding of how human suffering goes on instead of ending. The field was pioneered by University of the Free State communication scientist, Professor Nyasha Mboti, to address the absence of the formal theorizing and systematic study of apartheid in mainstream curricula. The complete absence in South Africa and world-wide of formal courses, curricula, programs, departments, institutes and centers of Apartheid Studies inspired Mboti to establish the field in 2012 in the aftermath of the Marikana Massacre. Mboti observed that, just as there is Holocaust Studies or Genocide Studies, as an example, it made sense to provision for Apartheid Studies, for a wider and more general application. Prior to Mboti’s intervention, the study of apartheid was conducted in disciplinary silos and in scattered fashion, lacking a unified framework or system.[1]

Apartheid Studies defines apartheid as the highest stage of oppression, predicated on the fact that life goes on in harm’s way.[1][2] The field takes as its starting point the iconic Associated Press image (photographed by Dennis Lee Royle) from April 1960, showing Africans queueing for the hated passbook[4] at No. 80 Albert Street in Johannesburg. The importance of the image is to emphasize that theorization about power, violence, oppression, injustice, harm, inequality, and poverty must be from the point of view of a queue-level ontology.[1] The approach echoes that of Marcus Rediker’s 2008 Atlantic Studies article “History from below the water line: Sharks and the Atlantic slave trade”, which considers the Middle Passage as sharks would see it while feasting on black bodies thrown overboard by slave ship captains.[5] Where Rediker utilizes history “from below the water line”, Mboti draws on analysis from the queue-line.[3] Apartheid Studies is broadly interdisciplinary, and its theoretical corpus draws on insights from law, history, communication, politics, sociology, international development, development studies, language, literature, cultural studies, development studies, political science, social work, art, design, media studies, economics, human geography, finance, religion, computer science, biology, health, engineering, and physics.

Background

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The word apartheid is Afrikaans that translates as “apart-hood” in English.[6] Its etymology has been traced to the 1920s in the Dutch Reformed Church and the Afrikaner Broederbond secret society.[7][8][9] The conventional understanding is that apartheid is a system of legalized racial segregation that began in South Africa in 1948 when the National Party came to power, ending in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president. This normative understanding divides apartheid into two forms, petty and grand.[10][11] Whereas petty apartheid refers to the legalized segregation of public amenities and social events, grand apartheid entailed the creation of Bantustans, violent removal of Africans and other non-whites from indigenous land and “white only” areas, and racially segregated housing, schooling, and employment. The period after 1994 in South African history is often referred to in literature and general discourse as “post-apartheid” to denote the transition from white Afrikaner rule to multiracial democracy.[12][13] Increase in the research, scholarship and commentary about apartheid coincided with the enactment of the first racially discriminatory laws in the 1950s under the National Party, such as the Group Areas Act (Act No 41 of 1950), the Population Registration Act (Act No 30 of 1950), the Immorality Amendment Act (Act No 21 of 1950), the Suppression of Communism Act (Act No 44 of 1950), and the Bantu Authorities Act (Act No 68 of 1951). Traditionally, apartheid has been studied in silos, without a systematic framework connecting the study of apartheid in different disciplines.[1] Furthermore, most of the historians and scholars who wrote about apartheid were white,[14][15][16] meaning that they would not have ordinarily experienced apartheid, leaving a gap and a blind spot in the mainstream scholarship about apartheid.

Genealogy of Apartheid Studies

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Mboti traces the birth of Apartheid Studies to 17 August 2012, the day after the Marikana Massacre. On 16 August 2012 South African and global news media televised harrowing live footage of striking Lonmin Platinum miners killed by police gunfire[17][18]. Despite the shock of the massacre, Mboti observed that the day after the shooting was like any other day, with daily life and ordinary transactions seeming to continue in a manner that “demoted” the crisis of the massacre into the background:

Television news had been playing the clip on a loop all evening. I went to bed with dark thoughts weighing on my mind, thinking and feeling that we had just witnessed an apocalyptic event. Surely, life could not go on after this? The world had to grind to a halt. We had to stop whatever we were doing and take notice. There had to be a limit. […] But, on the morning of 17 August 2012, there was no apocalypse. There was no thunderbolt from the sky. Instead, life went on. The sun rose in the east and set in the west. As I walked in town, I saw people going about their business as people have always done.[2]

The observation about how ordinary life persisted side-by-side with and alongside substantive harm was epiphanic for Mboti, who says that he began to reflect on how the demotion of crisis in everyday contexts yielded insights into how the oppressed had lived with harm and in harm’s way under apartheid. Thus:

The fact that life went on, more or less as life had gone on, on 17 August 2012, made me realise two things. Number one, that human beings have a capacity to live with harm and to live in harm’s way. Life goes on. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Number two, that the human capacity to live with harm means that harm can and does go on. Harm goes on as, and because, life goes on. It is not that people want, or like, to be harmed. This is never the case. Instead, it is the case, rather, that people want to live. Something that is entirely natural and blameless (the urge to live, the gravitation towards life) is the interface of the darkest oppressions that humans suffer. Basically, all harm has to do is piggy back on the natural capacities and capabilities of people themselves. Like a virus, harm does not have to bring anything. The capacity is and was already there. The capacity belongs to, and in, the victim. It is of the victim. The capacity is truly victim-funded. In a way, apartheid is victim-funded. [2]

The theme of the ordinariness of contexts of harm, and what it meant for the understanding of the persistence of injustice and oppression, constituted an entry point to theorizing about apartheid. However, in 2012, Mboti had not yet applied the name of Apartheid Studies to what he was doing. The breakthrough happened serendipitously in 2015 at a Cultural Studies conference held at Riverside, California. At the conference venue, Mboti recounts stopping at an unmanned publisher’s stall that had free books that passersby could take. One of the books was Dolls Studies. The title of the book, and the description it gave to its theme, prompted Mboti to think for the first time about Apartheid Studies as a theoretical framework. Dolls Studies stated that:

Dolls are the focus of this pioneering anthology establishing Dolls Studies as an interdisciplinary field of scholarly inquiry. This work revises conventional understandings of what constitutes a doll; broadens the age range to include female adolescents, women and others; locates dolls in untraditional contexts; and utilizes new methodological practices and theoretical frameworks. Placing dolls at the center of analysis reveals how critical girls’ toys are in the making – and undoing – of racial, ethnic, national, religious, sexual, class, and gender ideologies.[19]

Prior to the chance encounter with the text of Dolls Studies, Mboti had not thought of Apartheid Studies outside of its traditional context as defined by historians, politicians and elite commentators. Neither had he or thought of placing it at the center of analysis or utilizing it as a new methodological practice or theoretical framework.

Mboti also mentions that the tragic cases of Dora Mokoena, Michael Komape, and Everite Chauke were important in shaping his thinking about Apartheid Studies as a paradigm for understanding the persistence of harm.[1] Dora Mokoena was a seven-month-old toddler at about the time that Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected president on 10 May 1994.[20] She lived in a shack with her mother in the vast slum settlement of Botleng, near Delmas in Mpumalanga, east of Johannesburg. Dora’s mother had gone out on an errand and left her unattended when the shack caught fire. The toddler was severely hurt in the inferno, which burnt off most of her hands and face.[21] Baragwanath, the biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere, declined to treat Dora’s severe burns, so convinced were the officials that she would die. However, Dora did not die. She ended up committed to a Catholic institution, to live among children with mental disabilities. In 2019 Dora was living in the United Kingdom. Despite many extensive surgeries and cosmetics to help her, she is still badly disfigured.[22] Dora is believed to be the most badly burnt child in the world to survive.[23]

Michael Komape was a five-year-old primary school child from Limpopo Province who drowned in a pit toilet at his school in January 2014.[24] His parents subsequently sued the South African government, seeking to hold it accountable for their son’s death.[25][26] The government refused to be held accountable in the case.[27] The family appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal and won.[28]

Everite Chauke was a three-year-old girl from the slum of Alexandra who was swept away on the night of 9 November 2016 when the Jukskei river flooded her family’s shack.[29] The body was only found more than a week later.[30] Mboti uses the three cases of Mokoena, Komape, and Chauke to demonstrate the persistence of apartheid in the form of living in harm’s way. A further complication is that apartheid is not a crime in South African statutes. However, it is a crime internationally, under the Rome Statute. The South African Constitution neither names nor prohibits apartheid - though it prohibits slavery and forced labor (Section 13).

Since 2013, Mboti has lectured internationally on Apartheid Studies and intersecting themes, giving public lectures, conversations, reflections, and keynote addresses in the United States, Iceland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, and China. He has also presented on the topic and given talks at South African universities such as the University of Cape Town, Wits University, Stellenbosch University, University of Pretoria, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of South Africa, University of Johannesburg, Durban University of Technology, Rhodes University, Central University of Technology, Nelson Mandela University, and the University of the Free State.

Purpose and definition

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Apartheid Studies is defined as the systematic study of the persistence of harm, oppression, and injustice in human affairs.[1][3] The field utilizes the notion of apartheid as a unit of analysis and first principle to demonstrate how oppression persists in states of affairs where human life goes on in harm’s way.[2] The purpose of Apartheid Studies is to provision a “new science” about the persistence of harm in human affairs and institutions. The argument is that human suffering and harm are a problem precisely because they persist. The aspect of persistence is therefore identified as a central variable in the Apartheid Studies framework.[3] Mboti argues that harm persists in human affairs because the costs of oppression, poverty, inequality and injustice are invoiced and billed on the victims themselves. Essentially, oppression persists if the oppressed are caused to foot the costs. In this state, Mboti argues, oppressors have gone “on holiday”.[1] This means that those in power do not have to be constantly physically present to monitor, command and control how the oppressed live. Rather, each oppressed person’s rate of oppression constraints him or her to continue to live in harm’s way in specific ways.[1]

The conceptual development of the new field is informed by the intellectual imperative to contest the normative definition, meaning, and aetiology of apartheid and rethink assumptions about its nature, form, and persistence.[1] Mboti argues that the received definition of apartheid as time-limited legalized racial segregation composed of petty and grand forms, while common and useful, still resulted in an untenable absence of aetiologies and definitions of apartheid informed by the experiences of the oppressed themselves. An example is how the isiZulu and isiXhosa term for apartheid, ubandlululo or obandlululo, which is not predicated on apartheid beginning in 1948 and which predates the rise to power of the National Party, is less used or theorized compared to the Afrikaans word. Venda, Tsonga, Ndebele, Tswana, and Sotho words and epistemes about apartheid have also not been centered in theoretical discussions.

Rate of Oppression (ROp)

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Central to Apartheid Studies is the notion of the Rate of Oppression (ROp).[3] Mboti identifies the Rate of Oppression as the chief construct of Apartheid Studies. The Rate of Oppression is a construct that defines the substantive unevenness in the experience of oppression by the oppressed. It is this unevenness that explains how the costs of oppression are invoiced on the victims and how life goes on in harm’s way.[3]

Definition of apartheid in Apartheid Studies

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Apartheid Studies expands the normative definition of apartheid as legalized segregation practiced in South Africa between 1994 and 1948 to facilitate a new way of understanding the persistence of harm, oppression, injustice, inequality, and poverty.[1]  The result is that apartheid is defined in a number of interlinked ways, all of them unified by the two constructs of persistence and the unevenness in the experience of oppression. In Apartheid Studies apartheid is variously defined as “the highest stage of oppression”,[1] “persistent harm”,[31] “harm on holiday”,[3] and the invoicing of the costs of oppression on the oppressed themselves.[2] Each of these definitions highlight a paradigm shift, from looking at apartheid as merely exceptional in a recent South African past to seeing it as a general phenomenon that exists wherever humans live in harm’s way such that the constant physical presence of oppressors is rendered optional. The definition of apartheid in Apartheid Studies departs from the conventional approach that either makes retrospective assessments of what took place between 1948 and 1994 (“it’s-in-the-past approach”) or attempts to attach apartheid onto other topics (“the injection approach”)[1]

Founding works

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Foundational texts on Apartheid Studies date back to 2019, with the article in Glimpse that made an appeal for setting up Apartheid Studies.[32] The article came out of a 2018 Keynote that Mboti presented in Iceland at a media phenomenology conference.[33] The first book on Apartheid Studies is the 2023 monograph, Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto, published by Africa World Press, which introduces the subject. The article “Introducing Apartheid Studies” in the Dutch journal, Filosofie & Praktijk, also gives an outline of the field, including an account of its beginnings.[2] A book chapter in the Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Africa (2024) discusses the Rate of Oppression comprehensively for the first time.[3] A brief explication of Apartheid Studies, linked to the theme of the persistence of harm, is contained in a 2023 South African journal article on Zimbabwean journalist, Roderick “Blackman” Ngoro.[31]

Notable recent applications of the framework

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The Apartheid Studies Framework was utilized by Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow, Dr Cuthbeth Tagwirei, in a research study of social movements and protests at Loughborough University.[34] The approach is also the theoretical basis of a Harvard doctoral study by Sarah Lorgan Khanyile on Palestinian lyric poetry. The Apartheid Studies framework is included in the discussions at the inaugural 2025 workshop on relational racisms at Cambridge University.[35]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Mboti, Nyasha (2023). Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. ISBN 978-15692-777-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Mboti, Nyasha (2023). "Introducing Apartheid Studies: A new forensic-inductive philosophy for abolishing harm". Filosofie & Praktijk. 44 (1): 58–73. doi:10.5117/FEP2023.1.006.MBOT.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Mboti, Nyasha (2024), Mlambo, Obert Bernard; Chitando, Ezra (eds.), "The Rate of Oppression (ROp): The Apartheid Studies Approach to the Study of Harm", The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Africa, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 53–75, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-40754-3_2, ISBN 978-3-031-40754-3, retrieved 2025-05-24
  4. ^ Savage, Michael (1986). "The Imposition of Pass Laws on the African Population in South Africa 1916-1984". African Affairs. 85 (339): 181–205. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097774. ISSN 0001-9909. JSTOR 723012.
  5. ^ Rediker, Marcus (2008-08-01). "History from below the water line: Sharks and the Atlantic slave trade". Atlantic Studies. 5 (2): 285–297. doi:10.1080/14788810802149758. ISSN 1478-8810.
  6. ^ Posel, Deborah (1987-10-01). "The meaning of apartheid before 1948: conflicting interests and forces within the Afrikaner nationalist alliance". Journal of Southern African Studies. 14 (1): 123–139. doi:10.1080/03057078708708162. ISSN 0305-7070.
  7. ^ Giliomee, Hermann (2003-06-01). "The Making of the Apartheid Plan, 1929-1948*". Journal of Southern African Studies. 29 (2): 373–392. doi:10.1080/03057070306211. ISSN 0305-7070.
  8. ^ Posel, Deborah (1991-12-12). The Making of Apartheid 1948–1961. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198273349.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-827334-9.
  9. ^ Dubow, Saul (1989). "Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa, 1919–36". SpringerLink. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-20041-2. ISBN 978-1-349-20043-6.
  10. ^ Beinart, W; Dubow, S (1995). "Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  11. ^ Mabin, Alan (1992). "Comprehensive segregation: the origins of the group areas act and its planning apparatuses". Journal of Southern African Studies. 18 (2): 405–429. doi:10.1080/03057079208708320. ISSN 0305-7070.
  12. ^ Worden, Nigel (2011). The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Apartheid, Democracy. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-5541-3.
  13. ^ Deegan, Heather (2001). The Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and After. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-38227-5.
  14. ^ Kalley, Jacqueline Audrey (1989). South Africa Under Apartheid: A Select and Annotated Bibliography. Meckler. ISBN 978-0-88736-506-5.
  15. ^ Potgieter, PJJS (1979). Index to Literature on Race Relations in South Africa, 1910-1975. G. K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-8302-9.
  16. ^ Musiker, Naomi (1984). South African history: A bibliographical guide with special reference to territorial expansion and colonization. New York : Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0-8240-9174-3.
  17. ^ eNCA (2023-08-16). Marikana Massacre | Police shot and killed 34 miners. Retrieved 2025-05-24 – via YouTube.
  18. ^ "Police fire on S Africa miners". BBC News. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  19. ^ Forman-Brunell, Miriam; Whitney, Jennifer Dawn (2015). Dolls Studies. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-2069-5.
  20. ^ "1994: Mandela becomes SA's first black president". BBC. 1994-05-10. Retrieved 2025-05-25.
  21. ^ "Children of Fire". www.firechildren.org. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  22. ^ "BBC World Service - Programmes - Adopting Dorah". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  23. ^ "British High Commissioner to South Africa holds an investiture ceremony". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  24. ^ Ryan, Ciaran (2017-11-13). "Day 1: Mother tells court how she found her son dead in school toilet". GroundUp News. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  25. ^ Veriava, Faranaaz; Harding, Mila (2023). "The Komape litigation - Ensuring effective remedies". De Jure. 56 (1): 486–504. doi:10.17159/2225-7160/2023/v56a30.
  26. ^ Buthelezi, Michael C. (2023). "The Impact of the Komape Judgment on the South African Common Law of Delict: An Analytical Review". Obiter. 43 (3): 630–640. doi:10.10520/ejc-obiter_v43_n3_a12 (inactive 25 May 2025).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2025 (link)
  27. ^ "Komape and Others v Minister of Basic Education (1416/2015) [2018] ZALMPPHC 18 (23 April 2018)". www.saflii.org. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  28. ^ "Michael Komape: Supreme Court of Appeal Judgment – Section27". section27.org.za. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  29. ^ Haffejee, Ihsaan (2016-11-10). "Floods bring hardship and loss to Johannesburg immigrant community". GroundUp.
  30. ^ "Toddler's body found in Jukskei River". News24. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  31. ^ a b Mboti, Nyasha (2023). "South African Silences, Japanese Erasures, Apartheid Studies: Blackman Ngoro and the Persistence of Apartheid". Communitas. 28: 177–191. doi:10.38140/com.v28i.7678.
  32. ^ Mboti, Nyasha (2019-11-12). "Circuits of Apartheid: A Plea for Apartheid Studies". Glimpse. 20: 15–70. doi:10.5840/glimpse2019202.
  33. ^ ""Circuits of Apartheid" in the Digital Age: An Apartheid Studies Approach to Global Media "Forensics" and Literacies". 2018-1-16. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ "Professor Cuthbeth Tagwirei, Loughborough University". www.lboro.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
  35. ^ "Relational racisms conference". Global Racisms Institute for Social Transformation. 2025-03-05. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
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