From warlords to freedom fighters: Political violence and state formation in Umbumbulu, South Africa

Mathis, Sarah M.

doi:10.1093/afraf/adt041

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…According to Alexander Beresford (2015), gatekeeping is rife within ANC ranks, that is, the control of access to state resources and their distribution to one’s clientele to enhance personal power. Gatekeeping is exclusionary and conflictual but not necessarily violent: “big men” or “strongmen” politics (Mathis 2013; Utas 2012) refers to the explicitly violent side of gatekeeping and illustrates the close relationship between violent action and resource control in local politics. The funeral speakers also raised these issues when they interpreted local violence as a result of gatekeeping within the ANC.…”

Section: Violent Conflict In Kwazulu-natal Since the 1980smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More than one hundred local politicians were murdered between 2003 and 2013, with more than half killed between January 2011 and September 2012. As a result, there is renewed interest in documenting and theorizing violent conflict (see Gibbs 2017; Hickel 2015; Jarstad & Höglund 2015; Kelly 2018; Krämer 2015; Mathis 2013; Schuld 2013; Smith 2019; van Baalen & Höglund 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Violence, Autochthony, and Identity Politics in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa): A Processual Perspective on Local Political Dynamics

Krämer¹

2019

Afr. Stud. Rev.

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“Political violence” is seemingly on the rise again in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The violence that began in the 1980s and reached a peak in the transition period resurfaced before the local government elections in August 2016. Krämer provides a processual understanding of local dynamics of violence in the eThekwini Municipality and situates the current episode within the historical trajectory of violent conflict. He examines how exclusionary identities get activated in local elections and argues that underlying the violence between supporters of hostile political parties are conflicting forms of autochthonous belonging and contradictory ideas about what constitutes membership in a community.

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Section: Violent Conflict In Kwazulu-natal Since the 1980smentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Violence, Autochthony, and Identity Politics in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa): A Processual Perspective on Local Political Dynamics

Krämer¹

2019

Afr. Stud. Rev.

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Schools as Agents of Change: Impacts of Restorative Circles at Mbambangwe School in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Mlambo,

Kiyala

2024

The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science

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Inkatha's young militants: reconsidering political violence in South Africa

Gibbs¹

2017

Africa

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South Africa's township revolts have generated much excellent research on the central role played by rebellious, urban youth. This article explores a parallel set of intergenerational conflicts that opened up in the marginal rural districts of the Natal Midlands, which were exacerbated by apartheid's forced removals of labour tenants from commercial farming districts to crowded ‘Native Reserves’ in the 1970s. At this time of deepening poverty, elders worried about the rising incidence of juvenile petty crime, particularly amongst the teenagers who increasingly took itinerant, seasonal labour on the commercial farms. Some of these young migrants, unable to find steady factory work at a time of mounting unemployment, also played a leading role in the illicit, sometimes criminal networks of South Africa's growing popular economy. Finally, I show how some of these youths were mobilized by Inkatha during the war against the African National Congress in Johannesburg – often to the revulsion of older men who abhorred their socially harmful, thuggish violence, which spiralled uncontrollably along migrant routes. Thus the political violence was often known as theudlame: a brutal savagery that destroys households, communities and society.

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From warlords to freedom fighters: Political violence and state formation in Umbumbulu, South Africa

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Violence, Autochthony, and Identity Politics in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa): A Processual Perspective on Local Political Dynamics

Violence, Autochthony, and Identity Politics in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa): A Processual Perspective on Local Political Dynamics

Schools as Agents of Change: Impacts of Restorative Circles at Mbambangwe School in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Inkatha's young militants: reconsidering political violence in South Africa

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