Experiencing space and place in Grahamstown's informal settlements
- Authors: Coetzee, Jan K , Houssay-Holzschuch, Myriam , O'Reilly, Caroline
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Black people -- housing -- South Africa -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Squatters -- South Africa -- Grahamstown -- interviews
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2623 , vital:20310 , ISBN 0868103616
- Description: In this research the relationship between people and the space they occupy will be looked at. In doing so, we shall see how people enter into a relationship with their environment in order to create out of material at their disposal, a shelter wherein they can live. By erecting a structure which serves as a house, the people involved in this project do essentially the same as other people in other parts of the world, who create a dwelling that provides protection against the climate and the elements in nature. A question to be raised, is extent their (i.e. the people involved in this project) entering into a relationship with their environment, was forced into a particular direction because of a set of political and economic factors. What are the political and economic factors which impact on the manner of building houses in the informal residential areas of Grahamstown? Traditional housing in France, for example, differs from region to region and has been shaped over long periods of time by the climate, family structures, the availability of land, modes of production, etc. One finds that large vine-growing families from the Mediterranean South of France live in fairly big villages; individual farmers of Brittany dwell in small, slate-roofed houses which are isolated among enclosed fields; pastoral communities in the Alps undertake seasonal moves up or down the slopes of the mountains and share their space during winter with their cattle. The way in which these families and/or communities have come to shape their lifeworlds, was not exposed to the same kind of determining factors as, for instance, in South Africa in general and in Grahamstown in particular. Notwithstanding political and economic determinants, it is clear that residents of informal houses in the Grahamstown area draw to a large extent from tradition with regards to the kind of shelters which they build (cf. the many mud-and-stick constructions). Similarly the settlement of people impacts on nature. Elements of the environment inform certain choices, but people interpret their natural environment and will erect shelters in terms of these interpretations. In addition there are the issues of how people orientate themselves in terms of important landmarks, what kind of representation they have of the future they are moving towards and which values do they draw from or attribute to their physical environment. The landscape surrounding people, contains and reflects cultural information. Important landmarks express aspects of life: the past, the present and the future. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1999
Migrant labour and colonial rule in Basutoland, 1890-1930
- Authors: Kimble, Judith M
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Migrant labor -- Lesotho Markets -- Lesotho Produce trade -- Lesotho Lesotho -- Economic conditions Lesotho -- History -- To 1966 Lesotho -- Politics and government -- To 1966
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2542 , vital:20302 , ISBN 0868103594
- Description: The original Introduction to the thesis, in summary, developed three main themes (a) a close analysis of the institutional arrangements of the pre-capitalist mode of production, demonstrating its complexity; (b) a broader perspective on the legal, political, social and economic aspects of colonialism; and (c) an account of the distinctive patterns of migrant labour which resulted. First. Judy examined the cheap labour hypothesis of Wolpe (1972), which identified the policy of Segregation as ‘the key mechanism in the subcontinent for the forcible generation and reproduction of labour power on a scale and at a price required by foreign mining capital'. Although she found this a major advance from earlier views of migrant labour as simply a system whereby "men oscillate between their home in some rural area and their place of work’ (Francis Wilson, 1972b), she criticised Wolpe’s hypothesis for failing to incorporate an adequate analysis of ‘the internal forces promoting labour migrancy in Basutoland under colonial rule’, to which she paid particular attention. She did not regard migrant labour solely as ‘The outcome of ruling class policy or ruling class intention’ (Brenner, 1977:78). Nor does she accept Wolpe’s assumption that the migrant labour system was an intended effect of the strategy of mining capital; this reduced "the variety of complex historical factors’ to "the driving force of “the needs of capital”. She therefore offered ‘a more extended exploration of the political dimension of colonial rule’ and a more complex analysis of mining capital and its relationship with pre-capitalist social formations. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1999
West Bank land restitution claim: social history report
- Authors: Maqasho, Landiswa , Bank, Leslie , Mrawu, Busisiwe
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Colored people (South Africa) -- South Africa -- East London Africans -- South Africa -- East London Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Land settlement -- Government policy -- South Africa Mdantsane (East London) Nongqongqo (East London) West Bank location (East London)
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2691 , vital:20317 , ISBN 0868103624
- Description: Today, the west bank of the Buffalo River is a well-established industrial area. At the centre of this industrial complex is the Mercedes Benz South Africa production plant. Yet, over 40 years ago on the production site of this world reknowned motor manufacturer there was a small urban location which housed approximately 7000 African and Coloured residents. The village was known as Nongqongqo. According to Tankard (1990) it was the “original village and first official location of East London” and served primarily as a source of labour for workshops, transport and packing concerns in the East London harbour. The village, which was also known as the West Bank Location, was a stable and peaceful community that accommodated an ethnically mixed community of Xhosa, Fingoes (Mfengu), Pondos, Zulus, Sothos and so-called Coloured people. In 1965, the tranquillity of everyday life in this seaside village came to a rude and abrupt end when government bulldozers and trucks moved in to demolish the village. The inhabitants were forcibly resettled on the east bank of the Buffalo River and in the fledgling township of Mdantsane in the Ciskei. The removals were undertaken in accordance with the terms of the Bantu Administration Act No. 25 of 1945, Population Registration Act of 1950 and Group Areas Act of 1952 (cf. Booysen, 1995). The aim of this report is to investigate the social and historical circumstances that surrounded the destruction of this once vibrant seaside village. This report forms part of a process through which approximately 1400 original residents of Nongqongqo are seeking restitution for losses they incurred during this removal in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994. This report seeks to contribute to this process by contextualising the Nongqongqo removal within an historical understanding of the management of black urbanization in East London and by investigating the specific social, economic and political circumstances that led to the deproclamation of this location. However, in order to understand the impact of the removals, the article also attempts to reconstruct from oral and documentary sources a profile of the West Bank community in the years preceding the removal. Although the historical material on West Bank is sketchy, we have managed to assemble data that allows us to build up a fairly comprehensive socio-economic profile and residential arrangements in this community in 1955. This exercise in historical reconstruction, we believe, is essential for a meaningful assessment of the significance of the removals for those involved. In the final part of the article we begin to assess and aggregate the emotional, social and economic costs of the removals for the people of Nongqongqo. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1999