Trove opens possibilities for collaborative, transnational and comparative research from scholars in the Global South, who often work with limited financial resources. Indeed, Trove has been... Show moreTrove opens possibilities for collaborative, transnational and comparative research from scholars in the Global South, who often work with limited financial resources. Indeed, Trove has been indispensable for the South African-based historians in the International Studies Group, who would otherwise face difficulties accessing Australian primary sources. It also enables Australian perspectives to be incorporated into African histories, fostering the emergence of new historical insights. However, mass digitisation has the potential to create an unevenness in transnational history by privileging certain connections, particularly between British settler colonies. These reflections will offer crucial perspectives from a network of early career historians outside Australia. Show less
Trove opens possibilities for collaborative, transnational and comparative research from scholars in the Global South, who often work with limited financial resources. Indeed, Trove has been... Show moreTrove opens possibilities for collaborative, transnational and comparative research from scholars in the Global South, who often work with limited financial resources. Indeed, Trove has been indispensable for the South African-based historians in the International Studies Group, who would otherwise face difficulties accessing Australian primary sources. It also enables Australian perspectives to be incorporated into African histories, fostering the emergence of new historical insights. However, mass digitisation has the potential to create an unevenness in transnational history by privileging certain connections, particularly between British settler colonies. These reflections will offer crucial perspectives from a network of early career historians outside Australia. Show less
This article is a contribution to and reassessment of the debate about the concept of ‘white labourism’ hosted in this journal in 2010. White labourism is a concept formulated by Jonathan Hyslop to... Show moreThis article is a contribution to and reassessment of the debate about the concept of ‘white labourism’ hosted in this journal in 2010. White labourism is a concept formulated by Jonathan Hyslop to describe an ideology combining an anti-capitalist critique with racial segregation that he argued was dominant in a transnational white working class in the British Empire in the early twentieth century. The debate about this concept has focused on the appeal and extent of this ideology in South Africa during the early twentieth century. In light of recent scholarship on Southern Africa, we take a longer-term perspective to critically examine the concept and the debate. Specifically, we make three interventions into this debate: we consider the role of white workers outside British imperial networks; we examine how radical and revolutionary ideas disappeared from white-working class politics in the mid-twentieth century; and we reassess the connection between transnational flows of people and ideas. Racial divisions in the working class and labour movement in Southern Africa were persistent and enduring. We argue that racial segregation had an enduring appeal to white workers in Southern Africa, and the sources of this appeal were more varied and locally rooted than simply transnational migration to the region. Show less
This article explores the removal or exclusion in the late 1940s of people in interracial marriages from two corners of the newly formed Commonwealth of Nations, Australia and Britain's southern... Show moreThis article explores the removal or exclusion in the late 1940s of people in interracial marriages from two corners of the newly formed Commonwealth of Nations, Australia and Britain's southern African colonies. The stories of Ruth and Sereste Khama, exiled from colonial Botswana, and those of Chinese refugees threatened with deportation and separation from their white Australian wives, reveal how legal rearticulations in the immediate postwar era created new, if quixotic, points of opposition for ordinary people to make their voices heard. As the British Empire became the Commonwealth, codifying the freedoms of the imperial subject, and ideas of universal human rights “irrespective of race, color, or creed” slowly emerged, and claims of rights long denied seemed to take on a renewed meaning. The sanctity of marriage and family, which played central metaphorical and practical roles for both the British Empire and the United Nations, was a primary motor of contention in both cases, and was mobilized in both metaphorical and practical ways to press for change. Striking similarities between our chosen case studies reveal how ideals of imperial domesticity and loyalty, and the universalism of the new global “family of man,” were simultaneously invoked to undermine discourses of racial purity. Our analysis makes a significant contribution to studies of gender and empire, as well as the history of human rights, an ideal which in the late 1940s was being vernacularized alongside existing forms of claim-making and political organization in local contexts across the world. Show less
A little-known feature of the vast migrant labour system that supplied South Africa’s gold-mining industry was the Deferred Pay Interest Fund. For much of the 20th century, a portion of the wages... Show moreA little-known feature of the vast migrant labour system that supplied South Africa’s gold-mining industry was the Deferred Pay Interest Fund. For much of the 20th century, a portion of the wages owed to African mine workers was deferred and remitted to them only at the end of their contracts. This is well-known, but what happened to the interest that accumulated on these deferred wages remains virtually unknown. Mine workers did not receive this interest; it was, instead, deposited into a fund controlled by the mining industry. This article examines the operations of this fund in the Transkei in the context of the crisis in the migrant labour system precipitated by newly independent states refusing to supply further migrant labour to South Africa. This prompted the Chamber of Mines to reorient labour recruitment towards the South African bantustans, and the Transkei quickly became the most important source of labour for the mines in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the fund had a mandate to spend on welfare projects in labour-sending regions, we argue that patterns of spending clearly show how it was used to support the reproduction of the migrant labour system. Payments were used as patronage for local elites, upon whom recruitment depended, and for distributing propaganda for the mining industry. In contrast, payments were consistently directed away from education for able-bodied students, because education would reduce the pool of unskilled labour on which the gold industry relied. Money that, arguably, rightfully belonged to mine workers from the Transkei was used to perpetuate their dependence upon migrant labour to the mines. Show less
Abstract:This article examines the project to digitize and preserve the archives of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia and has two aims. The first aim is to discuss the process of cataloguing and... Show moreAbstract:This article examines the project to digitize and preserve the archives of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia and has two aims. The first aim is to discuss the process of cataloguing and digitizing an archive that has undergone significant deterioration, and the theoretical and practical challenges to achieving this. The second aim is to relate making this archive more accessible to questions of knowledge production. Despite its limitations, the value of this archive is that it is primarily composed of documents produced by Africans about the world as they saw it. These are not the records of external powers, colonial officials, or those studying African peoples.Résumé:Cet article examine le projet de numérisation et de conservation des archives du Syndicat des mineurs de Zambie et poursuit deux objectifs. Le premier objectif est de discuter du processus de catalogage et de numérisation d’archives qui ont subi une détérioration significative et d’identifier les défis théoriques et pratiques pour y parvenir. Le deuxième objectif est de relier la mise en accessibilité de ces archives à des questions de production de connaissances. Malgré ses limites, la valeur de ces archives est qu’elles sont principalement composées de documents produits par des Africains sur le monde tel qu’ils l’ont vu. Ce ne sont pas les archives des puissances extérieures, des fonctionnaires coloniaux ou de ceux qui étudient les peuples africains. Show less
This article is a contribution to and reassessment of the debate about the concept of ‘white labourism’ hosted in this journal in 2010. White labourism is a concept formulated by Jonathan Hyslop to... Show moreThis article is a contribution to and reassessment of the debate about the concept of ‘white labourism’ hosted in this journal in 2010. White labourism is a concept formulated by Jonathan Hyslop to describe an ideology combining an anti-capitalist critique with racial segregation that he argued was dominant in a transnational white working class in the British Empire in the early twentieth century. The debate about this concept has focused on the appeal and extent of this ideology in South Africa during the early twentieth century. In light of recent scholarship on Southern Africa, we take a longer-term perspective to critically examine the concept and the debate. Specifically, we make three interventions into this debate: we consider the role of white workers outside British imperial networks; we examine how radical and revolutionary ideas disappeared from white-working class politics in the mid-twentieth century; and we reassess the connection between transnational flows of people and ideas. Racial divisions in the working class and labour movement in Southern Africa were persistent and enduring. We argue that racial segregation had an enduring appeal to white workers in Southern Africa, and the sources of this appeal were more varied and locally rooted than simply transnational migration to the region. Show less
This book showcases new research by emerging and established scholars on white workers and the white poor in Southern Africa. Rethinking White Societies in Southern Africa challenges the... Show moreThis book showcases new research by emerging and established scholars on white workers and the white poor in Southern Africa. Rethinking White Societies in Southern Africa challenges the geographical and chronological limitations of existing scholarship by presenting case studies from Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe that track the fortunes of nonhegemonic whites during the era of white minority rule. Arguing against prevalent understandings of white society as uniformly wealthy or culturally homogeneous during this period, it demonstrates that social class remained a salient element throughout the twentieth century, how Southern Africa’s white societies were often divided and riven with tension and how the resulting social, political and economic complexities animated white minority regimes in the region. Addressing themes such as the class-based disruption of racial norms and practices, state surveillance and interventions – and their failures – towards nonhegemonic whites, and the opportunities and limitations of physical and social mobility, the book mounts a forceful argument for the regional consideration of white societies in this historical context. Centrally, it extends the path-breaking insights emanating from scholarship on racialized class identities from North America to the African context to argue that race and class cannot be considered independently in Southern Africa. Show less
Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, several thousand non-Zambian Africans were identified and progressively removed from the Copperbelt mines as part of a state-driven policy of ... Show moreFollowing Zambia’s independence in 1964, several thousand non-Zambian Africans were identified and progressively removed from the Copperbelt mines as part of a state-driven policy of ‘Zambianisation’. Curiously, this process has been overlooked among the multitude of detailed studies on the mining industry and Zambianisation, which is usually regarded as being about the removal of the industrial colour bar on the mines. This article challenges that perspective by examining the position and fate of non-Zambian African mineworkers, beginning with patterns of labour recruitment established in the colonial period and through the situation following independence to the protracted economic decline in the 1980s. In it I make two arguments. First, Zambian nationalism and the creation of Zambian citizenship were accompanied on the Copperbelt by the identification and exclusion of non-Zambians, in contrast to a strand in the literature which stresses that exclusionary nationalism and xenophobia are relatively recent developments. Second, one of the central and consistent aims of Zambianisation was the removal of ‘alien’ Africans from the mining industry and their replacement with Zambian nationals. This was a key objective of the Zambian government, supported by the mineworkers’ union. Show less
Understandings of class have often been highly racialized and gendered. This article examines the efforts of white workers’ organizations in Southern Africa during the 1940s to forge such a class... Show moreUnderstandings of class have often been highly racialized and gendered. This article examines the efforts of white workers’ organizations in Southern Africa during the 1940s to forge such a class identity across the region and disseminate it among the international labor movement. For these organizations, the “real” working class was composed of white men who worked in mines, factories, and on the railways, something pertinent to contemporary understandings of class.The focus of these efforts was the Southern African Labour Congress, which brought together white trade unions and labor parties and sought to secure a place for them in the postwar world. These organizations embodied the politics of “white laborism,” an ideology which fused political radicalism and white domination, and they enjoyed some success in gaining acceptance in the international labor movement. Although most labor histories of the region have adopted a national framework, this article offers an integrated regional labor history. Show less
This article examines industrial unrest and the restructuring of the workforce on the mines of the Zambian Copperbelt during the late 1950s. The mining workforce was highly stratified along lines... Show moreThis article examines industrial unrest and the restructuring of the workforce on the mines of the Zambian Copperbelt during the late 1950s. The mining workforce was highly stratified along lines of race and skill and attempts to alter occupational hierarchies by the mining companies provoked a lengthy strike by white mineworkers, the most highly-paid, privileged section of the workforce. The strike was accompanied by a considerable community mobilisation in the towns around the mines. Restructuring was prompted by falling copper prices and involved the mining companies attempting to blur the distinction between white artisans and semi-skilled white workers. At the core of the strike and restructuring plans were competing notions of skill and authority on the mines. In this way, this article contests the prevailing assumption in the historical literature that the central issue on the Copperbelt mines in this period was the removal of the industrial colour bar. Show less
This article explores the experiences of white workers on the Copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia during World War II. Much of the existing literature on the region focuses on African labour, yet the... Show moreThis article explores the experiences of white workers on the Copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia during World War II. Much of the existing literature on the region focuses on African labour, yet the boom that began in the copper-mining industry also attracted thousands of mobile, transient European workers. These workers were part of a primarily English-speaking labour diaspora with a global reach that linked mining centres around the world. The experience of this workforce generated seemingly contradictory trends of labour militancy, political radicalism, and racial exclusivity. A focus on two significant events during this period will seek to examine how these trends shaped events on the Copperbelt: the 1940 wildcat strikes and the 1942 arrest and deportation of white mineworkers’ union leaders. These events shed light on the international world of European labour and illustrate how the Copperbelt was linked to other mining centres around the world. Show less
This article follows the fortunes of a group of riveters who moved, briefly, from the Clyde to the Copperbelt to work on construction at the newly opened copper mines in the region in 1930.... Show moreThis article follows the fortunes of a group of riveters who moved, briefly, from the Clyde to the Copperbelt to work on construction at the newly opened copper mines in the region in 1930. Escaping from Depression-era Glasgow, these volatile riveters clashed with hard-bitten American mine managers over wages, self-respect and the colour bar in southern Africa, events best understood within a framework of the transnational world of white labour. The history of labour migration in colonial Africa has been studied almost exclusively in terms of African labour yet large numbers of people arrived from outside the continent to work on the mines in central and southern Africa. Although only a sliver of these wider population flows, the riveters provide a snapshot in the wider British labour movement and movements of white migrants during this period. This article argues that their experiences illustrate the curious, influential politics of ‘white labourism’ where political radicalism and industrial militancy were intricately linked to white domination and racial segregation. Drawing on records from the mining companies, it will be demonstrated that these men saw themselves as militant representatives of an international working class, but one strictly delineated on racial lines. Show less
