The launch of the Native Club in 2006 in South Africa as a new forum for the black intelligentsia provoked widespread debate from the academic and political fraternity that even implicated... Show moreThe launch of the Native Club in 2006 in South Africa as a new forum for the black intelligentsia provoked widespread debate from the academic and political fraternity that even implicated President Mbeki as the brains behind the project. The debates revolved around key and sometimes sensitive issues of race, citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, the limits and dangers of neoliberalism, as well as the dangers and limits of populist African nationalism. The politics and debates sparked by the Native Club also resonate with current crises within the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance and the second decade of South African democracy punctuated with a popular sense of betrayal. Currently the Native Club is housed under the roof of the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA) in Pretoria (Tshwane). This working paper takes a politico-historical approach in its endeavour to understand and define the essence of the Native Club, going beyond the surface media exchanges that have characterized its launch, grounding the debate in earlier debates over race, class and the national democratic revolution to reveal the historical 'rootedness' of nativism and populism. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
This working paper provides research findings emanating from the De-Agrarianisation and Rural Employment (DARE) Research Programme, coordinated by the African Studies Centre, Leiden. The aim of... Show moreThis working paper provides research findings emanating from the De-Agrarianisation and Rural Employment (DARE) Research Programme, coordinated by the African Studies Centre, Leiden. The aim of the Programme was to examine, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the changes in size and significance of the peasant population in sub-Saharan African countries and to draw attention to the new labour patterns and unfolding rural-urban relations now taking place. This paper focuses on South Africa and is concerned with the problem of rural livelihoods against the background of changes which have occurred in South Africa in recent years. It is based on research in Melani village, in the dry interior district of Alice in the former Ciskei, which began in 1996. The paper starts with a description of household structure and income, including pensions, wages, remittances and material benefits derived from informal economic activities as well as the occasional sale of stock and crops. Then it describes various types of rural-urban interaction and interaction between the rural households. The data illustrate the unsatisfactory conditions of rural dwellers who derive either very little or nothing from the land while there are also few employment opportunities locally. Show less
