Papers by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
International Review of Social History, 2021
This article is a contribution to and reassessment of the debate about the concept of ‘white labo... more 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 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.
Social History, 2018
Drawing on social histories of rumour, this article challenges notions of white and Afrikaner hom... more Drawing on social histories of rumour, this article challenges notions of white and Afrikaner homogeneity which persist in the scholarship on late and post-apartheid South Africa. In so doing, it demonstrates the revisionist potential of rumour as a historical source, while reinserting class in a scholarship which privileges race as salient historical feature. The article focuses on Arrie Paulus, apartheid South Africa’s most prominent white trade unionist, infamous as the personification of working-class racism. Yet this defender of race-based privilege and staunch Afrikaner nationalist was haunted by a rumour: Paulus, it was
whispered, was not actually white. The rumour circulated in reform-era South Africa and persists in the post-apartheid present. By examining the rumour surrounding Paulus’s racial and ethnic origins in terms of the functions it fulfilled within the particular contexts in which it appeared, this article exposes longstanding tensions around the politics of class characterizing Afrikaner society since the 1970s.
This article on national populism in South Africa brings a view from the South to scholarship ove... more This article on national populism in South Africa brings a view from the South to scholarship overwhelmingly concentrated on the north Atlantic and European world. While in white majority contexts, national populism seeks to capture formal political power, the white minority’s lack of political leverage in postapartheid South Africa sees an assertion of white autonomy emerge in the civil society arena. The article examines the discursive strategies of the Solidarity Movement, a broad-based social movement which claims to represent the white minority, particularly white Afrikaans-speakers, amid black majority rule. It shows how through a reinvention of the past, recasting of race, and reformulation of nationalist narratives by neoliberal logics the
Movement discursively undermines black majority rule, and seeks to create spaces in which white privilege, power and identities are maintained. These findings provide new insights into the relation between populism and democracy, and hold important lessons for the increasingly multicultural global North.
This part issue presents the first comparative conversation on the politics of whiteness in Afric... more This part issue presents the first comparative conversation on the politics of whiteness in Africa.1 It draws together a collection of ethnographic studies that reveal the multifarious manifestations of white African subjectivities, power and privilege in their historical and geographical specificity. This initiates a wider discussion that places the heterogeneity of African whiteness in minority contexts alongside the staying power of white power, privilege and supremacy. In this way, this collection provides insight into the ways in which the shift from colonial-era political dominance to postcolonial minority status has affected issues of race on the continent. This moves Africa to the forefront of the study of race, power and the postcolonial moment.
This review article addresses the increasing dominance of works of creative nonfiction as sources... more This review article addresses the increasing dominance of works of creative nonfiction as sources of the most incisive commentary on post-apartheid South Africa. Reviewing recent work by Lindie Koorts, Jacob Dlamini and Jonny Steinberg, the article highlights the use of the biographical mode of creative nonfiction to induce a reconsideration of the past and present. By placing an individual at the centre of their narratives, these authors tender a humanising narrative which challenges simplistic interpretations of the past and reactions in the present.
This paper offers a critique of the existing historiography on the late apartheid period, arguing... more This paper offers a critique of the existing historiography on the late apartheid period, arguing that white workers’ role in and experience of the unraveling of racial privilege in the labor arena has been obscured by a focus on the high politics of reform and on anti-apartheid resistance emanating from African labor and the broader black population. Reporting from the archive, it discusses two under-utilized archival collections – that of the Commission of Inquiry into Labour Legislation and of the Mineworkers’ Union – as sources for starting to write white working-class organization, politics, identity, and experience into the history of reform and resistance, thereby adding a new dimension to South Africa’s broadly conceived struggle history.
White workers and white working-class politics have been neglected in the historiography of South... more White workers and white working-class politics have been neglected in the historiography of South Africa during the second half of the twentieth century. This article seeks to
extricate white workers from this historiographical neglect and fracture homogenizing
representations of white, specifically Afrikaner, experiences of democratization. It does so by reintroducing class to a debate dominated by race. Employing a discursive analysis sensitive to issues of class, it shows that white workers were confronted with
democratizing change and disempowerment more than a decade before the end of apartheid and suggests that class politics continue to inform white responses in post-apartheid South Africa. In this way, it argues for a historical, discursive approach to uncovering the power dynamics of class and the complex intersection of working-class and racial identities in the late twentieth century.
Building on a long history of racially discriminatory labour practices, South African governments... more Building on a long history of racially discriminatory labour practices, South African governments instituted statutory job reservation through the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924, and extended its scope through Section 77 of its successor Act in 1956.
Section 77, which provided for direct government intervention in reserving certain occupations for specific racial groups, attracted widespread condemnation from apartheid critics throughout its tenure, and has been vilified in the historiography as one of the cornerstones of racial discrimination in apartheid South Africa. This paper evaluates contradictions between the application of the job reservation policy in practice and its perceived power amongst sections of organized labour. We contribute to the discussion on job reservation in South Africa in two ways: first, by assessing the actual impact of Section 77 on racial employment practices, and
second, by examining the reaction of certain groups of organized labour to efforts to scrap the policy from the late-1970s. It shows that the impact of job reservation
determinations in the period 1956 to 1979 was very limited in practice – yet a number of constellations of minority workers strongly defended the policy because of the perceived protection it offered them as workers vulnerable to competition from African labour. We conclude that, in this sense, Section 77 primarily provided symbolic rather than actual job protection to organized labour.
In present-day South Africa, a sense of longing for life in the countryside (the
platteland) incr... more In present-day South Africa, a sense of longing for life in the countryside (the
platteland) increasingly seems to be resonating among Afrikaners. This sentimental yearning is predicated upon the re-imagining of life on the platteland as being wholesome, simple and virtuous, and it seems that Afrikaners are longing for the values and security that they associate with the platteland. This has resulted in an unprecedented rural property boom, the development of agri-tourism and the deliberate marketing of small towns as these romantic notions draw urbanites to the platteland.
This article investigates different articulations of this nostalgic yearning within the context of the political, economic and cultural transformation with which Afrikaners have been trying to come to terms since the advent of democracy in 1994. These developments will be refracted through the prism of nostalgia as a particular kind of memory, and consequently connected to this group’s collective mentality. Theoretical insights regarding the nature of nostalgia will be applied to the phenomenon of Afrikaner nostalgia by analysing a miscellany of cultural texts. Rather than merely describing the nature of Afrikaner nostalgia, this article therefore seeks to explore its contextual function by identifying and laying bare the processes that underlie its developments.
This article does not suggest that other South Africans do not also have a
special affinity for the platteland, but does propose that other communities’ mentality and experiences of the platteland are qualitatively different from Afrikaners’. This article therefore restricts its focus to the role of the platteland in Afrikaner mentality. In so doing, it hopes to provide provocative insight into this group’s historical experiences and self-conception since the advent of democracy in South Africa.
Key words: Afrikaners, South Africa, apartheid, platteland, nostalgia, identity,
collective mentality, group mentality, historical consciousness
Book Reviews by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
Swiss Journal of History/Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, 2022
Books by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
White workers occupied a unique social position in apartheid-era South Africa. Shielded from blac... more White workers occupied a unique social position in apartheid-era South Africa. Shielded from black labour competition in exchange for support for the white minority regime, their race-based status effectively concealed their class-based vulnerability. Centred on this entanglement of race and class, Privileged Precariat examines how South Africa's white workers experienced the dismantling of the racial state and the establishment of black majority rule. Starting from the 1970s, it shows how apartheid reforms constituted the withdrawal of state support for working-class whiteness, sending workers in search of new ways to safeguard their interests in a rapidly changing world. Danelle van Zyl-Hermann tracks the shifting strategies of the blue-collar Mineworkers' Union, culminating in its reinvention, by the 2010s, as the Solidarity Movement, a social movement appealing to cultural nationalism. Integrating unique historical and ethnographic evidence with global debates, Privileged Precariat offers a chronological and interpretative rethinking of South Africa's recent past and contributes new insights from the Global South to debates on race and class in the era of neoliberalism.
This book showcases new research by emerging and established scholars on white workers and the wh... more 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 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.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of southern African studies, African history, and the history of race.
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Papers by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
whispered, was not actually white. The rumour circulated in reform-era South Africa and persists in the post-apartheid present. By examining the rumour surrounding Paulus’s racial and ethnic origins in terms of the functions it fulfilled within the particular contexts in which it appeared, this article exposes longstanding tensions around the politics of class characterizing Afrikaner society since the 1970s.
Movement discursively undermines black majority rule, and seeks to create spaces in which white privilege, power and identities are maintained. These findings provide new insights into the relation between populism and democracy, and hold important lessons for the increasingly multicultural global North.
extricate white workers from this historiographical neglect and fracture homogenizing
representations of white, specifically Afrikaner, experiences of democratization. It does so by reintroducing class to a debate dominated by race. Employing a discursive analysis sensitive to issues of class, it shows that white workers were confronted with
democratizing change and disempowerment more than a decade before the end of apartheid and suggests that class politics continue to inform white responses in post-apartheid South Africa. In this way, it argues for a historical, discursive approach to uncovering the power dynamics of class and the complex intersection of working-class and racial identities in the late twentieth century.
Section 77, which provided for direct government intervention in reserving certain occupations for specific racial groups, attracted widespread condemnation from apartheid critics throughout its tenure, and has been vilified in the historiography as one of the cornerstones of racial discrimination in apartheid South Africa. This paper evaluates contradictions between the application of the job reservation policy in practice and its perceived power amongst sections of organized labour. We contribute to the discussion on job reservation in South Africa in two ways: first, by assessing the actual impact of Section 77 on racial employment practices, and
second, by examining the reaction of certain groups of organized labour to efforts to scrap the policy from the late-1970s. It shows that the impact of job reservation
determinations in the period 1956 to 1979 was very limited in practice – yet a number of constellations of minority workers strongly defended the policy because of the perceived protection it offered them as workers vulnerable to competition from African labour. We conclude that, in this sense, Section 77 primarily provided symbolic rather than actual job protection to organized labour.
platteland) increasingly seems to be resonating among Afrikaners. This sentimental yearning is predicated upon the re-imagining of life on the platteland as being wholesome, simple and virtuous, and it seems that Afrikaners are longing for the values and security that they associate with the platteland. This has resulted in an unprecedented rural property boom, the development of agri-tourism and the deliberate marketing of small towns as these romantic notions draw urbanites to the platteland.
This article investigates different articulations of this nostalgic yearning within the context of the political, economic and cultural transformation with which Afrikaners have been trying to come to terms since the advent of democracy in 1994. These developments will be refracted through the prism of nostalgia as a particular kind of memory, and consequently connected to this group’s collective mentality. Theoretical insights regarding the nature of nostalgia will be applied to the phenomenon of Afrikaner nostalgia by analysing a miscellany of cultural texts. Rather than merely describing the nature of Afrikaner nostalgia, this article therefore seeks to explore its contextual function by identifying and laying bare the processes that underlie its developments.
This article does not suggest that other South Africans do not also have a
special affinity for the platteland, but does propose that other communities’ mentality and experiences of the platteland are qualitatively different from Afrikaners’. This article therefore restricts its focus to the role of the platteland in Afrikaner mentality. In so doing, it hopes to provide provocative insight into this group’s historical experiences and self-conception since the advent of democracy in South Africa.
Key words: Afrikaners, South Africa, apartheid, platteland, nostalgia, identity,
collective mentality, group mentality, historical consciousness
Book Reviews by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
Books by Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
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.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of southern African studies, African history, and the history of race.
whispered, was not actually white. The rumour circulated in reform-era South Africa and persists in the post-apartheid present. By examining the rumour surrounding Paulus’s racial and ethnic origins in terms of the functions it fulfilled within the particular contexts in which it appeared, this article exposes longstanding tensions around the politics of class characterizing Afrikaner society since the 1970s.
Movement discursively undermines black majority rule, and seeks to create spaces in which white privilege, power and identities are maintained. These findings provide new insights into the relation between populism and democracy, and hold important lessons for the increasingly multicultural global North.
extricate white workers from this historiographical neglect and fracture homogenizing
representations of white, specifically Afrikaner, experiences of democratization. It does so by reintroducing class to a debate dominated by race. Employing a discursive analysis sensitive to issues of class, it shows that white workers were confronted with
democratizing change and disempowerment more than a decade before the end of apartheid and suggests that class politics continue to inform white responses in post-apartheid South Africa. In this way, it argues for a historical, discursive approach to uncovering the power dynamics of class and the complex intersection of working-class and racial identities in the late twentieth century.
Section 77, which provided for direct government intervention in reserving certain occupations for specific racial groups, attracted widespread condemnation from apartheid critics throughout its tenure, and has been vilified in the historiography as one of the cornerstones of racial discrimination in apartheid South Africa. This paper evaluates contradictions between the application of the job reservation policy in practice and its perceived power amongst sections of organized labour. We contribute to the discussion on job reservation in South Africa in two ways: first, by assessing the actual impact of Section 77 on racial employment practices, and
second, by examining the reaction of certain groups of organized labour to efforts to scrap the policy from the late-1970s. It shows that the impact of job reservation
determinations in the period 1956 to 1979 was very limited in practice – yet a number of constellations of minority workers strongly defended the policy because of the perceived protection it offered them as workers vulnerable to competition from African labour. We conclude that, in this sense, Section 77 primarily provided symbolic rather than actual job protection to organized labour.
platteland) increasingly seems to be resonating among Afrikaners. This sentimental yearning is predicated upon the re-imagining of life on the platteland as being wholesome, simple and virtuous, and it seems that Afrikaners are longing for the values and security that they associate with the platteland. This has resulted in an unprecedented rural property boom, the development of agri-tourism and the deliberate marketing of small towns as these romantic notions draw urbanites to the platteland.
This article investigates different articulations of this nostalgic yearning within the context of the political, economic and cultural transformation with which Afrikaners have been trying to come to terms since the advent of democracy in 1994. These developments will be refracted through the prism of nostalgia as a particular kind of memory, and consequently connected to this group’s collective mentality. Theoretical insights regarding the nature of nostalgia will be applied to the phenomenon of Afrikaner nostalgia by analysing a miscellany of cultural texts. Rather than merely describing the nature of Afrikaner nostalgia, this article therefore seeks to explore its contextual function by identifying and laying bare the processes that underlie its developments.
This article does not suggest that other South Africans do not also have a
special affinity for the platteland, but does propose that other communities’ mentality and experiences of the platteland are qualitatively different from Afrikaners’. This article therefore restricts its focus to the role of the platteland in Afrikaner mentality. In so doing, it hopes to provide provocative insight into this group’s historical experiences and self-conception since the advent of democracy in South Africa.
Key words: Afrikaners, South Africa, apartheid, platteland, nostalgia, identity,
collective mentality, group mentality, historical consciousness
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.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students of southern African studies, African history, and the history of race.