To swim with crocodiles : land, violence, and belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996 / Jill E. Kelly.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Kelly, Jill E., author.

Series:

• African history and culture.
• African history and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Legitimacy of governments--South Africa.
• Political violence--South Africa--History--20th century.
• Land tenure--South Africa--Table Mountain (KwaZulu-Natal).
• Table Mountain (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)--Politics and government.
• South Africa--Politics and government--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (397 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2018]

Summary:

To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence, and Belonging in South Africa, 1800-1996 offers a fresh perspective on the history of rural politics in South Africa, from the rise of the Zulu kingdom to the civil war at the dawn of democracy in KwaZulu-Natal. The book shows how Africans in the Table Mountain region drew on the cultural inheritance of ukukhonza --a practice of affiliation that binds together chiefs and subjects--to seek social and physical security in times of war and upheaval. Grounded in a rich combination of archival sources and oral interviews, this book examines relations within and between chiefdoms to bring wider concerns of African studies into focus, including land, violence, chieftaincy, ethnic and nationalist politics, and development. Colonial indirect rule, segregation, and apartheid attempted to fix formerly fluid polities into territorial "tribes" and ethnic identities, but the Zulu practice of ukukhonza maintained its flexibility and endured. By exploring what Zulu men and women knew about and how they remembered ukukhonza , Kelly reveals how Africans envisioned and defined relationships with the land, their chiefs, and their neighbors as white minority rule transformed the countryside and local institutions of governance.

Contents:

• Part One. Violence, allegiance, and authority in the making of kingdoms and colony
• "Chief by the people": Nomsimekwana Mdluli, security, and authority in the time before tribes
• "He said he wants to be registered as a chief": Hereditary chiefs and government tribes, 1843-1905
• Part Two. The violence of young men, forced removals, and betterment
• "Ngangezwe claims to be an hereditary chief": Organizing authority by wards and war, 1905-1930
• "They refuse to go to other chiefs' areas": The Nagle dam and forced removals, 1930-1950
• "He said that he wanted the tribe to decide": boundaries and betterment, 1948-1971
• "Only the fourth chief": Ethnic politics and land jurisdiction, 1971-1988
• Part Three. Civil war in South Africa
• "Because my people are in the MDM, I have to be with them": Ethnic and African nationalist politics during civil war, 1983-1990
• "They were worried about the way our chief was managing his nation": Land, authority, and belonging, 1990-1996.

Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

• 1-62895-332-2
• 1-60917-565-4

OCLC:

1033519621