Why were the 1980s "millenarian"? Style, repertoire, space and authority in South Africa's black cities

In: Journal of historical sociology, Volume 13, Issue 1, p. 78-110

Abstract

This paper argues that some of the key determinants of the style and repertoire of the South African township revolts of the mid‐eighties lie in the changing configurations of race, class and authority within townships over a long period of time. One major and pivotal change in these relationships is identified, and the paper employs ideal‐typical constructions of the nature of townships in the two crucial eras concerned: what could broadly be described as the era of "welfare paternalism" and succeeding it after a period of complex change, the equally broadly characterized era of "racial modernism". Though both eras were racist, exploitative, and engendered class and community struggles they differed from one another in important stylistic and spatial ways. This paper suggests that the move from the one era to the other constitutes the move from a mode of "governability" to one of "ungovernability", and highlights the form, repertoire and style of rebellion.