Sarah Bruchhuasen, 2014
The purpose of this
article is to demonstrate some of the ways in which rural histories can enhance
our understanding of both rural and urban resistance, both past and present, in
contemporary South Africa. In order to do so, it explores two books in
conversation with each other, Thembela Kepe and Lungisile Ntsebeza’s edited volume
Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years as well
as Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope, Luke Sinwell and Bongani
Xezwi’s Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer. These two
books provide a useful platform from which to engage in a re-examination of
rurally based protest and repression in order to locate some of the suggestive
links, particularly in regard to the transmission of repertoires of struggle,
between the Marikana strike and the Mpondo revolts, as well as the on-going
struggles of the organised poor in some of South Africa’s urban centres.
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