From war refugees to social protesters: Transformations in the South African Lowveld 1850-2013

ASC Seminar. Kees van der Waal, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. South Africa’s rural areas experienced important changes since the start of colonial rule. However, the long shadow of the past is evident in current ‘cooperative governance’ by traditional leaders and municipalities. By 2013 protest against poor service delivery across the country pointed to government’s inability to meet expectations since democratisation. Unpacking the disputed transformations of the last few decades in one rural settlement in the Lowveld of the Limpopo Province (based on ethnographic fieldwork in 1986-2013), brings out the complexity of local experience. Please register.

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