SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

The ANC in Rural South Africa: KwaZulu-Natal after 1994

The changing patterns of internal migration illuminate some of the huge changes in South Africa's rural regions. Industrial decline in the 1980s was accompanied by a wane in older patterns of labour migration, where men once journeyed between rural homes and the industrial city; more fluid patterns of mobility emerged, spanning small towns and peri-urban areas, travelled by more equal numbers of men and women. At the same time (and particularly after 1994) rural households relied increasingly less on the wages remitted by male workers and more on government grants and pensions. This paper explores how the increasing weight of government expenditures infused the burgeoning, multi-directional flows of trade, transport in the densely settled rural and peri-urban areas of KwaZulu Natal. By capturing these flows the African National Congress extended their reach over rural KwaZulu Natal, wresting the province from their rivals in the Inkatha Freedom Party. Intriguingly, this was not the triumph of a centralised, nationalist government over a schismatic regionalist party; instead, the key provincial ANC leaders (many of whom were former migrant trade unionists) operated through decentralised networks and spoke the language of local identity.