Journal of Southern African Studies

In this new article, Liam James Kingsley examines the health services and infrastructure in SWAPO exile camps and analyses the significance of international aid in the provision of medical care, as well as the process by which it was procured www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New article alert!! In this article C. Cramer & J. Sender analyse evidence on the effects of investments in high-value agricultural exports, in this specific case, the production of blueberries, on the well-being of poor women in Bojanala District, South Africa
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

In this new article, Martin L. Boston explores how the South African edition of Drum magazine covered the South African singer, Miriam Makeba, prior to and as she left South Africa for the world’s stage in 1959, and into the mid-1960s.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ciskei’s Demise and the Tricky First Decade of Reintegration into the Eastern Cape Province Studying the end years of South Africa’s black homelands and their enduring legacies is essential to grasping some of the governance challenges and socio-political obstacles that have characterised...

New article alert!! Luvuyo Wotshela's study outlines the trials that faced the Ciskei homeland in the democratic transition through to the first decade of its reintegration into the ‘new’ South Africa and its incorporation into the Eastern Cape Province.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Fallen Heroes and First Peoples: Memory Composition Among Two Ex-Military Communities in South Africa The apartheid-era South African Defence Force’s most notorious units, 31 Battalion and 32 Battalion, were composed of African troops. With the onset of Namibia’s 1990 independence, these soldiers a...

Delighted to share the publication of my article "Fallen Heroes and First Peoples: Memory Composition Among Two Ex-Military Communities in South Africa" in @jsas-journal.bsky.social

It is open access and freely available at the link below.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Crash Narratives and Accidental Archives: Rethinking Road Safety in South Africa This article considers the implications of historicising road safety in contemporary South Africa. It offers a critical interrogation of the ‘epidemiological turn’ evident in recent global road saf...

New article alert!! In this study, Rebekah Lee uses ‘crash narratives’ to shed light on the wider historicised and contested dynamics around the nature and meaning of road danger and accidental death in South Africa. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If you're at #ecas2025 in Prague & have a Southern Africa paper you'd like to publish, senior editor @justinpearce.bsky.social & chair Rebekah Lee are here. We'll be at the Meet the Editors event Friday 17.30-19.00, at the T&F stand in the Arts Faculty 3rd floor. Or message us via the ECAS website.

Enjoyed talking about the relationship between MPLA soldiers & ANC liberation fighters in 1980s Angola: more difficult than the official declarations of solidarity would suggest. I argue it fuelled the 1984 MK mutiny.
The article will be published in @jsas-journal.bsky.social early next year.

The Hostel Peace Initiative: Rethinking Violence and Peace at the End of Apartheid In August 1992, one of the most remarkable peace initiatives was launched in South Africa when two warring migrant worker hostels began negotiating for a truce. The residents of the African Nationa...

New article alert!! In this article, Franziska Rueedi examines the Hostel Peace Initiative in the greater Johannesburg areas during the final years of Apartheid and uses it to shed new light on the democratic transition in South Africa
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Apartheid’s Moral Scaffolds: Personhood and the Making of Difference from Below along the Southern African Frontier This article explores how moral communities that emerged along frontiers of settlement in southern Africa mediated colonial categories of difference. The existing literature’s emphasis on assimilat...

New article alert!! In this article, Khumisho Moguerane uses Noni Jabavu’s ethnographic writing to explore how moral communities that emerged along frontiers of settlement in southern Africa mediated colonial categories of difference
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Load Shedding Experience, Gender and Morality in Zambia, 2015–2024 The overdependence of Zambia’s energy sector on hydroelectricity exposes the country to significant vulnerabilities in times of drought brought about by climate change. People often experience thes...

New article alert!! In this article, James Musonda draws on ethnographic research on the Zambian Copperbelt to explore load shedding from 3 angles: people’s everyday experiences, gender implications, and load shedding as a moral critique of the government www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Beyond the Borders of Lesotho: The Basutoland Congress Party’s Transnational Connections and its Political and Ideological Pragmatism, 1952–1970 This article contributes to the literature on international and transnational connections of liberation movements in southern Africa. It examines the understudied history of the Basutoland Congress...

New Article alert!! In this article, Matteo Grilli examines the transnational connections of the Basutoland Congress Party from 1952 to 70. He reveals the pragmatic approach of BCP leader, Ntsu Mokhehle, to the different political models and ideologies www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

History, Histories and Historians - BZS RD25 Join BZS RD25 for lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history over past years, and be introduced to exciting new scholarship. This is a two day, hybrid event, in-person at St Antony's College,...

Join the BZS research day for a lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. This will be a hybrid event - sign up using this link
www.eventbrite.com/cc/history-h...

Join the BZS research day for a lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history at St Antony's College, University of Oxford, on June 21 & 22

Sisonke: A Critical Appraisal of South Africa’s Covid-19 Vaccine Trial When South Africa’s Covid-19 pandemic emerged in March 2020, scientists mobilised quickly and effectively to parse and produce evidence to inform the state’s response. South Africa became a site fo...

In this new article, Rebecca Hodes focuses on the Sisonke COVID-19 vaccine trial in South Africa. The article analyses the insights and experiences of investigators, healthcare workers, and participants in the trial www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

‘Back to the Fields’: The Implementation and Impact of Government Efforts to Revive Field Cultivation in Ndabakazi in the Eastern Cape, South Africa Field cultivation abandonment in rural parts of South Africa is widely acknowledged in academic literature, but what remains less reported are the government efforts to revamp field cultivation. In...

New Article!! In this article, S. Zantsi and M. B. Xaba critically examine one of the South African government’s efforts to revive maize field cultivation using the case study of the Zanentlutha programme in Ndabakazi villages in Butterworth, Eastern Cape www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Join the BZS research day for a lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history at St Antony's College, University of Oxford, on June 21 & 22

THREAD: Anthropologist @jannerantala10.bsky.social tells how his JSAS article on rap in #Mozambique (which in a new departure for JSAS included a playlist) was used in a university entry exam in Finland.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

History, Histories and Historians - BZS RD25 Join BZS RD25 for lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history over past years, and be introduced to exciting new scholarship. This is a two day, hybrid event, in-person at St Antony's College,...

Join the BZS research day for a lively debate on the writing of Zimbabwe's history at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. This will be a hybrid event - sign up using this link
www.eventbrite.com/cc/history-h...

Gift Wasambo Kayira

JSAS Special Issue - Beyond Failure: Exploring the Heart of the Malawian State - is being launched in #Malawi now. Gift Wasambo Kayira speaks to his article 'Contesting the State in Malawi: Covid-19 and the Quest for Inclusive Democracy'.
Issue online here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjss20/5...

‘Looking forward to seeing you this afternoon, online or in person @unima_official at the launch of the @JSAS_Editors SI ‘#BeyondFailure: exploring the #heart of the #Malawian #state ! To join online don’t forget to register: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Beyond Failure: Exploring the Heart of the Malawian State Published in Journal of Southern African Studies (Vol. 50, No. 5, 2024)

Farrell & @TanjaDHendriks argue for the need to move ‘#BeyondFailure’ to understand how the #Malawi #state is actually produced, enacted and experienced in practice.They suggest the concept of the #heart (#mtima) offers an alternative analytic to failure. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Malawian Democracy Beyond Patrons and Clients: Distribution in Parliamentary Elections and the Moral Grounds of Democratic Relationships The distribution of cash, resources and campaign materials is a characteristic feature of elections in Malawi and across Africa. Scholars, commentators and international bodies often describe these...

New article!!! Sam Farrell challenges depictions of distribution by electoral candidates in Malawi as #votebuying or #clientelism. Instead, they formed the moral grounds of #democratic relationships with constituents in a context of increasing inequality www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Beyond Chameleons? On Malawian Politicians, Anti-Politicians and the Motivations and Meanings of Political Life Few aspects of contemporary Malawi are seen to be more steeped in failure – above all moral failure – as politics and politicians. As a class of actors, politicians are cast in an exceptionally neg...

In this article, Calum Fisher explores #Malawian MPs’ narratives of how they got involved in politics. Motivated by a desire to serve their ‘home’ communities, they often come to experience themselves as failures in the process representing constituents www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

‘On Tuesday 27 May our new Special Issue www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjss20/c... ‘#BeyondFailure: exploring the #heart of the #Malawian #state’ will be launched @unima_official. Join in person or register here for the link to join online: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Contesting the State in Malawi: Covid-19 and the Quest for Inclusive Democracy In April 2020, the Malawi government declared a 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19. This decision was met with protests across the country. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Defenders Coaliti...

New article alert!!! In this new article, Gift Wasambo Kayira uses the protests against the 21-day COVID-19 lockdown to cast a light on democratic culture in Malawi
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#cfp urban-religious worldmaking in Africa
16-20 September 2025
Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa
Deadline: 30 April 2025. For more details click on the link www.a-asr.org/call-for-pap...
@benjaminkirby.bsky.social @aarweb.bsky.social @jsas-journal.bsky.social

Bureaucracy as Resistance: Everyday Acts of Power in the Malawi Ministry of Health This paper investigates the phenomenon of bureaucratic resistance in the Malawi Ministry of Health. While bureaucrats are often seen to resist their superiors through behaviours like shirking or mi...

In this new paper, Sara E Fischer examines how bureaucrats in the Malawi Health Ministry use bureaucratic tools – policies, documents and processes – to resist the will of donors and maintain control over health projects and their implementation
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Athol Fugard: the great South African playwright who captured what it means to be human His characters – tramps, discarded people, poor people, people on the fringes – are connected with all the people we know of today who are refugees.

JSAS co-editor Dennis Walder, a scholar of Athol Fugard's work, pays tribute to the South African playwright and opponent of apartheid who died recently.
theconversation.com/athol-fugard...

State Power, Dilemmas and African Agency: Peasant Food Production and the Making of the Colonial State in Malawi, 1883–1961 Since the 1970s, it has become conventional among scholars to associate the colonial state in Malawi with the disruptions of African economies through its labour, land, taxation, marketing, agricul...

In this new paper, Nkhoma examines the complex interactions, practices and relationships that shaped the efforts of colonial officials to promote conservation and sustainably increase levels of peasants’ food production in Malawi from 1883 to 1961 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....