The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth-Century South Africa

by Adam Ashforth

This study uses a close reading of a series of major commission reports into the "Native Question" to examine the formation and reproduction of state power in South Africa. Analyzing the framework governing authoritative ways of speaking of, for, and to Blacks (once called "Natives"), Ashforth
demonstrates how officially-approved forms of knowledge of "Native Life" substitute for political representation by Africans and continually serve to justify repression. He examines the terms used by those who, acting in the name of the state, strive to represent apartheid as necessary, practical,
and just. Tracing the history of official discourse on the political status of African labor, the work illuminates the central contradictions in the politics of this repressive and exploitative regime.

310 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 1990