The struggle for the city : alcohol, the ematsheni and popular culture in Durban, 1902-1936

This thesis concerns itself with the genesis and development of the Durban system but also provides a point of entry into the social history of Durban. There are a number of threads which hold this study together. The most central of these comprises an examination of those struggles between ordinary African people and the white rulers of the town over access to, and the production of drink generally, and utshwala in particular. The lengths to which the state in South Africa has gone in order to control the supply of alcohol, particularly utshwala, to African popular classes and the intensity of the resistance to this control has, with one notable exception, been largely ignored by historians. This neglect is understandable. Not only is the study of the making of South Africa's working classes in its infancy but regional social histories have only recently begun to make their appearance in written form. Moreover, research has tended to focus on the Transvaal, especially the Witwatersrand, and the main concern of such studies has been to concentrate on the regional with a view to arriving at more general conclusions about the state and the nature of class formation and consciousness. In their sensitivity to local-level and regional concerns, these studies are invaluable and certainly they represent an important step away from, as Tim Keegan has noted, the growing sterility of the debates on race and class, on segregationist ideology and practice, and on the nature and role of the state.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Historical Studies

Year dc:date.issued

1984

Author dc:creator

• La Hausse, Paul

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Webb, Colin
• Harries, Patrick

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17888

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/17888