Ideologies of white nationalism developed across colonial southern Africa. This week, we will examine how and why white nationalist ideologies developed, focussing on the development of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa. We will consider how Afrikaner nationalism was shaped by race, gender and class dynamics and by the 'poor white problem'.

Core Reading

Herman Giliomee, 'The Beginnings of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1870–1915', South African Historical Journal, 19, 1 (1987), pp. 115-142.

Saul Dubow, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism, Apartheid and the Conceptualization of “Race”’, Journal of African History, 33 (1992), 207-37.

D. O’Meara, ‘The Afrikaner Broederbond, 1927-1948. Class Vanguard of Afrikaner Nationalism’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 3 (1977), pp. 156 – 186.

Louise Vincent, 'Bread and Honour: White Working Class Women and Afrikaner Nationalism in the 1930s', Journal of Southern African Studies 26 (2000), pp. 61-78.

Seminar Questions

1. How and why did Afrikaner nationalism develop?

2. What role did the Afrikaner Broederbond play in the development of Afrikaner nationalism?

3. Why did the 'poor white problem' become a major issue in Afrikaner politics in the early twentieth century?

4. How was Afrikaner identity shaped by issues of gender and class?

Primary Sources

André du Toit and Hermann Giliomee (eds), Afrikaner political thought: analysis and documents. Vol. I: 1780-1850. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1983).

Further Reading

K. Alexander, ‘Orphans of the Empire: An Analysis of Elements of White Identity and Ideology Construction in Zimbabwe’, in B. Raftopoulos and T. Savage (eds), Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation (Cape Town, 2004), pp. 193-212.

Helen Bradford, “Gentlemen and Boers: Afrikaner Nationalism, Gender and Colonial Warfare in the South African War” in Greg Cuthbertson, Albert Gundlingh, and Mary-Lynn Suttie (eds.), Writing a Wider War (2002) 37-66

Elsabe Brink, 'Man-Made Women: Gender, class and the ideology of the volksmoeder', in Cherryl Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (London, 1990), pp. 273-292.

D. Caute, Under the Skin. The Death of White Rhodesia (London, 1983).

J. M. Coetzee, ‘The Mind of Apartheid: Geoffrey Cronjé (1907-)’, Social Dynamics 17 (1991), pp. 1-35.

S. E. Duff, 'Saving the Child to Save the Nation: Poverty, Whiteness and Childhood in the Cape Colony, c.1870–1895', Journal of Southern African Studies, 37, 2 (2011), pp. 229-245.

Marijke Du Toit, 'The Domesticity of Afrikaner Nationalism: Volksmoeders and the ACVV, 1904-1929', Journal of Southern African Studies 29 (2003), pp. 155-176.

André Du Toit, 'No Chosen People: The Myth of the Calvinist Origins of Afrikaner Nationalism and Racial Ideology', The American Historical Review, 88, 4 (1983), pp. 920-952.

Gann, L. H. and P. Duignan, ‘Changing Patterns of a White Elite: Rhodesians and other Settlers’, in Gann, L. H. and P. Duignan (eds), Colonialism in Africa 1870, vol. ii, (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 92-170.

Herman Giliomee, The Afrikaners (Cape Town, 2003).

Hermann Giliomee, 'Western Cape Farmers and the Beginnings of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1870-1915', Journal of Southern African Studies, 14, 1 (1987), pp. 38-63.

Godwin, P. and I. Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die. ’ The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, c. 1970–1980 (Oxford, 1993).

Hancock, I. White Liberals, Moderates and Radicals in Rhodesia, 1953–1980 (London, 1984).

D. M. Hughes, Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging (New York, 2010).

Jonathan Hyslop, 'White Working-Class Women and the Invention of Apartheid: ‘Purified’ Afrikaner Nationalist Agitation for Legislation Against ‘Mixed’ Marriages, 1934–9', The Journal of African History, 36, 1 (1995), pp. 57-81.

Frederick A. Johnstone, 'White Prosperity and White Supremacy in South Africa Today', African Affairs, 69 (1970), 124-40.

Kennedy, D., Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1980-1939 (Durham, 1982).

Susanne M. Klausen, Race, maternity, and the politics of birth control in South Africa, 1910-39 (2004). Ebook

Susanne M. Klausen, Abortion Under Apartheid: Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa (Oxford, 2015).

Kate Law, '"Even a Labourer is Worthy of His Hire: How Much More a Wife?” Gender and the Contested Nature of Domesticity in Colonial Zimbabwe, c. 1945-1978’, South African Historical Journal 63, (2011), pp. 456-474.

Donal Lowry, '"White woman's country": Ethel Tawse Jollie and the making of White Rhodesia', Journal of Southern African Studies 23 (1997), pp. 259-281.

Anne McClintock, 'Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family', Feminist Review, 44 (1993), pp. 61-80.

J. McCulloch, Black Peril, White Virtue: Sexual Crime in Southern Rhodesia (Bloomington, 2000).

Dan O’Meara, Volkscapitalisme (Cambridge, 1983).

Jamie Miller, An African Volk: The Apartheid Regime and Its Search for Survival (Oxford University Press, 2016).

T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid and Afrikaner Civil Religion (London, 1975).

Alois S. Mlambo and Neil Parsons, A History of Southern Africa (London, 2019). [Chapters 7 and 8 address key developments in Afrikaner nationalism and South African politics from c. 1902 to 1948]

R. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal, 1880-1920 (Pretoria, 2001).

Sue Onslow, ‘A Question of Timing: South Africa and Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 1964-65’, Cold War History, 5 (2005), 129-59.

Sue Onslow (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation (London: Routledge, 2009).

Sue Onslow, ‘Resistance to “Winds of Change”: The Emergence of the “Unholy Alliance” between Southern Rhodesia, Portugal and South Africa, 1964-5’ in L. J. Butler and Sarah Stockwell (eds), The Wind of Change: Harold Macmillan and British Decolonization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 215-34.

Deborah Posel, 'The meaning of apartheid before 1948: conflicting interests and forces within the Afrikaner nationalist alliance', Journal of Southern African Studies, 14, 1 (1987), pp. 123-139.

Deborah Posel, The Making of Apartheid (Oxford, 1991).

Mark Suzman, Ethnic nationalism and state power: the rise of Irish nationalism, Afrikaner nationalism and Zionism (1999). Ebook

Liz Stanley and Helen Dampier, ‘Cultural Entrepreneurs and Women’s Testimony Writings: From the South African War to 1940’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 33(3), (2007), pp. 501-519.

Swart, Sandra, ‘‘A Boer And His Gun And His Wife Are The Three Things Always Together’: Republican Masculinity and the 1914 Rebellion’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24(4), (1998), pp. 737-751.

Louise Vincent, 'The Power Behind the Scenes: The Afrikaner Nationalist Women's Parties, 1915 to 1931', South African Historical Journal, 40 (1999), pp. 51-73.

Louise Vincent, ‘A Cake of Soap: The Volksmoeder Ideology and Afrikaner Women’s Campaign for the Vote’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 32, 1 (1999), pp. 1-17.

L. White, Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization (Chicago, 2015).

Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, Waste of a White Skin: The Carnegie Corporation and the Racial Logic of White Vulnerability (2015). Ebook via JSTOR