Publisher's Synopsis
In "The Politics of Official Discourse in 20th Century South Africa", Adam Ashforth uses a close reading of a series of major commission reports into the "native question" as a lens through which to examine the formation and reproduction of state power.;Dr Ashforth examines the fundamental changes in official understandings of social differentation in South Africa through periods of crisis in the 20th century. He goes to the heart of power in the divided state by analyzing the framework governing authoritative ways of speaking of, for, and to the social category once named "natives" and shows how officially-approved forms of knowledge of "native life" were used as a substitute for political representation by Africans and have continually served to justify repression. He also demonstrates how, in the face of constant resistance, the central political structures of the state have been organized in terms of schemes of legitimation specifying relationships between land, labour,and citizenship.;Dr Ashforth analyzes the central terms used by those who, acting in the name of the state, strove to represent a repressive and exploitative regime as necessary, practical, and just. By tracing the history of changes in official discourse on the "native question", he illuminates the central contradictions in the politics of the Apartheid state of today.
