Rural resistance in South Africa : the Mpondo revolts after fifty years / edited by Thembela Kepe, Lungisile Ntsebeza.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Resistance in the countryside: the Mpondo revolts contextualized / / Lungisile Ntxebeza -- Reading and writing the Mpondo revolts / Jimmy Pieterse -- Govan Mbeki's The peasant's revolt: a critical examination / Alison Drew -- The Mpondo revolt through the eyes of Leornard Mdingi and Anderson Ganyile / William Beinart -- All quite on the Western front: Nyandeni acquiescence in the Mpondoland revolt / Fred Hendricks and Jeff Pieres -- Hoyce Phundulu, the Mpondo revolt, and the rise of the National Union of Mine Workers / T. Dunbar Moodie, with Hoyce Phundulu -- The moving black forest of Africa: the Mpondo rebellion, migrancy and black worker consciousness in KwaZulu Natal / Ari Sitas -- The shock of the new: Ngquza Hill / Diana Wylie -- Tangible and intangible Ngquza Hill: a study of landscape and memory/ Liana Muller -- A bag of soil, a bullet from up high: some meanings of the Mpondo revolts today / Jonny Steinberg -- Discontent and apathy: post-apartheid rural land reform in the context of the Mpondo revolts / Thembela Kepe -- "We don't want your development!": resistance to imposed development in northeastern Pondoland / Jacques P. de Wet, with Reuben Message.

Much has been written about anti-apartheid resistance by the marginalized people of South Africa, as well as its violent repression by security forces in urban areas (e.g. Sharpeville massacre; Soweto riots). Very little attention has been paid to resistance by rural people. The Mpondo Revolts, which began in the 1950s and reached a climax in 1960, rank among the most significant rural resistances in South Africa. Here Mpondo villagers emphatically rejected the introduction of Bantu Authorities and unpopular rural land use planning that meant loss of land. The volume presents a fresh understanding of the uprising; as well as its meaning and significance then and now, particularly relating to land, rural governance, party politics and the agency of the marginalized.