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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The South African Agrarian Transformation, 1880-1920: A Historiographical Overview
Author:Petersen, ChristianISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:Ufahamu
Volume:21
Issue:1-2
Pages:110-119
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:agricultural workers
agricultural development
agricultural policy
agricultural history
Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment
Development and Technology
History and Exploration
Abstract:The topic of agrarian transformation in South Africa in the years 1880-1920 was fiercely debated during the mid-1980s. This paper gives an overview of the central issues separating the differing interpretations proffered by structuralist and social historiography. The 'Prussian path' experience in South Africa became the central theoretical conceptualization for structuralist historians trying to understand the South African agrarian transformation. In the words of Mike Morris, 'by the 1920s, massive State intervention had secured the victory of the 'Prussian path' of agrarian transformation from above, rendering the labour tenant a de facto wage labourer' (1976). However, during the 1980s, social historians in South Africa actively critiqued and questioned the validity and extent of African participation in wage labour throughout the countryside. The social historiographical perspective, having questioned the extent of proletarianization within the agricultural sector, also disputed the structuralist view of capital accumulation. One of the central investigative differences dividing the social and structuralist historiographies is the extensive use of oral histories to illuminate the personal experiences of ordinary South Africans. Ref.
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