AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Tribal Recreation and Recreating Tribalism: Culture, Leisure and Social Control on South Africa's Gold Mines, 1940-1950 |
| Authors: | Badenhorst, Cecile Mather, Charles |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 23 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Period: | September |
| Pages: | 473-489 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | ethnicity labour migration gold mining leisure Labor and Employment History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Urbanization and Migration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637512 |
| Abstract: | This paper explores attempts by South Africa's Chamber of Mines in the 1940s to retribalize migrant workers using sport and leisure. The first section of the paper sets the scene of recreation on the minefields by examining the early efforts of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA) and a few mines in recreation. The second section explores the emergence of a new phase in the Chamber of Mines' policy on sport and leisure following the recommendations of the Lansdown Commission in 1943 that, wherever possible, recreation be provided on the mines, as part of an overall strategy of stabilization. Recreation as a means of consolidating 'tribal' culture emerged after the 1946 strike. While the ideology of the 'tribal' migrant had been shattered by the widespread support for the strike, it did not stop the gold mining industry from trying to push back the 'tribal' clock through organized recreation. In the final section the authors focus on the way in which a series of reports which were produced in the aftermath of the 1946 strike reflected the links between culture and social control, for example through the promotion of traditional mine dancing and stick fighting. After 1949, more and more individual mines began to pursue recreational programmes that included detribalized/urban sports like soccer and rugby. Notes, ref., sum. |
