Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South Africa (Perspectives on Southern Africa)

396 Pages·1997·1.66 MB·English

by  Ivan Evans

Preferred Citation: Evans, Ivan. Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South
Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2n39n7f2/
Bureaucracy and Race
Native Administration in South Africa
Ivan Evans
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · London
© 1997 The Regents of the University of California
For Catherine
Preferred Citation: Evans, Ivan. Bureaucracy and Race: Native Administration in South
Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2n39n7f2/
For Catherine
Preface
This book examines the Department of Native Affairs (DNA) in the 1940s
and 1950s, when the racial order known as segregation (1910–48) gave way
to its sterner and more notorious successor, apartheid (1948–94). The
central claim of this book is that one particular state institution, the
Department of Native Affairs (also known as the Native Affairs Department),
was crucial in transforming “the idea of apartheid” into a viable and durable
project. The study presented in these pages therefore attaches a special
importance to that special breed of state managers known as “Native
administrators” in the forging of the apartheid state. A carryover from South
Africa’s colonial nineteenth-century past, Native administrators languished in
lowly obscurity in the segregation years, their enervated performance in the
1940s having much to do with the erosion of segregation. It was therefore
entirely unexpected that Native administrators would acquire the dominant
role they did in remaking South Africa in the 1950s. Nevertheless, this
development transpired to be of defining importance to all South Africans—
but to none more so than to the African majority over whom the department
held sway. The conversion of the DNA from a vacillating liberal outpost into
an arrogant apartheid fortress is the substantive concern of this book.
More conceptually, however, this book addresses two important themes. By
focusing on the specific contribution of Native administrators, it sheds light
on the overpowering role that state administration has played in modern
South Africa. Interventionist administrative institutions were central to
apartheid. Oddly, however, this central development has not received
sustained attention until recently. This study claims that the hypertrophy of
civil administration was the most distinctive feature of state formation in the
1950s, apartheid’s formative decade.
This argument has important ramifications for understanding the logic of
authoritarian regimes. This book argues that the options of authoritarian
regimes, including those of a state form as patently “illegitimate” as the
apartheid behemoth, are not limited to violence and terror—a narrow
perspective which has a lengthy record in the literature of South Africa. By
focusing on the transformation of a specifically civilian apparatus, this study
illustrates that administration was crucial to “normalizing” the coercion that
underpinned racial domination and was surprisingly effective in conditioning
the compliance of the African majority. The study does not, of course,
diminish the importance of racial repression in South Africa. Rather, by
focusing on two key developments in the 1950s—the racialization of urban
space in the form of the “planned African location” and the conversion of
African chiefs into administrative factotums of apartheid—this study
demonstrates that coercion was systematically leached into issues of
everyday administration. In this way, a complex bureaucratic web was
created, ensnaring all South Africans in the blueprints and programs hatched
by administrators in the DNA—but especially trapping Africans, the specific
target of the department’s attentions.
This book has been long in the making. Accordingly it has been influenced by
many colleagues and friends along the way. Among my colleagues at the
University of California at San Diego, my thanks go to Gershon Shafir in
particular for playing such an important and supportive role in the latter
stages of completing the book. I would also like to thank Harvey Goldman,
another colleague who took time off to read and reread the manuscript as it
evolved. Special thanks go to Fred Cooper, who offered a marvelous critique
of the manuscript in one of its earlier incarnations: without his sound advice
and support, this would be a very different and much poorer book. I would
like to thank David Laitin for his critical support, as well as an anonymous
reviewer who provided valuable insight and advice, as did Aaron Cicourel. I
would also like to thank Alan Jeeves for making available to me a difficult-to-
obtain document concerning the Tomlinson Commission. Thanks, too, to
Gavin Williams for his sharp comments. Various librarians in South Africa,
Canada, and the United States have been priceless foot soldiers in the
ceaseless quest for information which must have seemed (and often was)
obscure and exotic. From the shores of California, I remain in their debt.
To my parents goes my deepest gratitude. My father will not read this book,
but I am equally appreciative to both of them for the support they have
given me over the years.
My greatest thanks and respect go to Catherine. Without her infinite
patience and support, this project would still be no more than a fragment of
virtual reality stuck in a hard drive. Matters would have been a good deal
more easy without the rambunctious presence of Alexandre and Dylan,
innocent victims who suffered through this book as much as anyone else.
But I would not change a thing.
La Jolla, California
Abbreviations
AAC
All-African Convention
AANEA
Association of Administrators of Non-European Affairs
ABX
A. B. Xuma Papers
AHI
Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut
ANC
African National Congress
ASSOCOM
Association of Chambers of Commerce
BAC
Bantu Affairs Commission
BIC
Bantu Investment Corporation
BTI
Board of Trade and Industries
CAD
Central Archives Depot
CATA
Cape African Teachers’ Association
CKC
Carter Karis Collection
CLB
Central Labour Bureau
CM
Chamber of Mines
CMT
Chief Magistrate of the Transkei
CNC
Chief Native Commissioner
CPSA
Communist Party of South Africa
CRB
Central Reference Bureau
CSIR
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
DBAD
Department of Bantu Affairs and Development
DNA
Department of Native Affairs
DNL
Director of Native Labour
EFU
Economic Farming Unit
FAK
Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurverenigings
FCI
Federated Chamber of Industries
HAD
House of Assembly Debates
IANEA
Institute of Administrators of Non-European Affairs
ICU
Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union
JCC
Johannesburg City Council
JSAS
Journal of Southern African Studies
MNA
Minister of Native Affairs
MP
Member of Parliament
NAC
Native Affairs Commission
NAD
Native Affairs Department
NBRI
National Building and Research Institute
NC
Native Commissioner
NEAD
Non-European Affairs Department
NEC
Native Economic Commission
NEUM
Non-European Unity Movement
NHO
National Housing Office
NHPC
National Housing and Planning Commission
NLC
Native Laws Commission
NP
National Party
NRB
Native Resettlement Board
NRC
Native Representative Council
NTS
Naturellesake (Archives of the Department of Native Affairs)
OFS
Orange Free State
PAC
Pan-Africanist Congress
PSC
Public Service Commission
SAAU
South African Agricultural Union
SABRA
South African Bureau of Racial Affairs
SAIC
South African Indian Congress
SAIRR
South African Institute of Race Relations
SAJE
South African Journal of Economics
SANAC
South African Native Affairs Commission
SANT
South African Native Trust
SAP
South African Party
SAR
South African Railways
SD
Senate Debates
SEPC
Social and Economic Planning Council
SNA
Secretary for Native Affairs
TLA
Transkeian Legislative Assembly
TOB
Transkeian Organised Bodies
TTA
Transkeian Territorial Authority
TTGC
Transkeian Territories General Council
UME
United Municipal Executive
UP
United Party
UTTGC
United Transkeian Territories General Council
WARS
Western Areas Removal Scheme
WNLA
Witwatersrand Native Labour Association
Ministers of Native Affairs, 1910–60
H. Burton 31 May 1910
J. B. M. Hertzog 25 June 1912
J. W. Sauer 20 December 1912
L. Botha 23 September 1913
J. C. Smuts 3 September 1919
J. B. M. Hertzog 30 June 1924
E. G. Jansen 19 June 1929
P. G. W. Grobler 30 March 1933
H. A. Fagan 3 June 1938
D. Reitz 6 September 1939
P. K. van der Byl 11 January 1943