W Beinart
Biographic Data
| ID | 2237 |
|---|---|
| NAME | W Beinart |
| GIVEN NAMES | W |
| FAMILY NAME | Beinart |
| SIGNATURE | BEINART W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4531-6389 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 97 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 417 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 97 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
The Expansion of African Private Land Ownership in Isidenge, Stutterheim, Eastern Cape 1994–2024
The Eastern Cape and East London
Cecil Rhodes
This article focuses on two key questions that have been central in debates following the Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Oxford in 2015-16: whether Rhodes supported and contributed to racial segregation in the Cape Colony, and how to characterise the violence in the conquest of Zimbabwe in the 1890s. With respect to the Cape, the evidence shows that Rhodes supported developments that intensified racial segregation in the late 19th…
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
South Africa provides a unique vantage point from which to examine the scientific imagination over the last three centuries, when its position on the African continent made it a staging post for Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialism. In the eighteenth century, South African plants and animals caught the imagination of visiting Europeans. In the nineteenth century, science became central to imperial conquest, devastating wars, agricultural in…
Covid-19 control strategies and intervention effects in resource limited settings
Introduction Many countries with weaker health systems are struggling to put together a coherent strategy against the COVID-19 epidemic. We explored COVID-19 control strategies that could offer the greatest benefit in resource limited settings. Methods Using an age-structured SEIR model, we explored the effects of COVID-19 control interventions–a lockdown, physical distancing measures, and active case finding (testing and isolation, contact traci…
Response to the review by Ben Cousins of Rights to Land
Ben Cousins has written a detailed and fair, if critical, review of our short book and we welcome the invitation from the South African Historical Journal to engage with it.1 Rights to Land dealt w
‘From Elephant’s Foot … to Cortisone’
In 1949 scientists in the United States announced the dramatic effects of a new drug, cortisone. They found that cortisone could be made cheaply from diosgenin, extracted from Mexican wild yam species, and began a global search for supplementary plants. By the early 1950s, South African botanists had identified the yam Dioscorea sylvatica, elephant’s foot, as promising. Boots, a major British pharmaceutical company, was keen to develop a source o…
A Century of Migrancy from Mpondoland
An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human–predator relations
In a world of shrinking habitats and increasing competition for natural resources, potentially dangerous predators bring the challenges of coexisting with wildlife sharply into focus. Through interdisciplinary collaboration among authors trained in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we reviewed current approaches to mitigating adverse human–predator encounters and devised a vision for future approaches to understanding and mit…
Beyond ‘Homelands’
'Homeland' or bantustan policy shaped the history of South Africa during the apartheid era. Most 'homelands' never achieved full spatial consolidation and their constituent parts were interspersed with white-owned farming areas and small towns. Some 'homelands' incorporated peri-urban zones of cities whose centres remained in South Africa proper. The term bantustans, with its dismissive reference to apparently inconsequential central Asian republ…
Why Have South African Smallholders Largely Abandoned Arable Production in Fields? A Case Study
Our article concerns the decline in arable production in the former homelands of South Africa – part of a longer-term trend that has probably accelerated since the mid 1990s. Our material is taken largely from interviews in Mbotyi village on the Eastern Cape coast, where rainfall is high. Even here, arable fields have largely been left fallow in recent years. Our interviews confirm that people in Mbotyi believe that there has been a marked and sh…
Patrick Harries, Member of the Council of the International African Institute from 2014 to 2016
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Terence Ranger as Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, University of Oxford
The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives Land Act of 1913
The Natives Land Act of 1913 was a key example of the segregationist and racist legislation that fixed discriminatory foundations in South African law. We argue in this article that the Act did not take land away from African people directly, and that in the short term its impact was limited. Its most immediate effect was to undermine black tenants on white-owned land, but even here the consequences were mixed and slow to materialise. In many way…
Obituary
A Century of Migrancy from Mpondoland
Migrant mineworkers from Mpondoland came into the news as the victims of the shootings at Marikana platinum mine in August 2012. Fourteen out of the 45 people who met their deaths over the two weeks of turmoil at Marikana came from this area and another 16 from other former Transkeian districts in the Eastern Cape province. Evidence suggests that workers from such rural communities, which have been sending long distance migrants to the mines for …
Animal disease and the limits of local knowledge
Some proponents of local knowledge, such as Paul Sillitoe, have expressed second thoughts about its capacity to effect development on the 'revolutionary' scale once predicted. Our argument in this article follows a similar route. Recent research into the management of livestock in South Africa makes clear that rural African livestock farmers experience uncertainty in relation to the control of stock diseases. State provision of veterinary service…
Beyond ‘Homelands’
‘Homeland’ or bantustan policy1 shaped the history of South Africa for about 40 years during the apartheid era. Yet the ‘homelands’ collapsed formally nearly two decades ago. It is time to think ab
The Mpondo Revolt Through The Eyes Of Leonard Mdingi And Anderson Ganyile
Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rural resistance in South Africa : the Mpondo revolts after fifty years / edited by Thembela Kepe, Lungisile Ntsebeza. p. cm. -- (Afrika-Studiecentrum series ; v. 22) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-21446-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Pondo Revolt, South
FYI Workshop
The expanding and exciting research on the Bakoni society of Mpumalanga, of which we heard at the workshop, offers a window on a lost African civilisation in southern Africa. The evidence for a dis
Wildlife Media and Representations of Africa, 1950s to the 1970s
Wildlife literature, photography, and film on Africa have long been popular in Western countries and beyond. Academic literature on visual representations of Africa discusses how the camera has colonized and possessed African people, nature, and places. Both James Ryan and Paul Landau have developed Susan Sontag's analogy of shooting with camera and rifle, comparing the power dynamics at work. Our aim is to expand interpretations of media on Afri…
Experts and Expertise in Colonial Africa Reconsidered
Africanists have long criticized the social construction, and consequences, of technical knowledge. Colonial science was seen as a particularly problematic enterprise, moulded by authoritarian colonial states, wherein science 'delineated the relationship of power and authority between rulers and ruled'. Much the same critique has been applied to post-colonial experts and expertise, becoming almost paradigmatic in the literature. This article seek…
Transferências de plantas em uma perspectiva histórica
Este artigo explora algumas rotas dentro da história da transferência de plantas, especialmente durante o período do imperialismo europeu. Tenta extrair conhecimento de diferentes campos de pesquisa, que geralmente não estão justapostos, tecendo em conjunto perspectivas advindas de disciplinas contrastantes. Não pretende oferecer uma história completa, pois tal seria uma tarefa muito mais complexa. Tentamos incluir deliberadamente plantas cultiva…
Empire and the Visual Representation of Nature, 1860–1960 1
In this article, we explore some of the images transmitted about the landscapes and environments of the British empire, largely during the century after 1860. While our major focus is on British‐based representations, some reference is made to artistic work elsewhere that fed into the imperial visual store. As a number of scholars have argued, some visual materials familiarized British audiences with far‐flung conquered zones and naturalized thei…
Land Untitled
Soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development
(1984). Soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development: a Southern African exploration, 1900–1960. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 52-83
Environment and Empire
European imperialism was extraordinarily far-reaching: a key global historical process of the last 500 years. It locked disparate human societies together over a wider area than any previous imperial expansion; it underpinned the repopulation of the Americas and Australasia; it was the precursor of globalization as we now understand it. Imperialism was inseparable from the history of global environmental change. Metropolitan countries sought raw …
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860-1930
This book examines in detail how the people of one formerly independent African chiefdom were absorbed into the wider South African society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first two chapters discuss the nature of the pre-colonial polity, changes in agricultural production during the early stages of colonisation, colonial policy and the beginnings of mass labour migrancy up to about 1910. The last three chapters, focu…
Experts and Expertise in Colonial Africa Reconsidered
Africanists have long criticized the social construction, and consequences, of technical knowledge. Colonial science was seen as a particularly problematic enterprise, moulded by authoritarian colonial states, wherein science 'delineated the relationship of power and authority between rulers and ruled'. Much the same critique has been applied to post-colonial experts and expertise, becoming almost paradigmatic in the literature. This article seek…
Introduction
(1989). Introduction: the politics of colonial conservation. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 15, Politics of Conservation in Southern Africa, pp. 143-162
African history and environmental history
Journal Article African history and environmental history Get access W Beinart W Beinart University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 395, April 2000, Pages 269–302, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/99.395.269 Published: 01 April 2000
Political and collective violence in Southern African historiography
(1992). Political and collective violence in Southern African historiography. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 18, Political Violence in Southern Africa, pp. 455-486
Empire, Hunting and Ecological Change in Southern and Central Africa
Journal Article EMPIRE, HUNTING AND ECOLOGICAL CHANGE IN SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA Get access William Beinart William Beinart University of Bristol Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 128, Issue 1, August 1990, Pages 162–186, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/128.1.162 Published: 01 August 1990
Transkeian Migrant Workers and Youth Labour on the Natal Sugar Estates 1918–1948
During the inter-war years, there were frequent reports of desertion, youth labour and atrocious conditions on the sugar estates of Natal, South Africa. Sugar production, assisted by heavy state protection, was expanding rapidly; planters recruited vigorously amongst rural Africans in Transkei to replace Indian indentured workers. They also used their political muscle in order to prevent the extension of labour regulations in the mining industry …
Conflict in Qumbu
In 1912 and 1913, a 'wave of lawlessness' swept over Qumbu district, Transkei. I At its peak, it took the form of a series of violent clashes between neighbouring locations. The scale of violence was not dramatic - perhaps five people were killed and some thirty homesteads burnt in the major encounter of October 1913 - but it was sufficient to persuade officials to send in the military, dismiss a headman, and bring charges against some of those i…
European Traders and the Mpondo Paramountcy, 1878–1886
For a brief period between about 1878 and 1886, European traders in Eastern Pondoland played an important role in the politics of the chieftaincy. In these years the formerly amicable relationship between the Mpondo chiefs and the Cape Colony broke down. An expansionist colonial government confiscated the Mpondo port at St Johns, took control of an area claimed by the paramountcy, and threatened the political independence of the chiefs. The trade…
The Historical Context and Legacy of the Natives Land Act of 1913
The Natives Land Act of 1913 was a key example of the segregationist and racist legislation that fixed discriminatory foundations in South African law. We argue in this article that the Act did not take land away from African people directly, and that in the short term its impact was limited. Its most immediate effect was to undermine black tenants on white-owned land, but even here the consequences were mixed and slow to materialise. In many way…
Transkeian smallholders and agrarian reform
(1992). Transkeian smallholders and agrarian reform. Journal of Contemporary African Studies: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 178-199
The night of the jackal
Journal Article THE NIGHT OF THE JACKAL: SHEEP, PASTURES AND PREDATORS IN THE CAPE Get access William Beinart William Beinart St Antony's CollegeOxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 158, Issue 1, February 1998, Pages 172–206, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/158.1.172 Published: 01 February 1998
Joyini inkomo
(1979). Joyini inkomo: cattle advances and the origins of migrancy from Pondoland. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 199-219
Beyond ‘Homelands’
‘Homeland’ or bantustan policy1 shaped the history of South Africa for about 40 years during the apartheid era. Yet the ‘homelands’ collapsed formally nearly two decades ago. It is time to think ab
Why Have South African Smallholders Largely Abandoned Arable Production in Fields? A Case Study
Our article concerns the decline in arable production in the former homelands of South Africa – part of a longer-term trend that has probably accelerated since the mid 1990s. Our material is taken largely from interviews in Mbotyi village on the Eastern Cape coast, where rainfall is high. Even here, arable fields have largely been left fallow in recent years. Our interviews confirm that people in Mbotyi believe that there has been a marked and sh…
The origins of theindlavini
Men, science, travel and nature in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Cape
Ecofeminist writing has re‐evaluated the Western scientific revolution as an essentially male enterprise which classified and exploited nature, as well as facilitating the domination of women and colonised peoples. Mary Louise Pratt's Imperial Eyes extends this analysis by focusing on European scientific travellers in the extra‐European world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At a general level, over a long period of time, th…
Animal disease and the limits of local knowledge
Some proponents of local knowledge, such as Paul Sillitoe, have expressed second thoughts about its capacity to effect development on the 'revolutionary' scale once predicted. Our argument in this article follows a similar route. Recent research into the management of livestock in South Africa makes clear that rural African livestock farmers experience uncertainty in relation to the control of stock diseases. State provision of veterinary service…
Social History & African Environments
William Beinart and Joann McGregor (eds), Social History & African Environments. Oxford: James Currey(hard covers £45.00, ISBN 0 85255 951 8; paperback £18.95, ISBN 0 85255 950 X). 2003, 275 pp. - Volume 74 Issue 4
A Century of Migrancy from Mpondoland
Migrant mineworkers from Mpondoland came into the news as the victims of the shootings at Marikana platinum mine in August 2012. Fourteen out of the 45 people who met their deaths over the two weeks of turmoil at Marikana came from this area and another 16 from other former Transkeian districts in the Eastern Cape province. Evidence suggests that workers from such rural communities, which have been sending long distance migrants to the mines for …
Wildlife Media and Representations of Africa, 1950s to the 1970s
Wildlife literature, photography, and film on Africa have long been popular in Western countries and beyond. Academic literature on visual representations of Africa discusses how the camera has colonized and possessed African people, nature, and places. Both James Ryan and Paul Landau have developed Susan Sontag's analogy of shooting with camera and rifle, comparing the power dynamics at work. Our aim is to expand interpretations of media on Afri…
Speaking for themselves
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Books reviewed
Charles Brownlee, Reminiscences of Kafir Life and History (Killie. Campbell Africana Library, Facsimile reproduction of second edition (1916), with an Introduction, Notes, and Index by C. Saunders, University of Natal Press, 1977.) Gwendolen Carter and Patrick O'Meara, Southern Africa in Crisis, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and London, 1977. 279pp. £9.35 J. Mutero Chirenje, Chief Kgama and his Times c. 1835–1923: The Story of a Southern …
European Traders and the Mpondo Paramountcy, 1878–1886
For a brief period between about 1878 and 1886, European traders in Eastern Pondoland played an important role in the politics of the chieftaincy. In these years the formerly amicable relationship between the Mpondo chiefs and the Cape Colony broke down. An expansionist colonial government confiscated the Mpondo port at St Johns, took control of an area claimed by the paramountcy, and threatened the political independence of the chiefs. The trade…
Joyini inkomo
(1979). Joyini inkomo: cattle advances and the origins of migrancy from Pondoland. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 199-219
Preachers, Peasants and Politics in Southern Africa, 1835–1880
Journal Article Preachers, Peasants and Politics in Southern Africa, 1835–1880: African Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland and Zululand Get access Preachers, Peasants and Politics in Southern Africa, 1835–1880: African Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland and Zululand, by Norman Etherington. Royal Historical Society, London, 1978. pp. xi+230.Distributed by Swift Printers (Publishing) Ltd, 1–7 Albion Place, Briton Street, London, EC1M …
Conflict in Qumbu
In 1912 and 1913, a 'wave of lawlessness' swept over Qumbu district, Transkei. I At its peak, it took the form of a series of violent clashes between neighbouring locations. The scale of violence was not dramatic - perhaps five people were killed and some thirty homesteads burnt in the major encounter of October 1913 - but it was sufficient to persuade officials to send in the military, dismiss a headman, and bring charges against some of those i…
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860–1930
This book examines in detail how the people of one formerly independent African chiefdom were absorbed into the wider South African society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first two chapters discuss the nature of the pre-colonial polity, changes in agricultural production during the early stages of colonisation, colonial policy and the beginnings of mass labour migrancy up to about 1910. The last three chapters, focu…
Books reviewed
The Surplus People Project Report, Forced Removals in South Africa (Cape Town and Pietermaritzburg, 1983), 5 volumes; vol 1, General Overview, pp. xxi+120; vol 2, The Eastern Cape, pp. xix+388; vol 3, The Western and Northern Cape and Orange Free State, pp. xvii+197; vol 4, Natal, pp. xviii+572; vol 5, The Transvaal, pp. xv+365; R75 a set or R15 for single volumes. Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone (editors), Industrialisation and Social Change in…
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860-1930
Soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development
(1984). Soil erosion, conservationism and ideas about development: a Southern African exploration, 1900–1960. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 52-83
The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860-1930
This book examines in detail how the people of one formerly independent African chiefdom were absorbed into the wider South African society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first two chapters discuss the nature of the pre-colonial polity, changes in agricultural production during the early stages of colonisation, colonial policy and the beginnings of mass labour migrancy up to about 1910. The last three chapters, focu…
Chieftaincy and the Concept of Articulation
Chieftaincy and the Concept of Articulation
(1985). Chieftaincy and the Concept of Articulation: South Africa ca. 1900–1950. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines: Vol. 19, Mode of Production: The Challenge of Africa / Mode de production : les défis africains, pp. 91-98
South Africa
History of the African People
Putting a Plough to the Ground
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Terence Ranger described ths book as a '...landmark in the historiography of southern Africa.' The book is an exercise in historical retrieval, focussed on a series of forgotten episodes in South Africa's history that were neglected in subsequent historical writing. North America: University of California Press
Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa
Introduction
(1989). Introduction: the politics of colonial conservation. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 15, Politics of Conservation in Southern Africa, pp. 143-162
Empire, Hunting and Ecological Change in Southern and Central Africa
Journal Article EMPIRE, HUNTING AND ECOLOGICAL CHANGE IN SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA Get access William Beinart William Beinart University of Bristol Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 128, Issue 1, August 1990, Pages 162–186, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/128.1.162 Published: 01 August 1990
Shorter Notices
Shorter Notices Get access WILLIAM BEINART WILLIAM BEINART University of Bristol Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CVI, Issue CCCCXVIII, January 1991, Pages 233–234, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CVI.CCCCXVIII.233 Published: 01 January 1991
Transkeian Migrant Workers and Youth Labour on the Natal Sugar Estates 1918–1948
During the inter-war years, there were frequent reports of desertion, youth labour and atrocious conditions on the sugar estates of Natal, South Africa. Sugar production, assisted by heavy state protection, was expanding rapidly; planters recruited vigorously amongst rural Africans in Transkei to replace Indian indentured workers. They also used their political muscle in order to prevent the extension of labour regulations in the mining industry …
The origins of theindlavini
History (62 works) · Political science (61 works) · Geography (53 works) · Archaeology (43 works) · Sociology (42 works) · African history and culture studies (36 works) · Law (36 works) · South African History and Culture (31 works) · Politics (28 works) · History (25 works)