No Exit? Emigration Policy and the Consolidation of Apartheid

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4604697
AutoresKarin A Shapiro (Duke University, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume42
Fascículo4
Páginas763-781
Data de publicação2016-07-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2016.1186784
OpenAlexW2462124826
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5

Emigration policy in post-1948 South Africa functioned as both a tool of oppression and a safety valve, at once a mechanism to punish Apartheid’s staunchest political opponents and a mechanism for dissipating white opposition to National Party policies. This article examines the National Party’s policy toward emigration in the 1950s and 1960s, exploring the role of travel documents in the evolving National Party strategy for maintaining, and even extending, its control over internal political opponents. At no point, however, could the Minister of the Interior simply impose his will without facing innovative challenges to the law. Anti-apartheid figures repeatedly sought to test emigration provisions in the courts and nullify their effects. The Government developed its emigration policy by deciding individual applications on a case-by-case basis, rather than articulating ‘coherent’ public guidelines. It further believed that citizens did not have a right to a passport and that travellers constituted ‘quasi-diplomats’. This formulation, along with the requirement that black South Africans provide a substantial deposit before travelling abroad, speaks to the apartheid Government’s complex notions of racially based citizenship

Citizenship · Economics · Emigration · Oppression · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · Law · Public Administration · South African History and Culture