Browsing by Author "Bank, Leslie"

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    The Janus face of rural class formation: an economic and political history of traders in Qwaqwa, 1960-1985.
    (University of Cape Town (Thesis), 1987) Bank, Leslie
    It is my aim in this paper to trace the slow re-emergence of class differentiation in Witsieshoek after the rebellion of 1950 and to the consider the implications of this process for political struggles waged in Qwaqwa during the contemporary phase of 'homeland self-government'. The paper focuses centrally on the emergence of a commercial petty bourgeoisie in the Qwaqwa since the 1960 and its changing political profile over the past two decades. In developing this analysis I focus mainly on licensed retail traders in Qwaqwa. My discussion proceeds in three parts. The first part deals with the period 1960 to 1974 and is dominated by an investigation of the activities of the Bantu Investment Corporation (BIC) in Qwaqwa. The second section of the paper concentrates on the period 1974-1980, a phase of mass population relocation and rapid economic differentiation. It concentrates on the unfolding of political struggle between the homeland political elite and the emergent commercial petty bourgeoisie. In the final section of the paper I focus on changing economic opportunities for African traders in the early 1980s as they are brought under the wing of the Qwaqwa Development Corporation and the Mopeli government. The paper concludes on a comparative note by addressing similarities and difference in the changing political strategies of traders in Qwaqwa in the face of economic centralisation with those of storekeepers and artisans in ninetenth century Europe.