My current project examines the local nature of South Africa’s transition-era political violence (known in isiZulu as uDlame). While common explanations for the conflict focus on the struggle for political legitimacy between the rural and traditionalist Zulu ethnic nationalist movement Inkatha and the young and urban African National Congress (ANC), I argue that for the individuals and communities involved, politics were local.  For the peri-urban Nyavu and Maphumulo chiefdoms in the Table Mountain region outside of Pietermaritzburg, these larger struggles were embedded in a century-old debate over land and what it meant for a chief to be legitimate. Drawing on a rich combination of written and oral sources, the project examines the role of colonial and apartheid governments in the appointment and succession of Zulu chiefs, the engendering of debates over legitimacy and chiefly authority, boundary conflicts, “faction fights,” and competing claims on land.

Location

Dallas, TX

Disciplines

• History

Affiliation

Southern Methodist University

Website

http://smu.edu/history/faculty/kelly.shtml