Resettlement and the making of the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, c.1960–1976

The cynical objectives and coercive actions of the apartheid state in engineering forced removals to the Bantustans have been well documented. These ‘dumping grounds’ were notorious examples of the poverty and human suffering produced in the name of ‘separate development’. Processes of mass resettlement in the Bantustans had multiple meanings, far-reaching effects and uneven political dynamics and outcomes. This paper traces local dynamics of power and clientelism in two resettlement townships in the northern Ciskei, as the apartheid government set about establishing indirect rule under this self-governing Bantustan. It explores the role of resettlement in extending the reach and the influence of the state by tracing the history of local administration and institutions of indirect rule, their everyday operations and political effects. The relations of patronage constructed under the ‘white chiefs’ of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development (BAD), which had starkly gendered dimensions and consequences, formed the critical basis upon which new Tribal Authorities were superimposed, becoming subject to new political imperatives. One of the outcomes of mass resettlement was to foster, through clientelism, new political constituencies for the Ciskei. Through the provision of housing, particularly to former farm-dwellers, the apartheid authorities were able to encourage, albeit temporarily, a limited compliance in these areas.