SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The legislative and administrative framework, established by the nationalist government after 1948, provided the basis for the large-scale construction of racially segregated townships for African workers throughout South Africa. Direct state intervention in the production of housing partially resolved the housing shortage which had existed since before the Second World War. The thesis seeks to explain why state intervention in the sphere of housing assumed this particular form and how township policies were actually implemented. It also seeks to understand the role of these spatial forms within the social formation It is, therefore, an analysis of policy formulation and implementation within the context of political, economic and ideological relations and conditions existing in South Africa over the period 1945 to 1965. The thesis argues that the origins of townships policies, which were legitimised by the ideology of 'apartheid', are to be traced, on the one hand, in the relations within the state - between central and local authorities around the question of housing subsidy, for example - and, on the other hand, in the relations between other organisations with interests in housing, such as building employers and trade unions around conditions of housing production. The study utilises a wide range of primary source material - in particular, a collection of unpublished memoranda, minutes and correspondence of a board created by the state, the operations of which were central to the implementation of the township policies from the mid-1950s, which is not yet available for public inspection.