Labour Migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa (review of Eddy Tshidiso Maloka, Basotho and the Mines: A Social History of Labour Migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa, c. 1890-1940, Dakar, CODESRIA, 2004)¶
Colin Murray (2006). Labour Migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa (review of Eddy Tshidiso Maloka, Basotho and the Mines: A Social History of Labour Migrancy in Lesotho and South Africa, c. 1890-1940, Dakar, CODESRIA, 2004). Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Heritage in Southern Africa). Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1890–1940 |
| Regions | Lesotho (Basutoland), South Africa (Witwatersrand gold mines) |
| Themes | mining migrant labour, origins segregation, demography urbanisation, methods data sources |
| Citation key | murray2006 |
Argument¶
This is a two-page book review, not the book itself. Murray presents Maloka's book as a social history of Basotho male labour migrancy 'from below', told through the experience of mine-workers and their families. Maloka treats 1890-1940 as decisive in establishing the system as part of mining capitalism's development. Murray judges the book engaging and thorough in its sources, and endorses Maloka's complaint that historiography has swung too far towards cultural studies. He criticises Maloka's dismissal of Judy Kimble's political-economy work, the absence of photographs, poor maps and weak copy-editing. He also stresses the collapse of the Lesotho government archives.
Evidence and method¶
The review summarises Maloka's sources: official colonial archives (at the National University of Lesotho), written sources and oral testimony, based on his 1995 UCT PhD thesis. Murray adds his own knowledge of the post-1997 destruction and neglect of the Lesotho archives. No data of its own.
Place in the debates¶
- Political-economy/structuralist vs social-history 'from below' approaches to labour migrancy (see Historiographical approaches). Murray sympathises with Maloka's social-history stance, but thinks Maloka is unfair in calling Kimble's earlier political-economy work 'structural reductionist' and in downplaying her posthumous book.
- Cultural turn vs materialist/social history in southern African historiography (see Historiographical approaches). Murray shares Maloka's view that the pendulum has swung too far towards broadly cultural studies.
Findings¶
-
Maloka covers the period he regards as decisive for establishing the migrant system within mining capitalism. (p. 2)
He concentrates on a 50-year period, 1890-1940, that in many ways was decisive in the establishment and transformation of the system as an integral part of the development of mining capitalism in South Africa.
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Maloka states an explicit historiographical position against the cultural turn, which Murray endorses. (p. 2)
the historiographical pendulum has swung too far in the direction of broadly cultural studies
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Maloka is reflective about the biases of his source types, and Murray finds the balance effective. (p. 2)
written sources can silence the illiterate; and oral sources can be self-praising accounts
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The Lesotho government archives, vital for the history of migrancy, have been dumped and left in disarray. (p. 2)
The archives were removed by prisoners from the NUL Library basement in 1997, divided into two parts and, in effect, dumped.
-
Basotho specialised in shaft-sinking, and remittances and deferred pay were politically contested. (p. 3)
the way in which Basotho migrants came to specialise in shaft-sinking, and his analysis of the infrastructure of remittances and deferred pay, which remained politically and socially controversial
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The colonial state was slow to create a Johannesburg official for Basotho migrants, who was concerned mainly with tax collection. (p. 3)
a Basutoland Agent in Johannesburg was eventually appointed in 1932, to deal principally with the problem of tax collection
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Mining companies neglected occupational disease and death, and the consequences were exported to Lesotho. (p. 3)
he demonstrates the callous disregard of these problems by mining companies which looked wilfully the other way
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Prostitution around the compounds was both a prop of, and a symptom of the breakdown caused by, the migrant system. (p. 3)
it was both essential to the functioning of the migrant labour system, and at the same time, expressed the social collapse set in motion by migrancy itself
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Migrancy was vital for household survival, the Lesotho economy and mining-capital accumulation, but socially destructive. (p. 3)
It was vital both at the micro-level of household survival and at the macro-levels of the 'economy' of Lesotho and of the accumulation of mining capital in the region.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basutoland/Lesotho government archives held at the National University of Lesotho (consulted early 1990s) | state archives | c. 1890-1940 | Official records form the main written base of the study, though the reviewer says their poor condition means the real situation is worse than Maloka states. |
| Official sources (colonial and mine-related official records, unspecified) | commission or official report | c. 1890-1940 | Used alongside written and oral sources, with their tendency to suppress the 'rebel' acknowledged by the author. |
| Oral sources (interviews/oral testimony) | interviews oral history | c. 1890-1940 (recollected) | Oral accounts supply mine-workers' and families' experience, balanced against official and written sources. |
| Memories and narratives of retired mine-workers about Sake and Mainyatso of Mafeteng | interviews oral history | early-to-mid twentieth century (recalled) | Illustrates how migrants' memories of the journey home and of being fleeced by women shaped stereotypical narratives. |
Inference¶
Quantification: None.
Qualitative social history 'from below' that combines official archival, written and oral sources in a thematic narrative of Basotho labour migrancy. The document is a book review, so the evidentiary detail is limited to what the reviewer reports.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Basotho migrants came to specialise in shaft-sinking on the mines. (p. 848) | Presumably drawn from archival and oral sources, but the review does not specify. | Asserted |
| A Basutoland Agent in Johannesburg was appointed in 1932, after long argument over his terms of reference, mainly to handle tax collection, welfare and desertion. (p. 848) | Official colonial administrative records (Basutoland archives) are implied but not named. | Asserted |
| Mining companies callously disregarded disease and death among mine-workers, and the consequences were 'exported' back to Lesotho. (p. 848) | Combination of official and oral sources; the review gives no specific records. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Prostitution (botekatse) was both essential to the migrant labour system and a sign of the social collapse migrancy caused. (p. 848) | Interpretive argument on written and oral evidence, including retired mine-workers' narratives. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Migrant labour was vital at household and macro levels (Lesotho's economy and mining capital accumulation) but socially highly destructive. (p. 848) | Synthesis of the book's thematic chapters; no quantitative series are cited in the review. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
Maloka acknowledges the limits of each source type: official sources suppress the rebel, written sources silence the illiterate, and oral sources can be self-praising. He also notes the extremely poor state of the Lesotho government archives.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The review names no quantitative sources, such as recruiting statistics, remittance and deferred-pay ledgers, mine mortality and morbidity returns, or Basutoland tax and census data. Any macro-level claims about Lesotho's dependence would need these. Many existed at the time in Chamber of Mines, WNLA and colonial records, but the Lesotho archives are now reported uncatalogued and inaccessible. Oral testimony from the period 1890-1940 can no longer be gathered first-hand.
Replicability: Data described but not public.