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Title: Making a Voice: African Resistance to Segregation in South Africa (African Modernization and Development) by Joyce F. Kirk, Joyce E. Kirk, Paul E. Lovejoy ISBN: 0-8133-2769-5 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $79.00

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Average Customer Rating: 2 (1 review)

Rating: 2
Summary: Whose Voice? Where?
Comment: Kirk's substantially revised 1988 dissertation has been published a decade later as Making a Voice: African Resistance to Segregation in South Africa. Unlike the original thesis, the title is misleading. The study is of a particular place and period, namely Port Elizabeth during the years from the 1880s to the 1900s, but neither is indicated by the title. The American publisher presumably reckons that the reading public would not be sufficiently interested in or familiar with the history - let alone the geogrgaphical location - of Port Elizabeth. In fact, Kirk provides a detailed account of the attempt by the local African community to counter attempts by the municipality, and then the Cape Colonial government to enforce residential segregation.

Kirk cites a number of factors to explain the propensity for Port Elizabeth's African population for resisting segregation (p. 5). She seizes upon a statement that "[t]he deep historical roots of modern political culture" is the key variable in explaining the town's reputation as a centre of resistance. But simply to invoke this tradition of resistance as evidence of an incremental political culture amounts to a circular argument. There is no attempt to trace the development of this political culture through time. And pointing to periodic bouts of worker mobilization, strikes, boycotts, and other forms of political activity does not establish continuity in traditions of resistance. Rather, we need to understand how each generation reinvests a tradition with its own meanings and reconstructs its political culture.

Why is the first part of the title Making a Voice? Is this because there was no more than one voice raised in opposition to segregation? Clearly the dominant African or black voice in this account is that of the aspirant middle class. But there were undoubtedly other voices, such that of the working class, which is seldom heard in this account. Indeed, Kirk acknowledges that the documents offer a "resounding silence" on the actions of the African working class in affecting the shape of residential segregation. This is perhaps understandable because as a study of an early period, Kirk's sources are mainly written and only the (white) ruling classes and the (black) educated elite can speak through these. Kirk tries to offset this deficiency by allowing the 'voice' of Africans to be refiltered "through an African centred lens to gain a different perspective" (p. 22). The voice offered though is her own, although I do not think that this is what is implied by the title. I have no problem with the recognition of an author's subjectivity for history is never objective; but to pass it off as the voice of the subjects of study is a methodological sleight of hand.

Making a Voice proved rather disappointing to this reviewer. While it adds a great deal to our knowledge of the history of Port Elizabeth, its contribution to the historiography of South Africa is rather less significant.