| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the relationship between violence, the transition from apartheid, and contemporary state formation in South Africa. Through an ethnographic case study of the rural area of Umbumbulu outside Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, the article argues that prevailing interpretations of violence that focus on rivalry between political parties obscure the ways in which other factors - such as local power struggles among customary leaders and strongmen, state support for the rise of warlords, and the recruitment of young men through kinship and patronage networks - helped spread the violence. Local strongmen or warlords were motivated by the quest for power and economic success in their local communities as well as their beliefs in and strategic alliances with national-level political parties engaged in the struggle to end apartheid. In particular, the article focuses on a 'faction fight' in the mid-1980s and the subsequent violence that surrounded two warlords affiliated to the African National Congress in a region that was mostly dominated by Inkatha supporters. The alliances the ANC made with these warlords continued into the post-apartheid period and helped shape the ways in which power was exercised within the new political institutions of the democratic state.
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