NALSU NEWS: Labour Studies podcast/video: Bill Freund | "Twentieth-Century South Africa: A Developmental History"
TOPIC: In this seminar and book launch, the late Professor Bill Freund argued that South Africa in the twentieth century should be understood as a nascent "developmental" state, with economic development acting as a key motivating factor. While issues of race, segregation and apartheid were central, there was another facet: a state-led drive towards modernisation and industrialisation, to move the country away from a dependent position. Freund considered the achievements and failures of that drive, as well as how it related to the state's ethnic and racial policymaking. The twentieth century has brought considerable political, social, and economic change to South Africa -- and this is part of that story, developing a new interpretation of modern South African economic development, essential for development studies and economic history.
DETAILS: This is a recording of a live event in the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, held on Wednesday, 6 March 2019, at Eden Grove, Seminar Room 2, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/2sZDi4eDk6c
PODCAST: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nalsu
SPEAKER: Prof Bill Freund has taught at universities in Nigeria and Tanzania as well as in South Africa. He is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Kwazulu-Natal where he was Head of the Department of Economic History and Development Studies until 2004. His books include The Making of Contemporary Africa, The African Worker and The African City: A History. He has written many articles and book chapters on political economy and development issues in South Africa.
HOSTS: The Labour Studies Seminar Series is run by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) in partnership with the Departments of Sociology & Industrial Sociology, and Economics & Economic History, Rhodes University.
ABOUT NALSU: Based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, NALSU is engaged in policy, research and workers' education. Built around a vibrant team, including from the disciplines of Sociology and Economics, NALSU has a democratic, nonâsectarian, non-aligned and pluralist practice, and active relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. We draw strength from our location in a province where the legacy of apartheid and the cheap labour system, and post-apartheid contradictions, are keenly felt. NALSU is named in honour of Neil Hudson Aggett, union organiser and medical doctor who died in an apartheid jail in 1982 following brutality and torture.