Lahla Ngubo : the continuities and discontinuities of a South African Black middle class

Abstract

This study contributes to our understanding of the trajectories of South Africa’s historical black middle class - a class which is defined by access to education, and resulting occupational opportunities, as well as access to land. The middle class under study is a particular black middle class that established itself in Mthatha in the former Transkei Bantustan from 1908 onwards, when the Mthatha municipality needed a new and safe source of fresh drinking water and sold land to both black and white buyers in order to finance the so-called Umtata Water Scheme. This allowed the accumulation of land in the hands of a hitherto largely occupationally-based, mission-educated black middle class. The way in which this particular landed middle class has reproduced and transformed itself from the around 1900 to the present is the focus of the analysis.