The implications of the abolition of influx control legislation in the Western Cape

Oliver-Evans, Ceridwen

The implications of the abolition of influx control legislation in the Western Cape

Master Thesis

1992

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Social Anthropology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Influx control legislation was formally abolished in South Africa in 1986. This thesis investigates the social processes set in motion with its abolition in the spheres of employment and urbanisation and argues that the way in which influx control has been defined is central to any analysis concerned with its abolition. In this regard, influx control has been viewed in two senses: a narrow one in which it has been equated with formal influx control legislation, 'the pass laws'; and, secondly and more broadly, through definitions which embrace all methods of control over African urbanisation and associated labour mobility. This thesis argues that, in the macro domain, while influx control in its narrow sense has been abolished, it has been replaced with far more complex and subtle forms of control. These ostensibly racially neutral measures, an 'orderly urbanisation' policy and a wide variety of laws existing on South African statute books continue to circumscribe African rights. The research focuses on a specific region, the Western Cape, an area where influx control has been more harshly implemented than elsewhere through the implementation of the Coloured Labour Preference Policy. This thesis investigates on a micro-level, via the medium of a company compound, how people at both an individual and institutional level have interpreted the legislative changes and acted upon them. The particular range of actors include government officials, employers and employer organisations, union representatives, and migrant workers and their families living in the company compound. The evidence I present was obtained primarily through interviews and ethnographic field-research conducted in 1988. A particular concern of the thesis has been to examine the disjunction between policy and practice as pursued by government officials and the effects and implications arising from this among the actors mentioned above. The main themes which have emerged from this research are those of confusion and a lack of knowledge among many of the informants. It was found that high-ranking government officials lack consensus on vital issues of citizenship and employment which affect the lives of thousands of Transkeian and Ciskeian citizens. Employers, confused by the confusion in government departments, and confronted by a new situation and new sets of rules have either ignored these or succumbed to government policy. Equally, unions have been slow to respond or systematically adopt a policy on the 1986 legislative changes. Finally, it was found that migrant workers and their families are availing themselves of opportunities presented by the abolition of influx control legislation in terms of freedom of movement, although as I argue, this takes the form of a complex range of fluid and dynamic movement patterns between the compound, the rural areas and urban townships. This complexity, as the thesis demonstrates, is reflected both in the attitudes and in the practical daily living arrangements of the workers as they respond to and interpret the macro-level forces which affect them.