Alan G. Cobley – författare

This is the first book to discuss the emergence and nature of the black bourgeoisie in South Africa in its historical context as a class in itself and for itself. It reveals how, by the 1920s, the black petty bourgeoisie was emerging in South Africa through the process of capitalist development, out of pre-existing elites and out of new elites based mainly in the new industrial centers. The book then discusses how the black petty bourgeoise deployed, in the 1930s, a wide range of class-specific social and cultural networks (using forms borrowed from the dominant classes) as a means of entrenching and reproducing its class position.The book details the significant differentiation within the black petty bourgeoisie--revealing it to be divided into a more economically secure upper stratum and a much larger lower stratum which was always vulnerable to proletarianisation. The book also shows that members of the petty black bourgeoisie virtually monopolized political leadership in black communities up to 1950 and beyond. This had very important consequences for the formulation and articulation of black political objectives at both the local and national levels and especially for the developing African nationalist movement.

Cobley presents five interconnected case studies of previously neglected aspects of recreation and social welfare policy in South Africa. He charts their historical development and poses the critical question: In shaping recreation and social welfare policy, by what rules did the protagonists play?Drawing on current conceptual debates concerning the roles of ordinary people and the nature of the colonial state, Cobley seeks to develop an understanding of the operation of power relations—the rules of the game—in twentieth-century South Africa.Some considerations on the current challenges facing social historians of South Africa are set out in a short introductory chapter. Cobley then presents five interconnected case studies: the rise of African sport in the towns; the politics of reading and the provision of libraries; the control and training of African women in towns; the role of alcohol in the black community; and the emergence of social work as a profession for blacks in the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout the text he poses the critical question: In shaping recreation and social welfare policy, by what rules did the protagonists play? This work is full of provocative analyses for researchers and scholars dealing with power and the state in colonial societies, particularly in Africa.