'To Come Together for Progress': Modernization and Nation-building in South Africa's Bantustan Periphery ‐ the case of Bophuthatswana

Apartheid's bantustans reflected extreme forms of territorial fragmentation and (neo)colonially-derived dependency. Whilst the bantustans have been dismantled, paradoxically, the imagery of dependency which they came to symbolize has been used recently to characterize other 'nation-building' situations. In order to provide a more thorough account of the complexity of bantustan nation-building, background to its subsequent collapse and ambiguous legacy, the paper re-examines one 'independent' bantustan, namely Bophuthatswana. Unlike previous approaches, the paper links apartheid's particularities and generalities: its explicit grounding within a wider generic Eurocentric framework and especially the manner in which ideas of progress and identity were played out locally within South Africa's periphery are explored. Under the guise of 'independence', marginalized groups sought power and influence through vigorous efforts to promote a new national identity in Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana's shifting strategies and regional discourses, however, must be seen in conjunction with the effects of the implantation of the modern facade of a 'nation-state' and its incursion into rural and urban society. Subsequent efforts towards nation-building by this pseudo-state were based upon evolutionary imagery of Bophuthatswana as a 'less developed' peripheral territory requiring modernization and maturation. This had severe consequences for any state-led efforts to mobilize cultural identity, 'invent tradition' and to implement 'national' development in Bophuthatswana.