The Social Question in Pre-apartheid South Africa: Race, Religion and the State

Abstract

AbstractIn the first half of the twentieth century, “social” issues in South Africa were framed by both rapid social and economic change (especially industrialisation and urbanisation) and racial division. The social question in South Africa was as much a racialised version of a “national question” as a social one, revolving around the social and economic inclusion (through state intervention) of “poor white” people and white workers and the reinforcement of a clear racial hierarchy. From the 1930s, political elites slowly moved towards the very partial inclusion of the African majority. Political and religious ideas, primarily from Europe, informed understandings of the social question among both supporters and opponents of public provision.