A Long Way Home: Migrant worker worlds 1800–2014

by Peter Delius, Fiona Rankin-Smith (Editor), Laura Phillips (Editor)

In no other society in the world have urbanization and industrialization been as comprehensively based on migrant labor as in South Africa. Rather than focusing on the well-documented narrative of displacement and oppression, A Long Way Home captures the humanity, agency, and creative modes of self-expression of the millions of workers who helped build and shape modern South Africa. The book spans a 300-year history beginning with the exportation of slave labor from Mozambique in the 18th century and ending with the strikes and tensions on the platinum belt in recent years. It shows not only the age-old mobility of African migrants across the continent but also, with the growing demand for labor in the mining industry, the importation of Chinese indentured migrant workers. The essays and visual materials traverse homesteads, chiefdoms, and mining hostels in their portrayal of migrant workers’ and their families’ attempts to maintain contact across large distances and uphold their rural customs, traditions, and rituals in new spaces and locations. Together, they provide multiple perspectives on the lived experience of migrant laborers and celebrate their extraordinary journeys. A Long Way Home was conceived during the planning of an art exhibition entitled “Ngezinyawo: Migrant Journeys” at Wits Art Museum. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions and the extraordinary collection of images selected to complement and expand on the text make this a unique collection.

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

About the author

Peter Delius is associate professor of history at the University of the Witwatersrand and author of The Land Belongs to Us and The Conversion. He also co-edited Putting a Plough to the Ground and Apartheid's Genesis.

Reviews

[Hany · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first opened this book I could barely contain my excitement. And when I closed this book for the last time I felt a horror I seldom feel, ever.

Horror is a poor word to use, and hopeless doesn't fit at all. I didn't learn anything new in this book. I've heard it all, from family members to strangers in a queue. It was strange, however, to experience it all in writing. With pictures and references. References to forgotten people and their art. It was daunting, to look at these forgotten individuals. These people who were left behind. It was strange, to couple my experiences with the experiences of those who have gone.

It was the piece on Sophie Sibande's life that stood out to me to know she was pulled out of school before she could learn who she was. I'm Xhosa, half my family is xhosa and as a result on that half I haven't met a relative who hadn't had a tertiary education. But my other half is Zulu, like Sophie, and there I have interacted with many first graduates of their finer lines. I hadn't imagined why, or ever thought about why that was until Sophie. And that seemed to open up a great pit from my chest to my naval.

This is a harrowing account of what damage western colonialism has wrought on southern Africa and the parts of the world that were forced to make a stop in Cape Town. In their imperial acts we have seen an erasure of culture that is somewhat preserved in these forgotted artifacts. Separated from their owners and held by museums that are too far away from their origins.

Most importantly it reminded me of how recent our history is. As recent as the Marikana Massacre.

Thanks, I hated it. 4/5