Going for Gold: Men, Mines, and Migration (Perspectives on Southern Africa)

T. Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe

ISBN 10: 0520086449 / ISBN 13: 9780520086449

Published by University of California Press, 1994

About this Item

Laid in loosely at front is a signed, typescript, one-page, 12 August 1994 letter from the author to the dean of the Harvard Divinity School, Ronald Thieman[n], to whom Dunbar sent this copy of his book "to give you an idea of my work these days." Moodie had taught at HDS circa 1992 at Dean Thiemann's invitation. Bottom edge of the book has minor soil, otherwise Very Good+. xxi, 337 p., illustrated. [b 4].

Seller Inventory # 400590

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Going for Gold: Men, Mines, and Migration (Perspectives on Southern Africa)
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520086449
• ISBN 13: 9780520086449
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This book tells the story of the lives of migrant black African men who work on the South African gold mines, told from their own point of view and, as much as possible, in their own words. Dunbar Moodie examines the operation of local power structures and resistances, changes in production techniques, the limits and successes of unionization, and the nature of ethnic conflicts at different periods and on different terrains of struggle. He treats his subject thematically and historically, examining how notions of integrity, manhood, sexuality, work, power, solidarity, and violence have all changed over time, especially with the shift to a proletarianized work force on the mines in the 1970s. Moodie integrates analyses of individual life-strategies with theories of social change, illuminating the ways in which these play off each other in historically significant ways. He shows how human beings (in this case, African men) build integrity and construct their own social order, even in situations of apparent total repression.

About the Author

T. Dunbar Moodie is Professor of Sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of The Rise of Afrikanerdom (California, 1975). Vivienne Ndatshe is a former teacher who now works as a domestic servant. She grew up in Pondoland, where her father was a migrant gold miner. Her interviews with mine workers and their families added an essential dimension to this work.