Open research questions in South African History and Culture

What the literature leaves open

• The paper identifies a theoretical blind spot in the understanding of love. It highlights the limitations of understanding love as an inner experience in the private sphere. The study seeks to address the gap in understanding the political potential of love.

  How can love become a revolutionary force for reshaping the political order? · 2026 · DOI

• It remains to be seen whether historical geographers in South Africa will take on the challenge since "the step from bright surface to the murky depths - from noise to silence - is difficult and dangerous" (Braudel, 1980, p. 2 The boundaries of post-structuralist theory and analysis are not clearly defined.

  Time, Structuration and the Potential for South African Historical Geography · 1986 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in the understanding of the persistence of ethnic tensions and political fragmentation in post-apartheid South Africa. The study highlights the need for further research into the effects of the apartheid-era tribal classification system on contemporary South African society.

  Examining the long-term effects of Apartheid’s Tribal Classification on ethnic tensions and political fragmentation in post-apartheid South Africa · 2026 · DOI

• A primary limitation of this research is its necessary reliance on secondary data, which precludes the incorporation of contemporary lived experiences and grassroots dynamics. To advance this field, future, high-impact research must prioritize empirical fieldwork. Specifically, multi-province or cross-tribe comparative studies employing mixed-methods research (qualitative and quantitative interviews) are needed to explore how socio-economic empowerment, political participation, and tribal identity are negotiated and perpetuated at the community level. Such studies should also explore these dynamics through cross-border comparisons to better understand the regional resilience of these colonial ethnic constructs. On digital tribalism, social media (WhatsApp, X/Twitter, Facebook) reinforces identity-based echo chambers and mis/disinformation (observed during South Africa’s 2024 elections) eroding trust and intensifying polarization; future research should employ digital ethnography and platform data access to align online narratives with offline ethnic cleavages. While desk‑based, the ubuntu–CRT synthesis uniquely proposes theory‑informed pathways for identity repair and institutional redesign—signposting priorities for future fieldwork (multi‑province ethnographies), mixed‑methods testing, and policy pilots that assess cohesion outcomes in former homeland areas (Poole et al., 2021; Ewuoso & Hall, 2019).

  Examining the long-term effects of Apartheid’s Tribal Classification on ethnic tensions and political fragmentation in post-apartheid South Africa · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a research gap in social issues as the need to analyze authentic newspaper data. The paper highlights the importance of addressing the legacy of apartheid in South Africa.

  The Coloniality of Comparison: A Critical Discourse Analysis of South African Newspaper Columns Responding to Jonathan Jansen · 2026 · DOI

• Future research could explore the ongoing relevance of ordentlikheid in contemporary debates around identity and belonging in South Africa. It could examine the ways in which ordentlikheid is mobilised in different contexts to assert or challenge whiteness.

  White Aspiration in South Africa: The intersectional Nexus of Ordentlikheid and the Making of Afrikaner Whiteness · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in existing research on the construction of whiteness in South Africa. It highlights the need for further study of the concept of ordentlikheid and its relationship to Afrikaner whiteness.

  White Aspiration in South Africa: The intersectional Nexus of Ordentlikheid and the Making of Afrikaner Whiteness · 2026 · DOI

• Future research should continue to explore the social, historical, and racialized construction of place and its impact on poverty and food insecurity. Future research should examine the effectiveness of reparative action in addressing food insecurity and poverty in low-income Black communities.

  Place, History, and Food Apartheid: Reframing How Low-Income Black Mothers Make Ends Meet · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the literature on poverty and food insecurity, particularly in terms of the social, historical, and racialized construction of place. The paper highlights the need for a deeper understanding of the intergenerational struggle under food apartheid.

  Place, History, and Food Apartheid: Reframing How Low-Income Black Mothers Make Ends Meet · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies the challenge of understanding the complex relationships between colonial heritage and local communities - The study highlights the need to consider the varied and dependent reaction to colonial heritage

  Krzysztof Górny, Reconsidering Colonial Heritage in West African Cities. Urban Space in Cape Verde, Senegal and The Gambia (Routledge, London & New York, 2024) · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in understanding the reaction of local communities and governments to colonial heritage in West African cities - The study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the changes in colonial districts

  Krzysztof Górny, Reconsidering Colonial Heritage in West African Cities. Urban Space in Cape Verde, Senegal and The Gambia (Routledge, London & New York, 2024) · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies the challenge of addressing the spatial disparities in social capital. The research highlights the need to link community networks to formal educational institutions.

  The Geographies of Social Capital in South Africa’s Education Systems · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in the literature on the spatial dynamics of social capital in education. The research highlights the need for a critical geographical analysis of social capital in education.

  The Geographies of Social Capital in South Africa’s Education Systems · 2026 · DOI

• Logistical challenges, such as remote and difficult-to-access areas, extreme climate conditions, and limited infrastructure. The need for international partnerships that require sensitivity to local contexts and cooperation.

  APPEL À COMMUNICATION – « QUATERNARISTES AFRICANISTES » SÉANCE SPÉCIALISÉE SGF/AFEQ-CNF INQUA – 19 NOVEMBRE 2026 · 2026 · DOI

• The need for a better understanding of the Quaternary period in Africa. The lack of scientific exchanges between researchers from various disciplines.

  APPEL À COMMUNICATION – « QUATERNARISTES AFRICANISTES » SÉANCE SPÉCIALISÉE SGF/AFEQ-CNF INQUA – 19 NOVEMBRE 2026 · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a need to reflect on Erika Theron's legacy - The paper highlights the relevance of Theron's research for contemporary social work practice

  REVISITING THE LEGACY OF ERIKA THERON FOR CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL WORK: SONDER HOED OF HANDSKOEN (“WITHOUT HAT OR GLOVES”) · 2025 · DOI

• 22nd May 2020), musician and composer of Guinean Mandinka origin has allowed millions to experience the kora harp lute with which he accompanied his song and popularized this instrument as well as the musical tradition of the West African griots, while the obviously related mvet harp zither is scarcely known today.

  Afrikai citerák · 2021 · DOI

• During the struggle against apartheid, at a time when traditional union activity relied on workers’ structural bargaining power, it was not always a safe option and institutional power was lacking, advice offices contributed to the labour movement by building workers’ associational power and aiming at development of strong trade unions.

  The Changing Role of Worker Advice Offices in South Africa, from 1970s to the Present · 2017 · DOI

• Research limitations/implications – One limitation of the study relates to the dearth in official records about Australian women teachers in concentration camps given that; not only are Boer War-related records generally difficult to source; but also that even the existent data is incomplete with many chapters missing completely from record.

  “Among the Boer Children” · 2016 · DOI

• This paper makes an initial contribution to reconceptualizing the bases of the ANC's political dominance and sheds light on an understudied aspect of its political and cultural orientation.

  Crafting Dominance: Political Power and the Marketing of the African National Congress · 2015 · DOI

• His partial shift in emphasis from race to culture in his relatively sparse ethnological writings of the early to mid-1930s was prompted by another German mentor, the linguist Diedrich Westermann (1887–1956), rather than by South African liberal scholars like Isaac Schapera.

  Fatheringvolkekunde: race and culture in the ethnological writings of Werner Eiselen, Stellenbosch University, 1926–1936 · 2015 · DOI

• While the South African systems are unmistakably modeled after Bogotá's Transmilenio, whose accomplishments have been touted as the low-cost, high-quality transport solution, the process through which other Southern cities influenced the circulation of BRT remains underexplored.

  The Politics of Policy Circulation: Unpacking the Relationship Between South African and South American Cities in the Adoption of Bus Rapid Transit · 2014 · DOI

• The transnational character of the anti-apartheid struggle is mostly absent from nationalist historiographies, while little is known about the daily lives of those who made up the ranks of MK, their interactions with host communities, and the implications of having a large, predominantly male army – with their feelings, longings and frustrations – stationed outside South Africa's borders for three decades.

  Married to the ANC: Tanzanian Women's Entanglement in South Africa's Liberation Struggle · 2014 · DOI

• Two decades on from 1994 seems an appropriate time to take stock of what has been achieved and where we have fallen short of our own expectations, and identify what remains to be done in South Africa.

  Memory and forgetting: How meta-narratives about the past overshadow the future · 2014

• The appropriation and indigenization of ICT technologies in North Africa remains under-explored; prior work emphasizes that ICT discourse focuses on infrastructure rather than use and that African states require self-defined political models, but no study examines how North African contexts specifically adapt or resist digitization frameworks.

  Review: Andreas Eckert, Ingeborg Grau and Arno Sonderegger (eds.), Afrika 1500–1900: Geschichte und Gesellschaft (2011); Arno Sonderegger, Ingeborg Grau and Birgit Englert (eds.), Afrika im 20. Jahrhundert: Geschichte und Gesellschaft (2011) · 2012

Most-cited papers in South African History and Culture

• Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa: from segregation to apartheid1 · Economy and Society · 1972 · 792 citations
• Africa in the world: a history of extraversion · African Affairs · 2000 · 654 citations
• Thinking about developmental states in Africa · Cambridge Journal of Economics · 2001 · 434 citations
• Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History · The American Historical Review · 1994 · 396 citations
• Relational comparison revisited · Progress in Human Geography · 2016 · 350 citations
• TRAVELING TECHNOLOGIES: Infrastructure, Ethical Regimes, and the Materiality of Politics in South Africa · Cultural Anthropology · 2013 · 240 citations
• Race as Common Sense: Racial Classification in Twentieth-Century South Africa · African Studies Review · 2001 · 239 citations
• AUTOCHTHONY: Local or Global? New Modes in the Struggle over Citizenship and Belonging in Africa and Europe · Annual Review of Anthropology · 2005 · 208 citations
• Are African Voters Really Ethnic or Clientelistic? Survey Evidence from Ghana · Political Science Quarterly · 2008 · 185 citations
• Naturing the Nation: Aliens, Apocalypse and the Postcolonial State · Journal of Southern African Studies · 2001 · 185 citations

Most recent work

• Negotiating the present, facing the past: postcolonial politics and transnational youth experiences in South Africa · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2026
• The limits of Marxist-Leninism and the democratic ecosocialist alternative · Review of African Political Economy · 2026
• South Africa, Gaza, Greenland: Trump 2.0 and the global settler colonial imaginary · Globalizations · 2026
• Enacting transition in the post-apartheid city · Urban Geography · 2026
• Public Transport Experiences of Township Women: Perspectives from Orange Farm · Afrika Focus · 2026
• Examining the long-term effects of Apartheid’s Tribal Classification on ethnic tensions and political fragmentation in post-apartheid South Africa · International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147- 4478) · 2026
• Narrating Moral Uncertainty in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Realism and Probability in No Time Like the Present · SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH · 2026
• The right words: mapping the ideological language of authoritarian populism in post-apartheid South Africa · Globalizations · 2026
• Understanding electoral shifts in the Gauteng City-Region: Insights on trust, governance and coalition politics · Development Southern Africa · 2026
• Meerdoelige opname onder Indie?rs en Kleurlinge, 1979: die stand van kennis insake oorsake van hartaanvalle en aanverwante sake by Indie?rs en Kleurlinge in die Republiek van Suid-Afrika · Human Science Research Council SA · 2026

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