The Regiments:

Cultural Histories of Zulu Masculinities and Gender Formation in south africa,

1816-2018

Photo by Greg Marinovich

Former President of the Republic of South Africa

Jacob Zuma (2009-2018)

Umbimbi Lwamabutho Members at a Durban March

January 2018

research questions

• How have the paths through youth socialization shifted over time?

• How have leaders deployed the trope of the Zulu warrior in relation to contemporary challenges

• How did the warrior legacy help construct a distinctive Zulu identity for ethnic nationalist purposes?

• How has the idea of martial masculinity been understood and enacted by Zulu-speaking men (and women)?

• How is “history” itself (and the connected idea of the Zulu warrior) deployed as a tool to gain support for various causes, and what is left out by the adoption of this narrow historical bias?

• How do traditional leaders utilize traditions (like the amabutho) to educate youth and protect cultural traditions?

Izichwe Youth Football Academy

Historiographical contributions

• Extends earlier studies by considering Zulu martial masculinity over two centuries, thus showing the varied expressions of this tradition in different eras under shifting social, political, and economic constraints

• Shows that amabutho shaped, and have been shaped by, white anxieties over young Zulu men’s “violent potential” and a need for social control

• Invites a reconsideration of the role of chiefs and kings in South Africa since 1800

Chapter one:

Before and After Shaka: The Development and Evolution of Amabutho to 1879

Chapter two:

Umcaba osele emasini/The crushed mealies left in the sour milk: The Changing Functions of Amabutho in Natal and Zululand, 1879-1913

chapter three

He is like unto one who is surrounded by the shields of warriors: Amabutho, the Royal House, and Ambiguities of Dependence, 1913-1948

Chapter Four:

The Warrior Is Now a Worker: Modernizing Martial Masculinity in Urban Migrant Communities, 1928-1970

chapter five:

“We fight because we are so plenty”: Zulu Martial Masculinity and the Fight Against Apartheid, 1968-1994

Chapter Six:

Post-Apartheid Zulu Nationalism, Martial Masculinity and the Changing Nature of the Amabutho, 1999 to 2018

PHAMBILI