Mandela’s Kinsmen: Nationalist Elites and Apartheid’s First Bantustan

At a time of increasing regional fractures within the African National Congress, Mandela’s Kinsmen provides a timely study of South Africa’s nationalist elite. Whilst mass protests against apartheid were forged in the crucible of township and trade union politics, Gibbs focuses on Mandela’s fraught relationships to his kinsmen inside apartheid’s foremost tribal Bantustan, the Transkei. He uncovers the enduring connections between the nationalist elites and the chieftaincy areas, and argues the enduring institutional legacies of the Bantustans continue to shape post-apartheid South Africa.

Timothy Gibbs is a Lecturer in African History, University College London.

Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland & Botswana): Jacana