Dr Laura Evans PhD, FRHistS
Senior Lecturer In History
- Sheffield Creative Industries Institute
- Sheffield Institute of Social Sciences
- Humanities Research Centre
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
Summary
My research focuses on the modern and contemporary history of South Africa, with a focus on the history of the apartheid-era bantustans.
Before joining Sheffield Hallam, I held fellowships at the University of the Western Cape and at the University of Cape Town. At SHU I teach modern South African history alongside a range of topics in modern African, colonial and postcolonial history.
About
My book, Survival in the Dumping Grounds: A Social History of Apartheid Relocation (Brill & UCT Press, 2019) examines the social history of forced relocation into the Ciskei bantustan at the height of the apartheid era. Based on oral history and archival research, it explores the makings and the meanings of displacement and relocation. While state relocation was coercive, and had terrible consequences for people compelled to move to rural 'dumping grounds' (as they were often called), those who came to live in the new relocation townships nevertheless remade their lives amid adversity.
More recently, I have written about the history of mass action and political violence during South Africa's transition to democracy, with a particular focus on the mass action campaign of 1992, which culminated in the tragic state massacre of peaceful demonstrators at Bhisho in September 1992. If South Africa’s transition has often been hailed as a ‘miracle’ shaped by elites at the negotiating table, my research foregrounds local dynamics of collective action, repression and conflict - not least around the future of the bantustans - that significantly shaped the national negotiations and the course of the transition to democracy.
Teaching
Sheffield Creative Industries Institute , Sheffield Institute of Social Sciences
College of Social Sciences and Arts
History
BA (Hons) History
Research
- Humanities Research Centre
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
Humanities Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University
Research Associate, International Studies Group, University of the Free State (South Africa)
Publications
Journal articles
Evans, L. (2024). The Mass Action Campaign of 1992: The Ciskei Crisis and the African National Congress in Transition. South African Historical Journal. http://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2024.2399633
Evans, L. (2024). The Bhisho March and Massacre of September 1992: The “Leipzig Option” and the Meanings of Mass Action in the South African Transition. South African Historical Journal, 75 (3), 287-324. http://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2024.2399631
Evans, L. (2019). Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, ‘Development’ and the Bantustans. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. http://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1605705
Evans, L. (2019). The Bantustan State and the South African Transition: Militarisation, Patrimonialism and the Collapse of the Ciskei Regime, 1986-1994. African Historical Review, 50 (1-2), 101-129. http://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2019.1582205
Evans, L. (2017). Forced Relocation in Apartheid South Africa: The impact of 'separate development'. Modern History Review, 20 (2), 18-22.
Evans, L. (2014). Review of Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and its Consequences, by Tom Lodge. South African Historical Journal, 66 (2), 398-401.
Evans, L. (2014). Resettlement and the making of the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, c.1960–1976. Journal of Southern African Studies, 40 (1), 21-40. http://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2014.889359
Evans, L. (2013). Gender, generation and the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976. Journal Of Agrarian Change, 13 (2), 213-233. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0366.2012.00369.x
Evans, L. (2012). South Africa's Bantustans and the dynamics of ‘decolonisation’: reflections on writing histories of the homelands. South African Historical Journal, 64 (1), 117-137. http://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2012.655941
Evans, L. (2012). Review of Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myths and Realities, by Ian Scoones, Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba & Chrispen Sukume. Safundi:Journal of South African and American Studies, 13 (1-2).
Evans, L. (2010). Review of African Women and Apartheid: Migration and Settlement in Urban South Africa, by Rebekah Lee, and Representation and Reality: Portraits of Women’s Lives in the Western Cape, 1948- 1976, by Helen Scanlon. African Historical Review (Kleio), 42 (2).
Evans, L. (2009). Pastoral Eclipse?: Rethinking “The Land Issue” in South Africa (Review article). Afriche e Orienti, 11 (1-2).
Evans, L. (2009). Review of Landmarked: Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa, by Cherryl Walker. Historia, 54 (1).
Book chapters
Evans, L. (2025). Apartheid and the Bantustans: From Reserves to Reincorporation. In Magaziner, D. (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of South African History. Oxford University Press
Evans, L. (2024). Violence in the South African Transition. In Spear, T. (Ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press: http://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1104
Evans, L. (2021). Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, ‘Development’ and the Bantustans. In Havik, P.J., Pinto Janeiro, H., Aires Oliveira, P., & Flunser Pimentel, I. (Eds.) Empires and Colonial Incarceration in the Twentieth Century. Routledge
Evans, L. (2017). South Africa’s Bantustans and the Dynamics of Decolonization: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands. In Lissoni, A., & Ally, S. (Eds.) New Histories of South Africa’s Apartheid-Era Bantustans. Routledge
Books
Evans, L. (2019). Survival in the 'dumping grounds': a social history of apartheid relocation. Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/39497?lang=en
Evans, L. (2019). Survival in the 'dumping grounds'.
Theses / Dissertations
Evans, L. (2011). The Makings and Meanings of Homeland Spaces: A social history of resettlement in the Ciskei, c.1960-1976. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Phimister, I., Thompson, A., & Larmer, M.
Internet Publications
Evans, L. (2022). The Bisho March and the Leipzig Option. https://africasacountry.com/2022/09/the-revisionist-history-of-south-africas-transition
Presentations
Evans, L. (2022). “Harnessing the Power of the People?”: Revisiting the Bhisho March. Presented at: Southern African Historical Society Conference, East London (South Africa)
Evans, L. (2017). Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, “Development” and the Bantustans. Presented at: Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Evans, L. (2016). The Bhisho Massacre and Political Violence During the South African Transition. Presented at: Conference of the African Studies Association, UK, Robinson College, University of Cambridge
Evans, L. (2016). Crisis, Containment and the End of Empire in Africa: Reframing South Africa’s Gulag. Presented at: Conference on Colonial Incarceration in the Twentieth Century, Aljube Museum, Lisbon
Evans, L. (2015). The Bhisho March and the Politics of the South African Transition to Democracy. Presented at: Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, Stellenbosch University
Evans, L. (2014). Structural Unemployment, Gender and Poverty in Apartheid’s “Dumping Grounds”. Presented at: The History of Poverty in Africa: A Central Question?, Heyman Centre for the Humanities, Columbia University, New York
Evans, L. (2013). Resettlement, Administration and the Making of the Ciskei. Presented at: Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, University of Botswana, Gaborone
Evans, L., & Kleinbooi, K. (2013). "Agrivillages" and Off-farm Settlement in the Western Cape. Presented at: Land Divided Conference: Land and South African Society in 2013 in Comparative Perspective, University of Cape Town
Evans, L. (2012). Forced Removals, Resettlement and the Politics of Memory in a South African "Homeland". Presented at: Historical Justice and Memory Conference, Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne
Evans, L. (2011). The Differentiated Responses to Decolonisation: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands. Presented at: “Let’s Talk About Bantustans” Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Evans, L. (2010). Understanding Acquiescence: South Africa’s Bantustans and the Social History of Resettlement, c.1960- 76. Presented at: Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association (UK), St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University
Evans, L. (2009). The Makings and Meanings of “Homeland” Spaces: Resettlement in the Ciskei, South Africa, c.1960-1976. Presented at: Southern African Historical Society Conference, University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria
Evans, L. (2009). A Social History of Resettlement in the Ciskei, South Africa, c.1960-1980. Presented at: 3rd European Conference on African Studies, Leipzig University