Laura Evans

Dr Laura Evans PhD, FRHistS

Senior Lecturer In History


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, Sheffield Hallam University 

Research Associate, International Studies Group, University of the Free State (South Africa) 

Publications

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

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