New Contree

The New Contree serves as a scholarly voice and platform for instilling and disseminating local and regional history debate, and its value in broader contexts. New Contree’s intellectual repertoire compliments a rigorous theoretically reflexive social history in which inclusivity in reconstructing the past from “below” (ordinary people’s voice, and acknowledging smaller community activities) and also from “above” (be informed on related actions of for example central authority, government and national figures) matters. Change occurs through the interaction of major decisive events, and the rhythm of seemingly trivial, prosaic, and almost discreet courses of daily life. New Contree aims to publish high-quality academic articles which address research on an aspect of the history of regions and localities in Southern Africa in particular, but also in Africa and in other parts of the world, especially from a comparative angle. Any aspect of activity, topic or/and phenomenon in for example urban, rural, social, cultural, health, environmental, economic and political life locally, regionally, or/and in other global contexts are of interest. The New Contree also welcomes contributions on regions and localities, contributing towards, and emanating from, refreshed methodological, theoretical and historiographical views. Changing research approaches in local and regional histories to also facilitate community knowledge systems towards co-arriving at broader understandings for sustainable environments, are encouraged and scholarly reporting welcomed. Multidisciplinary-like research in histories on localities and regions – with a vision to also provide a comprehensive understanding through the methodologies of other disciplines – are accommodated, and encouraged. New Contree also supports review articles and book reviews that relates to regional and local history. Researchers from any academic institution are encouraged to communicate with the New Contree Editorial Advisory Board if they are interested to act as guest editor for a supplementary issue.
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Recent Submissions
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Arde, G. 2020. War party: How the ANC’s political killings are breaking South Africa [Book review]
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021) -
Shillington, K. 2021. Charles Warren: Royal Engineer in the Age of Empire [Book review]
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021) -
Towards a community engagement turn? Historians debate forms of engagement in 21st century-higher education
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)Should the luxury we currently enjoy of focusing our research mainly on debating and/or philosophising about the discipline of History in centres of Higher Education and Training (HET) not be transformed in the 21st ... -
Marriage in the Mother City: The Anglican marriage records of Cape Town, 1865-1960
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)As a social institution that permeates almost all societies, marriage trends and practices are studied across the social sciences. Yet South African marriages, past and present, remain understudied, notably because of a ... -
“Inkosi Yetu Ngu Kamuzu Yedwa” (Our Only King Is Kamuzu): The M’mbelwa Ngoni’s relations with Hastings Kamuzu Banda in Malawi from 1964 to 1994
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article examines the cultural experiences of the M’mbelwa Ngoni who occupied the modern Mzimba District in Malawi from 1964 to 1994. Using written (primary and secondary) and oral sources, the article argues ... -
“Volkekunde” in the academic and rugby world of South Africa’s Dr Danie Craven
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article is a foray into the field of anthropology (“volkekunde” in Afrikaans) and sport history. It examines aspects of the sport-related thinking of a noted luminary in South Africa’s rugby world, Dr Danie Craven ... -
The Phelophepa train, “train of hope, train of healing”
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article explores the significance of the Phelophepa train, also known as the Phelophepa Health Care Train (HCT). This train started out with only three coaches but because of the need for its services and its ... -
Changing lifestyles, business, and the politics of the nineteenth-century Cape ice and refrigeration trade
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)The involvement of Cape businessmen in the ice or frozen water trade, and their contribution to its globalisation during the nineteenth century, is a neglected aspect of South Africa’s water history. During the period ... -
Natal Afrikaner women and the South African War (1899-1902)
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)In this article, the variety of experiences of Natal Afrikaner women as British subjects who were related by blood and culture to the Boers of the Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, with which the ... -
Race and ethnicity in South African urban history : A call to investigate “mingling” as well as “separation” in the city
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article argues that more methodical attention should be given by historians to both the extent and nature of racial and ethnic mingling of people, ideas and cultures across the range of such potential divides in ... -
A fool’s errand? Black Consciousness and the 1970s debate over the “Indian” in the Natal Indian Congress
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)Bantu Stephen Biko, born in Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape was murdered by the South African apartheid regime in September 1977, aged 31. The year 2021 marks the 75th anniversary of his birth. Biko remains iconic, but a ... -
Emfuleni’s wastewater crisis, 2018-2021: The history of a Vaal sub-catchment problem
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)In 2018 the collapse of the wastewater infrastructure of Gauteng’s Emfuleni Local Municipality was responsible for a severe fish-kill in the Vaal River Barrage. Even communities downstream of the Barrage were affected. ... -
Estate farming and Ndau people’s displacement from Zimbabwe into Mozambique, c.1940-2010
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article focuses on the development of plantation farming close to the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border and its effects on the Ndau people. Colonial incursions on the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border areas resulted in the development ... -
Asymmetric relations and enforcement of democracy in West Africa : the case of Nigeria and The Gambia
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)Nigeria and The Gambia have been involved in asymmetrical relations since 1965 given the disparity in the material capabilities between them. This asymmetry came to the fore in the role played by Nigeria in resolving the ... -
Botswana-Bophuthatswana relations in the context of Lucas Mangope’s quest for international diplomatic recognition, 1977-1994
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)This article is an account of the relations between independent Botswana and her South African Black homeland neighbour of Bophuthatswana, whom Botswana steadfastly refused to recognise as a sovereign state. Bophuthatswana ... -
The Vhambedzi origin and the expansion of Zimbabwe stone building tradition south of the Vhembe River
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021)The Vhambedzi clan is one of the earlier Vhavenda sibs that settled south of the Limpopo (Vhembe) River before the arrival of the Masingo group that later conquered and subjugated them. The Masingo is the ruling elite of ... -
Kleynhans, E. 2021. Hitler’s spies: Secret agents and the intelligence war in South Africa [Book review]
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021) -
Holm, E. 2020. Die ossewa en sy spore [Book review]
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021) -
Political myth and historical reality in Nelson Mandela’s Long road to freedom
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2021) -
Obituary : A paradigm changer of her time in South Africa * 17 Dec 1945 ɨ 5 Dec 2020
(School for Basic Sciences, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, Vanderbijlpark, 2020)