Dr Laura Evans PhD, FRHistS
Senior Lecturer In History
- Sheffield Creative Industries Institute
- Sheffield Institute of Social Sciences
- Humanities 香蕉视频 Centre
- Culture and Creativity 香蕉视频 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
香蕉视频
- Humanities 香蕉视频 Centre
- Culture and Creativity 香蕉视频 Institute
Humanities 香蕉视频 Centre, 香蕉视频
香蕉视频 Associate, International Studies Group, University of the Free State (South Africa)
Publications
Journal articles
Evans, L. (2024). . South African Historical Journal.
Evans, L. (2024). . South African Historical Journal, 75 (3), 287-324.
Evans, L. (2019). . Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.
Evans, L. (2019). . African Historical Review, 50 (1-2), 101-129.
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). . Journal of Southern African Studies, 40 (1), 21-40.
Evans, L. (2013). . Journal Of Agrarian Change, 13 (2), 213-233.
Evans, L. (2012). . South African Historical Journal, 64 (1), 117-137.
Evans, L. (2012). Review of Zimbabwe鈥檚 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鈥檚 Lives in the Western Cape, 1948- 1976, by Helen Scanlon. African Historical Review (Kleio), 42 (2).
Evans, L. (2009). Pastoral Eclipse?: Rethinking 鈥淭he Land Issue鈥 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). . In Magaziner, D. (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of South African History. Oxford University Press
Evans, L. (2024). . In Spear, T. (Ed.) Oxford 香蕉视频 Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press:
Evans, L. (2021). Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, 鈥楧evelopment鈥 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鈥檚 Bantustans and the Dynamics of Decolonization: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands. In Lissoni, A., & Ally, S. (Eds.) New Histories of South Africa鈥檚 Apartheid-Era Bantustans. Routledge
Books
Evans, L. (2019). . Brill.
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.
Presentations
Evans, L. (2022). 鈥淗arnessing the Power of the People?鈥: 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, 鈥淒evelopment鈥 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鈥檚 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鈥檚 鈥淒umping Grounds鈥. 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 香蕉视频, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne
Evans, L. (2011). The Differentiated Responses to Decolonisation: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands. Presented at: 鈥淟et鈥檚 Talk About Bantustans鈥 Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Evans, L. (2010). Understanding Acquiescence: South Africa鈥檚 Bantustans and the Social History of Resettlement, c.1960- 76. Presented at: Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association (UK), St. Anthony鈥檚 College, Oxford University
Evans, L. (2009). The Makings and Meanings of 鈥淗omeland鈥 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