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Breaking the Buffalo: The Transformation of Stevedoring Work in Durban Between 1970 and 1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2003

Bernard Dubbeld
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In Durban, South Africa, stevedoring workers were the most physically powerful workers of all, and were known as onyathi in Zulu, or buffalo, which aptly described the physical and collective nature of their work. Throughout the century, the stevedoring industry was especially labour-intensive, necessitating teams of workers. As in most industries in South Africa, African workers built and maintained the docks. These buffalo developed the linkage that made Durban a thriving city and sustained the apartheid economy. Yet today the buffalo are all but gone, replaced by onboard warehouses known as containers. Machines have replaced the men once so integral to the survival of the city.

Type
ARTICLE
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 48 , Issue S11 , December 2003 , pp. 97 - 122
Copyright
© 2003 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Footnotes

I wish to thank Keith Breckenridge, Stephen Sparks, Fiona Ross, Jean Comaroff, Benjamin Dawson, and Mark Geraghty for comments and suggestions. Any errors however, are the sole responsibility of the author.