Kolloquium

This project provides a historical sociology of the role of imagined futures during South Africa’s transition from apartheid. Since the transition was essentially a struggle over the future, it provides an apt opportunity to investigate why some imaginaries prevail over others, become hegemonic and influence policy- particularly economic policy. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources and a limited number of interviews, the project investigates three sets of imagined futures. First, it focuses on the imaginaries of the Nationalist Party (NP) as it attempted to regain “promissory legitimacy” in the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. In collaboration with neoliberal academics, the NP attempted to secure white minority rule by promising a free-market future. In opposition to the NP’s authoritarian capitalism, the United Democratic Front (UDF) presented a vision of direct democracy in which people would have control over all aspects of their lives and would “share in the country’s wealth”. Moreover, many organisations affiliated to the UDF attempted to embody elements of their imagined futures thereby “making the future present”, which makes them an interesting case study of prefigurative politics. Finally, the project investigates the ANC’s economic conversion from social-democracy to neoliberalism in the early 1990s. The imaginary of globalisation, propagated through scenario planning exercises and various conferences, played a critical role in this conversion. The power of this imaginary was partly related to its future-orientation and its supposed inevitability. This part of the project highlights the intersections between imagined futures and global power relations in economic policy making in the Global South. In addition to providing new insights about South Africa’s transition, the project aims to contribute to the theoretical canon on imagined futures by putting it into conversation with decolonial and postcolonial theory.