This is a compelling study of the origins and trajectory of a legendary black uprising against Apartheid – the Alexandra Rebellion of 1986. Using insights from literature on collective action and social movements, it delves deep into the rebellion’s inner workings. It examines how residents of Alexandra – a poverty-stricken, segregated township in Johannesburg – manipulated and overturned the meanings of space, time and power in their sequestered world; how they used political theatre to convey, stage and dramatise their struggle; and how young and old residents generated differing ideologies and tactics, giving rise to a distinct form of generational politics.

Theatres of Struggle asks the reader to enter into the world of the rebels, and to confront the moral complexity and social duress they experienced as they invented new social forms and violently attacked old ones.

Belinda Bozzoli is Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

With Edinburgh University Press (UK)