Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the way in which the ANCwas able to harness ‘soft’ cultural and symbolic power to compensate for its lack of ‘hard’, formal, organised strength, in ways that were able to mitigate the huge disparity in material resources between it and the state during the township rebellion of the 1980s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will consider the ANC's role during the youth-led township rebellion of the mid-to-late 1980s. The relevance of this insurrection to the theme of the geography and migration of conflict is that even though the ANC lacked a physical presence in the townships (for the greater part of the rebellion), and was thus unable to organise the resistance, the appeal of its confrontational policies - and above all its armed struggle - meant it was accorded the mantle of titular leadership of the revolt by the youths spearheading the fighting. The intangibility of mass consciousness and the difficulty of gauging it though conventional archival sources means the article relies heavily on the testimony of contemporary witnesses, and particularly journalists to map the process by which the rising was able to migrate across boundaries of region and race. The origins and dynamics of the uprising are investigated in the paper, as is the manner in which the ANC was able to wield and marshal symbolic power during its course. The paper as a whole considers the manner in which the revolt's lack of formal leadership proved to be its greatest strength by making it so difficult to quell.