'To come together for progress': Modernization and nation-building in South Africa's bantustan periphery - the case of Bophuthatswana

Apartheid's bantustans reflected extreme forms of territorial fragmentation and (neo)colonially-derived dependency. Whilst the bantustans have been di smantled, paradoxically, the imagery of dependency which they came to symbo lize has been used recently to characterize other 'nation-building' situati ons. In order to provide a more thorough account of the complexity of bantu stan nation-building, background to its subsequent collapse and ambiguous l egacy, the paper re-examines one 'independent' bantustan, namely Bophuthats wana. Unlike previous approaches, the paper links apartheid's particulariti es and generalities: its explicit grounding within a wider generic Eurocent ric framework and especially the manner in which ideas of progress and iden tity were played out locally within South Africa's periphery are explored. Under the guise of 'independence', marginalized groups sought power and inf luence through vigorous efforts to promote a new national identity in Bophu thatswana. Bophuthatswana's shifting strategies and regional discourses, ho wever, must be seen in conjunction, with the effects of the implantation of the modem facade of a 'nation-state' and its incursion into rural and urba n society. Subsequent efforts towards nation-building by this pseudo-state were based upon evolutionary imagery of Bophuthatswana as a 'less developed ' peripheral territory requiring modernization and maturation. This had sev ere consequences for arty state-led efforts to mobilize cultural identity, 'invent tradition' and to implement 'national' development in Bophuthatswan a.