Cultivating Race

Overview & Synopsis

Cultivating Race examines the intersections and relationships between scientific knowledge in farming and race politics in early twentieth-century South Africa. Considering agricultural progressivism as both a Pan-Africanist and white supremacist movement from a transatlantic perspective, it discusses the ways in which the ‘agrarian question’ fed into the emergence of the global ‘colour line’. The book investigates rural transformations in a period of rapid industrial growth and agrarian commercialization through the lens of agricultural education—including agricultural colleges, extension services, children’s clubs, and domestic training. South Africa in the segregation period, as an extreme case of both rapid agrarian change and state racism, holds important insights into global questions of rural reform and race politics. The book addresses scholars and students of the history of knowledge and science, agrarian studies, environmental history, and South African history who seek to understand the intricate links between race, knowledge, and rural reform in the twentieth century.