South Africa's Revolutionary Era

Abstract

ation and circulation in the round. Having described anxieties about fertility and mortality, in Chapter Six he turns to migration. In a fascinating analysis of provincial reports and correspondence, Coghe builds on a core theme of the book considering Angola as an embattled colony, prone to negative comparison and subversion by neighbouring colonial powers. Anxiety about porous borders leaking workers to neighbouring territories where taxes were lower and jobs were available, led to a series of initiatives in border regions. Officials sought to capture migration flows statistically and to incentivise against them through favourable tax schemes compared with neighbouring countries and by encouraging the establishment of mission stations, which offered educational and medical opportunities to compete with mission communities across the borders. Coghe describes the tensions between provincial officials and the central colonial ministry over migration, and — following another core theme of the book — shows how demographic information was collected, managed, and transformed to suit different agendas. In his Epilogue, Coghe describes the shift in global population discourse about Africa from a fear of underpopulation in the interwar period, to growing concerns about rapid population growth and its proposed negative consequences for development post-1945. He shows how Angola largely sidestepped this wider ‘discursive reversal’ (250) right through to independence in 1975, due to the country’s continuing relatively high mortality, low population density, demand for labour, and good soil productivity. Meanwhile, ongoing Portuguese pronatalism restricted the influence of population experts and international family planning agencies throughout this period, potentially — as Coghe concludes — with a lasting legacy for Angola’s high fertility rate today. This is a carefully researched monograph, with meticulous detail on how population knowledge and policies are constructed. It reveals important themes and processes in Angolan history and colonial historiography, while also carrying lessons for today when global population anxieties are again on the rise. Coghe shows that such anxieties — and the data on which they are based — need to be analysed to reveal their racialised, gendered, and political underpinnings before policies can be enacted to truly enhance human and planetary health.