'Playing at Public Health': The Search for Control in South Durban, 1860-1932

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Periodical article

Title:	'Playing at Public Health': The Search for Control in South Durban, 1860-1932
Author:	Sparks, Stephen
Year:	2002
Periodical:	Journal of Natal and Zulu History
Volume:	20
Pages:	1-28
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Natal
Subjects:	Indians public health neighbourhoods History and Exploration Urbanization and Migration Politics and Government Health and Nutrition
Abstract:	At different stages throughout the late 19th and early 20th century various people in Natal, South Africa, largely though not exclusively white landowners, attempted to find a way to gain greater control over Durban's peripheral areas. The periurban population, primarily Indian, were conceived of as a threat to 'public health', and the search for control was primarily articulated through (often racialized) public health discourses. This is evidenced in the operations of the South Coast Junction Area Health Committee (SCJAPHC) and its successor, the South Coast Junction Area Local Administration Health Board (SCJALAHB). However, the SCJALAHB and the public health administration that it represented failed to deliver either control or health improvements. This failure was manipulated by local industrialists and Durban City Council officials as they attempted to bring about the incorporation of the periurban area - much of what is present-day South Durban - into the Durban borough at the beginning of the 1930s. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]