Lucien van der Walt

Lucien van der Walt
Born 8 September 1972
Krugersdorp, South Africa
Occupation Professor
Website
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Lucien van der Walt is a South African writer and professor of Sociology, long involved in the working class movement. His research engages the anarchist/syndicalist tradition of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin; trade unionism, particularly in southern Africa; and neo-liberal state restructuring. Born in the mining town of Krugersdorp, he has a working-class family background. He currently teaches and researches at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and previously worked at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Notable scholarly and other works

Van der Walt is well known for his book, with Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power vol. 1).[1] (nominated for the CLR James Book Prize) and for his book, with Steven J. Hirsch, Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution.

Other notable works deal with anarchism/ syndicalism and colonialism, with global labour history, with neo-liberal restructuring in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and with the history and theory of anarchism and syndicalism. He also served as Southern Africa editor for the 2009 International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest (Blackwell, New York).

Besides numerous academic journal articles and book chapters, he has presented papers at more than 85 events, serves on five editorial boards, and has also published over 100 more 'popular' articles in papers such as the South African Labour Bulletin, the Sowetan, and Zabalaza: a journal of southern African revolutionary anarchism.

Awards

Van der Walt won both the international prize for the best PhD dissertation from the Labor History, the pre-eminent publication for historical scholarship in its field worldwide, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa prize for best African PhD thesis.

Reception of work

Van der Walt's books have been variously praised by reviewers as (for Black Flame) "deeply impressive", an "outstanding contribution", a "grand work of synthesis," and "remarkable",[2] and as (for Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940) an "academic masterpiece",[3] "superb",[4] "incredibly valuable",[5] and offering "deep insights".[6]

Involvement in working class movement

Van der Walt helped found, co-ordinate and currently teaches in the University of the Witwatersrand/ National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa education programme for union office-bearers and activists. He is also part of the Global Labour University program, and is also involved in projects such as the Red and Black Forums.

Van der Walt was an activist in the anti-apartheid student movement in the 1990s, and in the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union. He served as a media officer in the Anti-Privatisation Forum, of which he was a founder member in 2000. Van der Walt also served as an executive member of the Workers' Library and Museum in Johannesburg, co-ordinating its education/ workshop programme and its Workers' Bookshop. In addition to these roles, he was active in a range of study groups and political circles, and a leading figure in the 1999/2001 struggle against outsourcing at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Working class family background

Born in 1972, van der Walt's paternal grandparents were poor Afrikaners, both of whom were imprisoned by British imperial forces during the Second Boer War, his grandmother in a concentration camp, his grandfather in a prisoner of war camp at St Helena. His grandfather was an underground miner, until contracting silicosis, after which he worked as a handyman and on government public works. His father was a mine worker, who worked his way through night school to a school teacher. His mother's family were British working class immigrants; she worked as a teacher, where she met his father.

Books and edited specials

Keynotes and plenary talks (selection)

Scholarly articles and book chapters (selection)

Other writings (selection)

Recent popular works

Conference and seminar papers and inputs (select only)

References

  1. ↑ Featherstone, David (November 2012). "BOOK REVIEW: Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism & Anarchism". Journal of Global History, volume 7, number 3. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  2. ↑ AK Press notes
  3. ↑ Constance Bantman, Anarchist Studies, Vol. 20 No. 1 (2012), pp. 106–108
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Ole Birk Laursen, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Vol. 48, No. 55, pp. 573–575
  6. ↑ Mandisi Majavu, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 47, No. 122, 2012, pp. 122–124

External links