Writing space, power, and strategies of resistance in apartheid South Africa: The story of the 'Weekly Mail' and 'New Nation

This dissertation is a study of writing and publishing during the final days of apartheid. Specifically, this project examines those working for two South African newspapers, the Weekly Mail and New Nation, during the late 1980's, a period of intense legal and material constraints for journalists in that country. Based on more than 30 interviews with the editors, journalists, and attorneys working for these anti-apartheid newspapers, as well as an examination of literally hundreds of articles, this dissertation analyzes the strategies of resistance developed in response to the massive system of censorship that existed at that time.;"Writing space," the central concept of this project, is used as a means of analyzing the constant struggle between these newspapers and the government regarding the acceptable parameters of expression. Like the back-and-forth struggle for terrain in trench warfare, writing space did not open or close in a linear, predictable manner, but rather was fluid, constantly contracting and expanding, and saturated in power relations. This concept also proved useful in examining the strategies developed by those working for these newspapers in response to the economic constraints that they faced.;The central argument of this dissertation is that the boundaries of writing space were ultimately regulated by complex dynamics of power. In order to expand their writing space, those working for these subversive newspapers developed numerous strategies. These included exploiting the gaps and fissures that existed within and between apartheid institutions, as well as developing a wide variety of masking strategies that required them to play the roles of both the "trickster" and the "fool." Many of these same strategies were also used by those at these newspapers when negotiating their complex relationships with their financial sponsors.