This long-awaited, ground-breaking work is a book unlike any other. Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto is a monumental and authoritative study of the phenomenon of apartheid and its prevalence in the world. It proposes the establishment of an interdisciplinary new field of study from the global south known as apartheid studies (AS). The Manifesto is truly a landmark. It is the founding document and constitutive invitation to the first-of-its-kind, formal study of apartheid. We are shown, with amazing depth and clarity, that apartheid takes forms that are very different to what we have been told or what we ordinarily assume. For the first time, apartheid is systematically defined, and its full range of meanings, tendencies, and applications examined. How does oppression persist? The answer is found in the exposition, construct, theoretical framework, and paradigm of apartheid. In Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto, Nyasha Mboti has developed the world’s first general theory of apartheid – an original theory and methodology of how oppression, harm, injustice, poverty, loss, and inequality persist. Mboti demonstrates that apartheid is the highest stage of oppression. It functions by allocating differential rates of oppression to human beings such that no two people in the world can experience oppression the same way or at the same rate. These differences constitute what Mboti calls the rate of oppression (ROp), the careful analysis of which is fundamental in understanding the persistence of oppression and how to undo apartheid. By the Manifesto’s end, we have a fully-fledged, careful, and complete theoretical framework composed of more than one hundred tenets and constructs that invite new ways of thinking clearly about our modern times and our role and place in the world. This daring book and the exciting field of study it maps and pioneers have been long overdue. Apartheid studies as a field and as a practice will fundamentally alter our understanding of why things are the way they are in the world, and what to do about it.

About the Author

Nyasha Mboti is the founder and pioneer of apartheid studies (AS). He is an Associate Professor and Head of Department of Communication Science at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. He lives in Johannesburg.

Readers Comments

Professor Mboti makes a compelling argument for the dedicated study of apartheid through an approach that collapses artificial boundaries, so that we can follow apartheid to its taproot. This is a most exciting prospect!                                                                                                                                 Dr. Sarah Malotane-Henkeman, University of the Western Cape

Here is an opening salvo that…sets the tone for the quest “to put apartheid on trial” and construct a“science of apartheid”. The Manifesto is a must read that raises and addresses pertinent questions about the “how” and “what” of apartheid.                                                                                           Dr. Tshepo Mvulane Moloi, University of Johannesburg

This is ground-breaking work. Nyasha Mboti has done a significant service to all those concerned about apartheid’s continuing existence. He has produced truly excellent work proposing that apartheid in its different forms can be thought of as a global theoretical framework.                                   Prof. Edna Raquel Hogemann, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro

Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto is timely, challenging, controversial and above all highly important to better understand contemporary relations of race, how these have come into existence and where these are heading.                                                                                                                             Dr. Stasja Koot, Wageningen University

Apartheid studies is an idea whose time has come. This book and its coming sequels are a must read for scholars and students across the breadth of social sciences, and for practitioners and policymakers.                                                                                                                                                        Dr. Jonathan Muringani, University of Oslo

The worst thing about Apartheid Studies is that they have come so late, nearly half a century after the international community implicitly called for them. The best thing is that they are finally here.                                                                                                                                                                Dr. Anthony Löwstedt, Webster Vienna Private University

Mboti’s robust intervention will challenge everything that we were taught about apartheid, enslavement, emancipation, colonialism, oppression, independence, and the mandate of true self-liberation. If Africans must reject predetermined definitions and produce their own knowledge, here is the model!                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Prof. Mhoze Chikowero, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Vol. 1 of Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto is not just any book; it is an empirical exercise in exposing “the hiding places and holiday destinations of apartheid”. Maybe there is hope amid the tragedy after all.                                                                                                                                                                    Sizwe sikaMusi, Researcher and Philosopher

Nyasha Mboti, through a unique and highly compelling style and approach – one that incorporates unparalleled depth and breadth of information and insight – has produced a book that is set to captivate historians, scholars and reading enthusiasts in South Africa and beyond.                                                     Kim Heller, author of No White Lies

Mboti’s ground-breaking gem of a book is a rational response to Mandela’s call of “Never, never, and never again” against apartheid. The author accomplishes an important and urgent task that elevates apartheid studies to an important subject of study that ought to be included in the curricula at every academic institution. This important book sets the terms and locus of this epistemological enunciation.                                                                Dr. Winston Mano, University of Westminster

World Rights

Category: Politics, Social Sciences, Cultural Studies/AFRICA 

Trim size: 6 x 9"

Page count: 752 Full color

Publication year: 2022