Fugitive infrastructure in the fight against South African apartheid

ABSTRACT

In this article, I examine the case study of a secret communication infrastructure developed as part of Operation Vula and operational from 1988 to 1991 during the final years of the South African liberation struggle. The purpose of Vula was to bring key leaders back from exile to steer from the ground the machinery of mass movement against the apartheid regime. To make Vula a reality in a highly militarised South Africa in the late 1980s a whole infrastructure of covered resistance (physical, technical, and people-based) was necessary. I propose the concept of fugitive infrastructure to understand this form of resistance. I suggest that the secret Vula mission and its communication system can be interpreted as a fugitive infrastructure whereby the system comprised not only an instrument for coordinating resistance to the apartheid regime but also a materialisation, at the level of infrastructure, of a potential alternative future for South Africans. Methodologically, this paper is based on mixed data collection methods including empirical and archival materials collected and analysed during my Ph.D. research.

KEYWORDS:

• Fugitive infrastructure
• South Africa
• technology
• communication
• Anti-Apartheid

Acknowledgement

This article would not have been possible without all the freedom fighters who developed, built, and supported the encrypted communication network and all of those who fought against apartheid. I dedicate this article to them. Also, I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive feedback, in addition to Tiffany Willoughby-Herard and Martin Boston for their generous work, and sustained guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In popular culture, to be called a Luddite means to be “anti-technology” or “anti-progress”. However, historically, Luddites are not against all forms of technology, but rather against those that aim to strengthen capital and the elites and to oppress and dominate the people.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sophie Toupin

Sophie Toupin is a Horizon Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University.