Lucien van der Walt

Lucien van der Walt (born 8 September 1972) is a South African writer and professor of Sociology. His research engages the anarchist/syndicalist tradition of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin; trade unionism, particularly in southern Africa; and neo-liberal state restructuring. He currently teaches and researches at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and previously worked at the University of the Witwatersrand. His 2007 PhD on anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa in the early 1900s won both the international prize for the best PhD dissertation from the Labor History journal, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa prize for best African PhD thesis.

Scholarly works

Van der Walt is known 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 (Reviews:^[1][2][3][4] According to WorldCat, the book is held in 960 libraries ^[5] He is also known for his book with Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power vol. 1).^[6][7]

Other activities

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.

Books

• Lucien van der Walt, 2014, Negro E Vermelho: Anarquismo, sindicalismo revolucionário e pessoas de cor na África Meridional nas décadas de 1880 a 1920, Editora Faísca, São Paulo, 103pp.
• Steven J. Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt (eds.), 2014, (foreword by Benedict Anderson), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, Studies in Global Social History, paperback edition, i–lxxvi, 510pp.
• Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, 2013, Schwarze Flamme: Revolutionäre Klassenpolitik im Anarchismus und Syndikalismus Schwarze Flamme: Revolutionäre Klassenpolitik im Anarchismus und Syndikalismus, Edition Nautlius, Hamburg, 560pp;
• Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt, 2010, Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution. Amsterdam: Brill Press, 2010. Pp. lxxiv+434.
• Southern Africa editor, 2009, International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest, Blackwell, New York.
• Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, 2009, Black Flame: the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism. (Counter-power volume 1). Edinburgh and Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2009. Pp. 500.

References

External links

• Blog with papers and PDFs by Lucien van der Walt, on neo-liberal restructuring, class struggles, trade union strategy, and anarchism/ syndicalism