White Gold and Thirsty Communities: The Cold War, Apartheid, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

“Sithole deepens our understanding of Steve Biko’s philosophy by developing an innovative theoretical frame.” -Mandisi Majavu, Associate Professor in the Political and International Studies Department, Rhodes University “Sithole frees Biko from the myth of being fixed in time –rendering his thought alive in the everyday. Biko’s Edge calls us toward self-determination, freedom, and the deep inner emergence of black strength. In these pages, Biko’s radical spirit endures.”-Thabang Monoa, Senior Lecturer in the Art History Department, University of Cape Town Rachel King, Associate Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies at the University College London Institute of Archaeology, author of Outlaws, Anxiety, and Disorder: Material Histories of the Maloti-Drakensberg “Delving into the politics of water in Lesotho and South Africa, this book reveals the history and implications of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. It is a remarkable work that lays bare the entrenched racial and class injustices that have shaped dam development in southern Africa.” Nthabiseng Mokoena-Mokhali, Archaeologist and Lecturer, Department of Historical Studies, National University of Lesotho

HSRC Press

Product Information

Format:

234x156mm

Pages:

264pp

ISBN-13:

978-0-7983-0545-7

Publish Year:

January 2026

Rights:

World Rights

Please login to access download links.

Prologue: Selling Gravity
Chapter 1: Dreams of Water in Southern Africa
Chapter 2: The History of the Water Deal and an Independent Foreign Policy for Lesotho, 1966-72
Chapter 3: Toward Soweto: Southern Africa’s Shifting Politics and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle, 1972-76
Chapter 4: Regional Security and the Project in the Balance, 1976-85
Chapter 5: 1986: The Lesotho Coup and the Highlands Water Treaty
Chapter 6: Gravity and Displacement: The LHWP in Action
Epilogue: The Botswana Scheme

Heike Becker is currently Professor (emerita) of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and has recently been a fellow at STIAS (Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies). Before her appointment at UWC in 2001, she was a researcher and lecturer at the University of Namibia (UNAM). She has conducted more than three decades of research on Namibian history, politics, and social movements, currently completing a study that explores how anti-colonial struggles, and their legacies have been remembered in postcolonial Namibia. She is the author of Namibian Women’s Movement 1980 to 1992: From Anti-colonial Resistance to Reconstruction.

|