Doctoral Dissertation Research: Internationalizing Apartheid: The Technopolitics of South Africa's Synthetic Coal-to-Oil Project

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This doctoral dissertation project, supported by NSF's program in Science, Technology & Society, examines the development of the South African coal to liquid fuel program, known as SASOL. Combining archival, oral history and ethnographic research at sites in South Africa, the project aims to produce a history of this understudied industry. SASOL was funded by the South African national government during Apartheid as a strategic priority for securing South Africa's fuel independence. The research project traces the development of SASOL's synthetic fuel technology in the context of Apartheid South Africa and cold war politics. The study also focuses on the planning and subsequent development of Sasolburg and Secunda, the towns established by SASOL to house its workers. The study explores how urban planning and racial segregation shaped the spatial formation of SASOL's towns. By analyzing a large technological institution in South Africa, the research widens the scope of science and technology studies beyond typical developed world settings. The research places the SASOL program in the international context of mid-twentieth century modernism and the Cold War, offering a major reinterpretation of the role of technology, science and expertise in the history of Apartheid by showing the links between SASOL's synthetic technology, the planning of its company towns, and international networks of expertise, labor and capital. The project illustrates the enduring appeal of large-scale technological projects to governments in developing world settings. The insights gained from this study of SASOL and its company towns may be relevant to many similar large-scale government projects, particularly those concerned with the development of alternative fuel sources.