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

这一博士论文项目由NSF的科学、技术和社会计划支持，考察了南非煤制液体燃料计划的发展，也就是众所周知的SASOL。该项目结合了南非遗址的档案、口述历史和人种学研究，旨在记录这个未被研究的行业的历史。萨索尔在种族隔离期间得到了南非国民政府的资助，作为确保南非燃料独立的战略优先事项。该研究项目追溯了萨索尔合成燃料技术在南非种族隔离和冷战政治背景下的发展。这项研究还侧重于萨索尔堡和塞孔达的规划和随后的发展，这两个城镇是萨索尔为安置其工人而建立的。这项研究探索了城市规划和种族隔离如何塑造了萨索尔城镇的空间形态。通过分析南非的一家大型科技机构，这项研究拓宽了科学技术研究的范围，超越了典型的发达国家环境。这项研究将萨索尔计划置于20世纪中期现代主义和冷战的国际背景下，通过展示萨索尔的合成技术、其公司城镇的规划以及专业知识、劳动力和资本的国际网络之间的联系，对技术、科学和专业知识在种族隔离历史上的作用进行了重大的重新解释。该项目说明了大型技术项目对发展中国家政府的持久吸引力。从这项对萨索尔及其公司城镇的研究中获得的见解可能与许多类似的大型政府项目有关，特别是那些与替代燃料来源开发有关的项目。

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.