Arrangements of sovereignty in Africa fundamentally shifted during the era of decolonization, temporarily bringing about political possibilities beyond empire or nation-state. The apartheid state drew on this “federal moment” and attempted to save white minority rule by creating ethnically defined self-governing “homelands,” or bantustans, that could be fashioned as “independent” nation-states within a Southern African confederation. This article examines the ethnicization of sovereignty in the planning of KwaZulu, a bantustan for Zulu people. Rather than solely focusing on the central state, it explores how bureaucrats, royal family members, and other African leaders made claims to the boundaries of ethnicity and the proper arrangements of power. Initially, the government assumed that the Zulu homeland could be built atop the former Zulu kingdom. The planned bantustan, however, included both territory and populations that never recognized the Zulu monarchy before colonialism. As Zulu royal allies advocated for an expansive bantustan under a re-empowered monarchy, ethnologists and other bureaucrats clashed over the geographic limits of Zuluness and the relationship between the Zulu king and Africans across the Natal province. As the government retreated from its plan to empower the monarchy, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, an influential royal cousin, used competing historical claims to marginalize the royal house and position himself as the rightful hereditary leader of both the future bantustan and the Zulu kingdom. Ideas of a Zulu ethnic sovereignty that would shape the late apartheid period and democratic transition, I argue, initially emerged through these contingent struggles in the 1960s over territory, populations, and authority.

中文翻译：

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“Shaka Zulu 无法实现的帝国”：1959-1970 年种族隔离时期南非的主权种族化

在非殖民化时代，非洲的主权安排发生了根本性变化，暂时带来了超越帝国或民族国家的政治可能性。种族隔离国家利用这一“联邦时刻”，试图通过创建种族定义的自治“家园”或班图斯坦来拯救白人少数族裔的统治，这种“家园​​”可以被塑造成南部非洲联邦内的“独立”民族国家。本文探讨了在规划夸祖鲁（祖鲁人的班图斯坦）中的主权种族化。它不仅关注中央国家，还探讨了官僚、王室成员和其他非洲领导人如何对种族界限和权力的适当安排提出要求。最初，政府假设祖鲁人的家园可以建在前祖鲁王国之上。然而，计划中的班图斯坦包括在殖民主义之前从未承认过祖鲁君主制的领土和人口。由于祖鲁王室盟友主张在重新授权的君主制下建立一个广阔的班图斯坦，民族学家和其他官僚就祖鲁内斯的地理范围以及祖鲁国王与整个纳塔尔省的非洲人之间的关系发生了冲突。随着政府放弃赋予君主制权力的计划，有影响力的王室堂兄曼戈苏图·布特莱齐利用相互竞争的历史主张将王室边缘化，并将自己定位为未来班图斯坦和祖鲁王国的合法世袭领袖。我认为，祖鲁民族主权的想法将塑造晚期种族隔离时期和民主过渡，