Research:2023-11-02/Journal article/settling-dagga-shifting-frontiers-of-cannabis-knowledge-and-governance-in-south-africa

Research record2 November 2023Journal article

Settling 'Dagga'? Shifting Frontiers of Cannabis Knowledge and Governance in South Africa

Thembisa Waetjen, Perside Ndandu

Journal of Southern African Studies · 2023

Abstract

After the South African War (1899–1902), state-makers’ efforts to control ‘dagga’ was controversial on several fronts. But ‘dagga’ also proved a moving target for official classification. Was it a species of Leonotis, common around the countryside? Was it ‘Indian hemp’, understood by some as a habit-forming drug that debilitated wage workers and caused insanity? This paper traces dagga as a multiple object and problematic of governance in South Africa during the years before the formation of the Union of South Africa and into the early decades of the Union period. A focus on three contested boundaries of top-down knowledge-making and policy – botanical taxonomies; colonial geographies; and political-economy – demonstrates dagga’s shifting ontologies across time and space. Together, these empirical snapshots combine as a case study, revealing how the legal reification of a substance as a ‘drug’ involved political processes that were local, dispersed and unresolved. We show how uncertainties and ambivalences about cannabis long remained productive for different brokers and gatekeepers who navigated the frontiers of competing interests. This history is important for understanding the changing politics of cannabis in South Africa, as it became legible for regulation as a ‘dangerous drug’ during the first half of the 20th century.

The paper's abstract, reproduced as published.

DOI

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Record created 3 July 2026 · maintained by landrace.wiki editors · page history

Published2 Nov 2023

TypeJournal article

VenueJournal of Southern African Studies

Year2023

DOI10.1080/03057070.2023.2351316

CountrySouth Africa

DOI

2023-11-02 2026-07-03 Settling 'Dagga'? Shifting Frontiers of Cannabis Knowledge and Governance in South Africa Journal article History Thembisa Waetjen, Perside Ndandu Journal of Southern African Studies 2023 10.1080/03057070.2023.2351316 https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2023.2351316 Examines the shifting frontiers of cannabis knowledge and governance in South Africa, extending Waetjen's account of how dagga was governed from the colonial period onward. After the South African War (1899–1902), state-makers’ efforts to control ‘dagga’ was controversial on several fronts. But ‘dagga’ also proved a moving target for official classification. Was it a species of Leonotis, common around the countryside? Was it ‘Indian hemp’, understood by some as a habit-forming drug that debilitated wage workers and caused insanity? This paper traces dagga as a multiple object and problematic of governance in South Africa during the years before the formation of the Union of South Africa and into the early decades of the Union period. A focus on three contested boundaries of top-down knowledge-making and policy – botanical taxonomies; colonial geographies; and political-economy – demonstrates dagga’s shifting ontologies across time and space. Together, these empirical snapshots combine as a case study, revealing how the legal reification of a substance as a ‘drug’ involved political processes that were local, dispersed and unresolved. We show how uncertainties and ambivalences about cannabis long remained productive for different brokers and gatekeepers who navigated the frontiers of competing interests. This history is important for understanding the changing politics of cannabis in South Africa, as it became legible for regulation as a ‘dangerous drug’ during the first half of the 20th century. South Africa