30 Years of Democracy in South Africa

This curated collection reflects on the past 30 years of a democratic South Africa and assesses the future opportunities and challenges. The series brings together key titles from the pioneering black-owned publisher Skotaville and one of South Africa’s foremost university presses, UNISA Press, in collaboration with Routledge, Taylor & Francis.

In 2004, UNISA Press published 14 books in a series entitled “Imagined South Africa” to celebrate ten years of democracy. The series chronicled the multiple ways in which South Africans of all colours and ideological persuasions had responded, either critically or creatively, to the numerous contradictions in ten years of democracy.

In the same spirit, in 2024, we are co-publishing 30 titles with UNISA Press and Skotaville. As former directors of UNISA Press and specialists in African publishing, the series editors envision the book series as an intervention in debates around South Africa 30 years since the dawn of democracy. The titles in this series contemplate the complexity of issues now and in the coming years. The series relaunches original monographs and edited collections from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. The titles cover domestic, regional and global dimensions, reflecting on South Africa’s place in political, economic and socio-cultural systems.