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Challenge to Segregationist Town Planning:
The Indian Bazaar in Colonial Nairobi, 1899-1923

Godwin Rapando Murunga, Department of History, Northwestern University
rapannex@yahoo.com

School migration is nothing new, although up until now it is not recognised or studied systematically. However, it is increasingly recognised that migratory movements can no longer be defined narrowly as labour migration following the decontrolling of migration and the subsequent dismantling of the apartheid influx control policies (Crush and McDonald, 2000). Nor can it be defined exclusively in relation to Africans, as has also been the case in the past. During apartheid there was a system of highly restrictive influx control legislation targeted at Blacks in particular that limited their entry and residence in cities and small towns including some so-called white areas in the so-called homelands. These restrictive boundaries also applied in the education sector, enforced through the education departments that were racially segmented.
The desegregation of public schooling became a priority for the new government after the demise of apartheid. Following desegregation there was a high influx of black children enrolling in historically well-resourced schools where they had previously been denied access. In 1995 students could enter schools of their choice in a unified education system on a non-racial basis (Jansen, 1998: 101). In many instances, in the black schools in former Homelands (Bantustans), this means enrolling in schools outside their districts. Although this new influence is a challenge that needs to be perceived as positive and enriching rather than to insist on traditional ideas of membership to society based purely on territory or descent, the envisaged loss of personnel resulting from this migration is one major aspect that needs to be considered.