Beyond the barricades: the 1985 schools boycott and the vicissitudes of the Athlone Students Action Committee(ASAC)

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BA Honours in History at the University of Cape Town. This dissertation seeks to explore the schools boycott experience in the Athlone area. It is not merely an attempt to document the specificity of events which unfolded in the Athlone schools but, more significantly, it is an attempt to elucidate and understand an experience which operated at a myriad of levels, and as such, eschews a simplistic analysis or categorisation. One of the cardinal concerns of the dissertation is an attempt to comprehend the actions of the Athlone Students Action Committee (ASAC), the powerful area-based student structure which emerged to direct and co-ordinate the boycott in the Athlone area.