resettlement, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Special senses of general English.
historical
1. The forcible removal of individuals or communities from their place of residence, usually into new, ethnically homogenous rural settlements; relocation, see relocate; removal. Also attributive.
Note:
Most racially-based resettlements were carried out between 1960 and the mid 1980s, under the National Party government’s policy of apartheid. However they have occurred since the 19th century, and have been provided for in law since the Land Act of 1913 (see quotations 1913 and 1945 at remove, and quotation 1927 at removal). See also black spot, group area noun phrase sense 1, homeland sense 1.
1954 Natives Resettlement Act in Stat. of Union 139There is hereby established a board to be known as the Natives Resettlement Board.
1963 B. Modisane Blame Me on Hist. (1986) 105We in Sophiatown resisted the removal and resettlement scheme.
1970 Daily Dispatch 23 Dec.Shot after shot of wretched, starving South African children appeared on Granada Television at peak viewing time last night, and effectively revealed some of the more shocking aspects of the Bantu resettlement policy.
1977 J. Sikakane Window on Soweto 10They are women who, during the mass urban removals and resettlements, were found to be without spouses.
1978 S. Afr. Digest 9 June 26The Minister of Community Development..said the resettlement of 277 Indian traders over the next three years would cost about R30-million.
1981 G.R. Naidoo in Sunday Times 21 June 18About 92 000 blacks from Natal’s Ladysmith area will be forced out of their homes in a projected mass ‘resettlement’ move.
1981 Voice 12 Aug. 1Resettlement disrupted stable communities and broke up families as the head of the house was forced to become a migrant labourer.
1985 Platzky & Walker Surplus People p.xviiiThe resettlement policy is the cornerstone of the whole edifice of apartheid.
1987 New Nation 21 May 2Despite PW Botha’s May 6 claim that forced resettlements had been stopped, George municipal workers and police this week pulled down a house in Lawaaikamp, in the Cape...The family is being forced to move to Sandkraal.
2. Attributive, and combination. resettlement area or resettlement camp, the place to which resettled people are moved.
Note:
Such areas have usually consisted of vacant land sub-divided into plots provided with pit latrines, and sometimes with tents; water is provided via standpipes, each of which serves the residents of several plots.
1970 Survey of Race Rel. (S.A.I.R.R.) 126The Rand Daily Mail featured a report on a resettlement area at Morsgat, called Madikwe.., where some 300 families..had been moved. Most of them previously lived in huts or brick houses at quarries, where the men are employed.
1970 Cape Times 5 JuneBlack labour force units are tolerated..while their superfluous appendages are removed..and repatriated to resettlement camps.
1971 Rand Daily Mail 16 Feb.She left..for Illingi African resettlement township.
1971 Argus 4 JuneDavid Russell..discloses the pitiful plight of Ciskeian resettlement camp families.
1971 Daily Dispatch 30 JuneThe Government has once again..muffled a man who has exposed the awful realities of poverty, malnutrition and death in the ghettos, called resettlement areas, that smudge this wealthy land.
1972 Cape Times 1 May 5Many potentially healthy children in the Dimbaza resettlement township..die for want of the little food necessary to keep them alive.
1979 Sunday Post 8 July 1A Sunday Post investigation of 10 resettlement camps in Natal and the Eastern Cape revealed that ‘change’ had certainly not reached the thousands of people existing there. We found malnutrition, sickness, unemployment and a general feeling of helplessness among the people restricted to these areas against their will.
1980 E. Prov. Herald 11 Oct. 5The huge resettlement camps..in the Whittlesea district..have turned into vast rural slums.
1980 Rand Daily Mail 24 Nov. 1When people first moved to the Vlaklaagte resettlement village, they thought they were going ‘home’.
1987 New Nation 28 May 2White residents living around Noordhoek have opposed the removal of squatters to the Khayelitsha resettlement area.
1988 P. Wilhelm Healing Process 33I’ve seen a resettlement camp...It’s worse than anything I’ve ever been told.
The forcible removal of individuals or communities from their place of residence, usually into new, ethnically homogenous rural settlements; relocation, see relocate; removal. Also attributive.
resettlement area or resettlement camp,the place to which resettled people are moved.
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resettle, verb transitivev.rest camp, noun phrasen. phr.
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