scholarly journals Spaces of alienation: Dispossession and justice in South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petrus T. Delport ◽  
Tshepo Lephakga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of

Theories and philosophies of space and place have seen a rise in prominence in recent times, specifically in the disciplines of theology, law and philosophy. This so-called spatial turn in contemporary theory is one that attempts to think through the vicissitudes and conceptual lineages related to the existence of space as both a physical and a social reality. The politics of space in South Africa, however, cannot be thought of separately from the concept of alienation. South Africa is a space whose existence is predicated upon a relationship of alienation to its located place. South Africa, like most other settler colonies, is a space that was created through occupation and alienation: the occupation of a territory and the alienation of the indigenous people from this occupied territory. This relationship of alienation is not only observable in the physical reality engendered by this occupied space but also by its social reality. In this paper we reflect on the intersections of the physical and social manifestations – in Bourdieu’s sense – of an occupied space and consider its effects of alienation on the indigenous people. To this end we will proceed to interrogate current South African geographical markers – such as the existence of townships and suburbs – from its positionality within the history of South Africa as an occupied space. To discern a theological agenda for the issue of spatial justice would also require an investigation into the theological agenda that prohibited the realisation of spatial justice in South Africa or, in other words, the religious reconciliation preached post-1994 at the expense of justice.

POPULAR POWER, CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY AND CRISIS: SOUTH AFRICA 1994-2014

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Suttner
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Important Advance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Popular Power

The establishment of representative democracy in South Africa was an important victory for people who had been suppressed from the first days of white conquest and who had experienced the seizure of land of African and other indigenous people. With some still cherishing ideas of popular democracy as experienced in the 1980s, electoralism may not have met every person's expectations. But in the context of the history of South Africa with its multiple forms of oppression and exploitation, the vote represented an important advance. It created the possibility of engaging with issues that had not previously been on the agenda. The transition took place within a framework establishing a constitutional democracy, where all organs of government would be bound to act in conformity with the constitution. Regrettably, constitutionalism is currently in crisis and extensive lawlessness undermines democratic gains. The article argues for the formation of a united, non-sectarian organisation behind broadly agreed goals, including defence of the constitution, clean government, and an end to violence.

The Economic History of South Africa 1948–94

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Bill Freund ◽  
Vishnu Padayachee
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Economic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

This chapter addresses the unfolding economic history of South Africa in the apartheid era (1948–94). The chapter is organized according to a periodization with 1971–73 as a marker of the break, and along specific thematic lines. These include a discussion of the way in which this history has been studied and through what theoretical lenses, before engaging with the main issues, including the impact of Afrikaner nationalism on economic growth, the way in which the minerals energy sector, which dominated early perspectives of South African economic history and perspectives, is impacted in this era of National Party rule. An analysis of the role of one major corporation (Anglo American Corporation) in shaping this economic history is followed by an assessment of the impact of the global and local crisis after c.1970 on the South African economy. An abiding theme is that of race and economic development and the way in which the impact of this key relationship of apartheid South Africa on economic growth has been studied.

Mapping and Spatial Studies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Ewalt
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Spatial Studies ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Communication Space ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Practice

Critical communication studies of space and place consider the ways power becomes located within a wider topography of social relations. How a body thinks, its exposure to pollutants, or access to societal resources: these all depend, in part, upon where that body moves in relation to the other bodies that share their historical moment. The logic of power becomes manifest in the spatial organization of a society, and subsequently influences social practice. Emergent from multiple intellectual traditions—including humanistic geography, the spatial turn in the critical humanities, and postcolonial theory—spatial studies understand space and place as the product of social relations and maintain a critical, de-essentializing politics: Spaces are always being made and remade with consequences for marginalized populations. Moreover, as sites of public identification, certain spaces and places (a national park landscape or urban park) are imbued with epideictic significance. In order to understand and critique the relationship between communication, space, and place, scholars employ a number of concepts, many of which they share with neighboring fields, including mobility, globalization, affect, imagined geographies, place-making, critical regionalism, heterotopia, omnitopia, and memory places. Scholars of space and place, moreover, remain committed to mapping both as method and object of analysis. If a society’s spatial logic (who and what resides where and with what consequences) provides insight into power and subjugation, then mapping offers a potentially useful critical methodological practice. At the same time, mapping remains a technology of colonialism, a way of seeing space that stabilizes its movements and continues to enable colonial domination. Thus, critical communication scholars of space and place also analyze and critique the rhetoric of mapping, analyzing both the ways in which maps are used to uphold operations of domination as well as those “countermapping” efforts that employ and subvert the history of cartography towards more emancipatory ends.

Make Indigenes Unconscious of Whiteness: A Response to Green, Sonn, and Matsebula

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kopano Ratele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Black Subjectivity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
White Person ◽  
History Of Race

Green, Sonn, and Matsebula (2007) present a useful review of studies that theorise, research, and suggest possibilities of looking at race and racism through the lens of whiteness. In the process, however, they elide some intriguing specifics of the history of race in South Africa, such as that in the entire history of the race classification board there were no instances of any African turning white or of any white person changing into the category of African. By placing the focus on white rather than black subjectivity, whiteness studies runs the risk of drawing attention away, not only from the suffering, but also from the resilience, beauty, and love, that arises, for indigenous people, out of a history of oppression and solidarity.

scholarly journals Strategies to combat poverty and their interface with health promotion

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (spe) ◽  
pp. 867-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Helena dos Santos Oliveira ◽  
Maria Adelane Alves Monteiro ◽  
Maria do Socorro Vieira Lopes ◽  
Daniele Mary Silva de Brito ◽  
Neiva Francenely Cunha Vieira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Positive Concept

The population impoverishment is a social reality whose overcoming is necessary so that we can think about health as a positive concept. This study proposes a reflection on the coping strategies adopted by the Conjunto Palmeira, a Brazilian community in the Northeast, and their interface with health promotion. This community's reality is an example of overcoming social exclusion for different regions of Brazil and other countries. The history of the Conjunto and the collective strategies of empowerment for coping with poverty and search for human development are initially presented. After that, we establish the relationship of those strategies with the action fields for health promotion. Finally, we consider that the mutual responsibility of the community with its health and its relationship with the environment in which they live are means of promoting transformation towards the conquest of a worthy social space.

Kracauer, Siegfried (1889–1966)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall Heitzman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
German Film ◽  
Siegfried Kracauer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realities

Siegfried Kracauer was a German cultural critic and theorist. He wrote film and cultural criticism for the Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s and early 1930s. From 1933 to 1941 he was in exile in France before moving to the United States. He wrote criticism for various New York publications in the 1940s and 1950s. His major works include From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960) and the posthumously published History: The Last Things before the Last (1969). Kracauer is perhaps most famous for his essay ‘The Mass Ornament’ (1927), which was an exploration of the relationship of the geometrical patterns produced by the Tiller Girls, precision dance troupes popular across Europe and the United States at the time, to contemporary economic and political realities.

scholarly journals Church Land Reform through a Combination of Examples and Theology of Spatial Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ntandoyenkosi Mlambo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Imbalances ◽  
Catholic Tradition

Land was one of the ways the colonialist venture as well as the apartheid regime used to divide people, as well as being a catalyst for superiority. Over hundreds of years, from the beginning of colonial rule until the end of apartheid in 1994, the indigenous people of South Africa were dispossessed from the land. With the end of the Truth and Reconciliation proceedings, it was clear from suggested actions that there should be restitution in South Africa to begin to correct the spatial and resultant economic imbalances. Churches in South Africa embarked on setting declarations on land reform ecumenically and within their own walls. However, little information is available on final reform measures that churches have taken after several ecumenical meetings in the 1990s. Additionally, there is little development in South African theology circles on a theology of land justice. Moreover, a praxis on land justice for churches has not been openly developed or discussed post-1994. This study aims to look at the history of the land issue in South Africa, particularly from 1948–1994, and will include the history of land ownership in the Roman Catholic tradition. In addition, it will look at examples of land reform in the Roman Catholic Church from 1999 until the present in the Diocese of Mariannhill. Furthermore, the article will consider the emerging praxis of spatial justice based on a hermeneutic view taken from black liberation and contextual theology. The article concludes with a look at how these examples and new praxis can develop the ecumenical church’s quest for a prophetic voice and actions in land South African land reform.

scholarly journals The Empty Land Myth: A Biblical and Socio-historical Exploration

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ntozakhe Simon Cezula ◽  
Leepo Modise
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Third ◽  
African People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Nature

Persistent discourse on the contentious “empty land” theory remains relevant within a biblical and socio-historic milieu, especially in the history of a colonialised country such as South Africa. Seeing that there are still arguments in favour of the “empty land” theory, the authors of this article undertook a venture to engage with the “empty land” theory as a myth. This article consists of four parts: the first part discusses the myth of “empty land” in the Old Testament Bible in relation to the “empty land” myth in South Africa. Secondly the researchers will argue for the occupation of land by the indigenous people of South Africa as early as 270 AD–1830. The vertex for the third argument is of a more socio-economic nature, namely the lifestyle of the African people before colonialism. The article contends that people were nomadic and did not regard land as property to be sold and bought. There were no boundaries; there was free movement. Finally, the article explores the point of either recognition of Africans as human beings, or in a demeaning way viewing them as animals to be chased away in order to empty the land, thereby creating “emptied” land.

scholarly journals Discerning a theological agenda for spatial justice in South Africa: An imperative for sustained reconciliation

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan De Beer
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
African Cities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Spatial Consciousness ◽  
South African Cities

A spatial turn has occurred in various disciplines over the past decades. This article holds that it has not occurred in a similar decisive manner in theological discourse and not in South Africa in particular. After considering the necessity of a spatial turn and spatial consciousness, the article examines the concept of spatial justice against the backdrop of how injustice was and is spatially expressed in South African cities. Considering the way in which South African cities have evolved since the Native Land Act of 1913 – the segregated and apartheid city and the (post)apartheid city – the article then argues that deep and sustained reconciliation will be impossible should current spatial patterns of segregation, exclusion and injustice continue. It advocates theological and ecclesial participation in a national agenda for spatial transformation, to be fleshed out in relation to four interconnected challenges: land, landlessness, housing and home; the ‘creative destruction’ of neighbourhoods, gentrification and the displacement of the poor; participation in city-making (from below) and transformative spatial interventions; and close collaboration with social movements working for spatial justice. It concludes by asserting that such a trans- and/or postdisciplinary agenda for spatial justice would participate with the Spirit to mend the oikos of God.

“Slash-and-burn ecology”: Field science as land use

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-468
Author(s):  
Megan Raby
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
National Forest ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of

Historians of science can benefit from thinking more deeply about land. Scholarly emphasis on the geographies of scientific knowledge has become pervasive since the “spatial turn” of the late 1990s. At the same time, the history of science has increasingly intersected with environmental history. Despite these growing connections, historians of science have been slow to embrace a core concern of environmental history: land. While space and place now have a rich literature in the historiography of science, land appears in histories of science in more scattered, incidental ways – largely as a place where science may occur or be applied. More than just a unit of ground, land is analytically connected to a web of questions about labor, property, governance, identity, and environmental change explored by environmental historians, geographers, and political ecologists. This article examines what historians of science – particularly, but not exclusively, historians of the field and environmental sciences – have to gain by taking land more seriously. A reexamination of the Rain Forest Project (1962–1970), a radioecology study initiated by systems ecologist Howard Thomas Odum in what is today El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico, serves as a case in point. Viewing this field site as land reframes ecologists’ fieldwork as a form of land use, highlighting its place within regimes of land tenure, its connections with other communities’ uses of the land, and its persistent local legacies.

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