Reterritorilizing the Relationship between People and Place in Refugee Studies

The article discusses different conceptions of space and place in refugee studies, especially contributions from anthropology and geography. A main distinction is drawn between two understandings of space and place; an essentialist conception, stating a natural relationship between people and places and an alternative conception attempting to de-naturalize the relationship between people and places. The consequences of applying different conceptions of space and place for the development of refugee policies and representations of refugees and displaced persons are addressed. For many displaced persons, displacement is experienced as being physically present at one place, but at the same time having a feeling of belonging somewhere else. It is argued that though attempts to de-naturalize the relationship between people and places have been important for how the refugee experience is conceptualized, there has been too much focus on imagination accompanied by a neglect of the local perspective of migrants and displaced people. In the local perspective of forced migration, the present lives of displaced people are emphasized. Especially the attitudes from the host communities, the policy environment that displaced people are part of, and their livelihood opportunities are the focus of regard. 'Territoriality' and 'reterritorialization' of the relationship between people and places are discussed as tools to analyse the local perspective of forced migration in general and the strategies of internally displaced persons and their hosts in Sri Lanka in particular.     

Photographing dispossession, forgetting solidarity: waiting for social justice in Wentworth, South Africa

South Africans today inhabit a fragmented and discontinuous landscape, often despite their most cosmopolitan intentions. Grounded in the Coloured neighbourhood of Wentworth in Durban, this paper asks how remains of the past appear as differently temporalised artefacts, some buried in the archaic past and others more readily used to critique the present. In particular, I explore photographs of inmates of a concentration camp from 1902, township youth appropriating a specific commons in the early 1980s, black political photography from the late 1980s, and film wrestling with the ambiguities of post-apartheid political life in a Coloured neighbourhood next to an oil refinery. What unites these moments is not just a meta-theoretical concern with photography as both documentary and aesthetic, but the specific political uses of images, exemplified by the work of two black political photographers. Their practice provides cues for situating these other photographs in a long century of multiple dispossessions. The paper explores when and how photographs might shock the viewer into recognising resemblances, connections and potential solidarities, not just with the past, but with subaltern critique of racial space and subjectivity in the present. I suggest how we might view photographs from various moments relationally, to understand how, in one corner of contemporary South Africa, people continue to wait for justice despite uncertainty and official dissimulation, in a state of anticipatory frustration.     

Christianity and Political Engagement in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses specifically on the impact of the Christian churches on the social, cultural and political contexts of South Africa. It considers the political role of the mainline Christian churches and their ecumenical bodies during the apartheid era. In post-apartheid South Africa, the social and political context has changed and the Christian churches relate to this new context in varied ways. The rapid growth and proliferation of Christian churches under forces of globalization to some extent undermines social cohesion and development. The traditional practice of the public gathering, or imbizo, is particularly threatened. This article therefore seeks to address the question of whether Christian institutions in a rapidly globalizing Africa are an asset or liability for promoting identity and belonging, social cohesion, and the development of social capital.     

论南非早期华人与印度移民之异同

南非的华人和印度人之间既有相同点,又有不同点。一方面,他们生活在一块相对陌生的土地上,遇到了相同的困难,主要表现在种族歧视、经济困境、社会地位和政治权利等方面。作为“亚洲威胁者”,他们被非洲人视为到南非获取当地低工资的入侵者,而被白人当作贫穷的未开化的苦力。在面临生存危机时,他们总是团结起来与当地政府的种族歧视政策作斗争。另一方面,两个社群之间存在诸多差异。作为大英帝国的子民,印度人移民南非比中国人容易,因此比华人多得多;印度人在南非诸种族集团中处于一个比华人更明确的位置;印度人的宗教传统在社会生活中占有重要的地位。更为重要的是,印度早期移民中的不少知识分子极大地促进了印度人社区的整合,同时有利于印度人为获得自身权利而斗争。     

Google Earth, GIS and stone-walled structures in southern Gauteng, South Africa

In South Africa, air photos were used in the 1960s and 1970s to plot distribution maps of pre-colonial stone-walled structures in order to study the peopling of this landscape. Different architectural styles of stone-walled structures were attributed to different cultures, who shared a mixed agricultural and pastoralist economic base and a cattle centered world-view. New technologies such as Google Earth satellite imagery as well as Geographic Information System software justify revisiting these structures as they facilitate more complex analyses of larger databases. The spatial analysis of remotely sensed settlement data from the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve near Johannesburg shows significant changes in settlement patterns from dispersed homesteads to nucleated towns during the last two or three centuries before colonial times. These changes echo similar patterns reported in the neighboring North West Province, where they have been interpreted as a sequence of evolution in social, political and economic complexity. In the Suikerbosrand reserve climate change, conflict and other factors may have helped bring about the observed changes in settlement patterns.     

南非中国新移民面临的困境及其原因探析

本文在实证调查基础上,梳理了南非中国新移民面临的经济和社会问题,并在此基础上探讨了形成这种困境的内外部原因。从表面看来,中国新移民面临的问题直接来自于民族聚集区经济模式下的困境,民族聚集区经济强化了南非中国新移民的自我认同和族群边界,助长了他们普遍具有的＂过客＂心态,也使得他们逐渐面临众多经济、社会问题。然而,实质上,中国新移民的困境也与南非的社会政策大环境息息相关。南非《劳工法》对劳工的过度保护以及社会治安问题、警察腐败等社会大环境,成为中国新移民面临困境的外部原因。     

Film production incentives,employment transformation and domestic expenditure in South Africa: visualizing subsidy effectiveness

In 2004 the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) introduced a Film and Television Production Rebate Programme. In order to qualify for the rebate, certain criteria have to be met including success in job creation and skills development within the industry, alongside a particular focus on the percentage of ‘historically disadvantaged individuals’ employed. This study sets out the issues associated with evaluating success in meeting these various criteria and is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study to apply multi-criteria visualization techniques to inform the evaluation of public subsidy effectiveness. The ‘PROMETHEE’ method is applied and apart from presenting project performance in a visually intuitive manner, the approach helps to clarify patterns of relative success, show where policy objectives are competing, and to identify project exemplars for more efficiently guiding future public support in the sector.     

Probable human hair found in a fossil hyaena coprolite from Gladysvale cave,South Africa

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9000-year-old South American mummy. Here we report fossil hairs of probable human origin that exceed that age by about 200,000 years. The hairs have been discovered in a brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) coprolite from Gladysvale cave in South Africa. The coprolite is part of a hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated between 195,000 and 257,000 years ago. This find supports the hypothesis that hyaenas accumulated some of the early hominin remains found in cave sites, and provides a new source of information on Pleistocene mammals in the Sterkfontein Valley.     

Confronting the settler legacy: Indigenisation and transformation in South Africa and Zimbabwe

This article examines attempts to negotiate a perceived residual dominance of settler populations in South Africa and Zimbabwe by means of developmental and cultural policies deemed necessary to restore sovereignty to Africans. Indigenisation has become a preferred strategy for reconstructing post-colonial states in Africa: indigenisation of the economy as part of a Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe and Black Economic Empowerment in the socio-cultural context of Ubuntu in South Africa. These are issues arising from the regional legacy of contested and uneven transitions to majority rule. Identifying how governments frame the ‘settler problem’, and politicise space in doing so, is crucial for understanding post-colonial politics. Indigenisation in Zimbabwe allows the government to maintain a network of patronage and official rhetoric is highly divisive and exclusivist although couched in terms of reclaiming African values and sovereignty. Revival of Ubuntu as a cultural value system in South Africa facilitates a more positive approach to indigenisation, although Black Economic Empowerment displays elitist tendencies and cultural transformation remains controversial and elusive. The perceived need to anchor policy in socially acceptable (i.e., ostensibly indigenous/traditional) contexts has become a prominent feature of post-colonial politics and is indicative of an indigenous turn in Southern African politics.     

Spatial processes and politics of renewable energy transition: Land,zones and frictions in South Africa

This paper seeks to make a contribution to on-going debates about how to conceptualise the spatial processes of renewable energy transition. It makes a case for understanding renewable energy transitions as simultaneously spatial and political processes, constitutive of new territories and configuring development pathways. Drawing on a case study of South Africa's Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme (REI4P), the paper explores the ways in which energy transitions are intrinsically bound up with both the materiality and the historical and contemporary politics of land. It then examines the relationship between energy transitions and territory to conceptualise the ways in which transitions take on an experimental shape in the form of 'zones'. The paper argues that these zones are new territories deploying forms of spatial and political-administrative exceptionality, which allow political and economic actors to exercise authority and commercial power. Two types of zone emerging from South Africa's energy transition exemplify these processes: legally-defined zones for the development of solar and wind energy and zones of socioeconomic development required by REI4P. The paper explores the spatial and political consequences of these strategies and suggests that these may not necessarily translate into conflict and confrontation, but instead produce uneasy co-existences of different political, social and spatial projects and interests, with potential to create new polities.     

Engagement and reconstruction in critical research: negotiating urban practice,policy and theory in South Africa

In this paper we examine critical engagement in research in order to rethink and reconfigure binaries such as theorizer and practitioner and theory and practice across South and North. We argue that while we welcome the ‘moral geographies’ literature (and its ideas about ‘caring at a distance’) as a catalyst for forging more beneficial connections between South and North, we suggest this is not enough. Drawing on South African experiences of critical academic engagement in issues of urban geography, we examine moments for innovative knowledge construction that bridge theory and practice. These experiences are used to substantiate a normative argument for ‘inclusive geographies’ through critical engagement in order to break down boundaries between, for instance, theorizers and practitioners, intellectuals and activists, and South and North.     

Animal Remains from Industrial Iron Age Communities in Phalaborwa, South Africa

The Phalaborwa region in the Northern Province of South Africa has one of the richest copper- and iron-bearing deposits in southern Africa. These deposits have been worked for 1200 years and are still being worked. The abundance of ore reduction and metal production sites, dating mostly to the Late Iron Age, testifies to the importance of these deposits. Those sites that were excavated provide valuable insight into the industrial processes, economy, rituals, and use of animals by these specialized communities. The faunal remains reflect different lifestyles, but also indicate that animal husbandry was not of primary importance. The communities were focused predominantly on metal production. The soils and climate of the region are not very suitable for herding and agriculture. Subsequently products of the metal working activities such as hoes were used as replacement for cattle in bride wealth. La région Phalaborwa dans la province Nord d'Afrique de Sud constitue l'un des dépôts les plus riches de cuivre et de fer du sud d'Afrique. Ces dépôts ont été exploités pendant 1200 années et le sont toujours. L'importance de la réduction du minerais et de la production de métal de ces sites, datés pour la plupart sur la fin del'Age de Fer, témoignent de la richesse de ces dépôts. Deux sites qui furent fouillés, donnent des renseignements valables à propos des processus industriels, de l'économie, desrites et de l'utilisation des animaux par ces communautes spécialisées. Les ossements de la faune reflètent différents modes de view, mais indiquent également que l'économie animalière n'était pas de la première importance. Les sols et le climat de la région ne sont propices, ni à l'agriculture. D'autres produits issus du travail du fer, comme des houes, ont été utilisées en remplacement de l'élevage.     

The origin of deep subsurface microbial communities in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa as deduced from apatite fission track analyses

The first fission track analyses of detrital apatite grains from the subsurface of the Kaapvaal Craton were utilized to delineate the thermal history for the northern margin of the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa, where evidence for subsurface thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms have been discovered. Fission track apatite ages for core samples ranged from 21 to 422 Ma. The trend of decreasing age with increasing depth parallels a trend previously reported for fission track data from surface samples collected from the higher altitude centre and lower altitude margins of the Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa. These new fission track ages are older than the surface samples of equivalent elevation, indicating that the uplift history and/or the geothermal gradient of the centre of the Kaapvaal Craton is distinct from that of its margins. Modelling of one sample collected from a depth of 3.7 km records cooling from 120°C at 75 Ma at a rate of approximately 1.4°C m.y.^?1 and reaching present day temperatures at 30 Ma. This modelling result when compared to other apatite fission track dates indicate that this cooling trend followed a 90‐Ma thermotectonic event. The fission track data also indicate that heated fluid migration, which is observed today in this region of the Witwatersrand Basin, was also active in the past in order to explain the greater palaeogeothermal gradient (18 versus 8°C km^?1). The fission track results suggest that at approximately 70 Ma only hyperthermophilic microorganisms could have existed at palaeodepths >3.2 km depth in the Witwatersrand Basin, and that the current meso/thermophilic microbial communities living at or beneath the present depth of 1.7 km in the Witwatersrand Basin must have migrated to their current location since 70 Ma. Any hyperthermophilic microorganisms found at the present depths 1.2–3.7 km could be descendents of subsurface hyperthermophiles that colonized the crust since the early Mesozoic to Palaeozoic eras.     

Later Stone Age ostrich eggshell bead manufacture in the Northern Cape,South Africa

Two different prehistoric manufacturing pathways are identified in the manufacture of ostrich eggshell beads in the South African Later Stone Age. In Pathway 1, blanks are drilled prior to being trimmed to rough discs. This is the dominant production strategy and is consistent with most ethnographic accounts. That in which the trimming occurs first, Pathway 2, was rarely practiced. The data from five bead factory sites in Namaqualand show that most breakage occurs during the drilling stage and that the production process has not changed through the last 4000 years. The use of grooved stones for smoothing beads is contentious and the identity of drilling tools remains unknown. Contrary to the suggestions of others, beads seem to have been readily produced at both short and long term occupation camps and scarcity of ostrich egg is unlikely to have been a determining factor. The lack of production debris reflecting large beads suggests these beads were brought into Namaqualand from elsewhere.     

Mussels and mongongo nuts: logistical visits to the Cape west coast,South Africa

Very large late Holocene shell middens (‘megamiddens’, some over 10 000 m³ in extent) along a 20 km section of the west coast of South Africa provide a particular interpretative challenge in determining whether they result from residential visits or from logistical processing of shellfish for transport and consumption elsewhere. The latter interpretation is preferred here and is consistent with stable carbon isotopic readings on coastal human burials and site contents that illustrate that groups visited specific localities, collected and dried black mussels and then transported and consumed the dried product inland. The sizes and contents of these large middens contrasts sharply with those of unquestionably residential residues from earlier and later time periods. This approach is supported with reference to the ethnographically described processing and consumption of mongongo nuts by 20th century San of the Kalahari.     

Rethinking culture and development: the culture-led community development project in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines the use of culture in South Korean community development by analyzing four cases of ‘Initiative for Creating Culture Communities in Everyday Life’ (ICCE) and their development discourses. Effectively mobilized by the state during the period of industrialization and modernization that began in the 1960s, culture has been utilized for social development by the South Korean government since the 2000s. The complex relationship between development and culture in terms of economic and social approaches is reflected in the development discourses of ICCE projects. Indeed, as an alternative to previous economic approaches, these projects show that the government still strongly intervenes in social development through symbolic power. To examine this process, we administered a semi-structured questionnaire and held in-depth interviews with eight members of the government-led ICCE project, including its practitioners, artists, and residents. This study finds that despite its efforts to decrease direct intervention in the development of these societies, government power is strongly exercised in symbolic form through discursive practices. We thus suggest that to prevent a specific participant from unilaterally possessing symbolic power in the development process, the government should create an environment in which various agents can participate in the development discourse.     

A multi-technique characterization and provenance study of the pigments used in San rock art, South Africa

During the course of a conservation project at the rock shelter known as RSA TYN2 (Eastern Cape, South Africa), a sample of 33 painted fragments that had become detached from the wall were collected. They have been studied using a multi-technique approach (optical microscopy, SEM-EDS, Raman spectroscopy and FTIR), with the aim of achieving a better understanding of their paint stratigraphy, composition, and provenance. The paintings are on a Clarens Formation sandstone and are embedded in calcium sulphates and oxalates. The red pigments show two different ‘hues’, corresponding to two different compositions. The light red is a red ochre, possibly pure, which is probably a degradation product of the Clarens Formation sandstone. The dark red contains more iron oxides and may be a mixture between the red ochre and pure haematite. Because of the presence of crystals which may be identified as augite we suggest this haematite came from the basaltic upper part of the Drakensberg, at least 4 km away from the rock shelter. The black pigments have been identified as carbon black, that is to say, incomplete combustion products of organic compounds, and are radiocarbon dated to between 2120 and 1890 cal BP, making these samples the oldest directly dated South African rock art.     

Coarse Earthenware at the Dutch Colonial Cape of Good Hope, South Africa: A History of Local Production and Typology of Products

Coarse earthenware production at the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Cape settlement began shortly after the Company established its mercantile entrepôt on the shores of Table Bay in 1652. Made by European Company potters, these vessels reproduced the forms of the homeland in the raw materials of the colony. A history of VOC pottery manufacture and a typological examination of the products illustrates how the global movements of mercantile capitalism combined with the local circumstances of the Cape settlement to create a material form reminiscent of Europe, but purely colonial in the dynamics of its production and use.