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.     

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.     

Teaching Archaeological Pasts in South Africa: Historical and Contemporary Considerations of Archaeological Education

This paper discusses the history and trending of archaeological education in South Africa, a set of frameworks wherein primary and secondary level students instrumentalize archaeology to investigate and debate their pasts. Archaeological education has existed thus far as a conversation among archaeologists and a footnote in the national curriculum. I present the first cohesive treatment of these projects. I examine attendant conflicts and obstacles, drawn partly from my involvement in two South African projects but illustrating issues that I believe have global resonance. I submit that archaeological education entails engagements that hold serious ramifications for archaeological ethics, practice, and epistemology.     

Phantom Penis: Historical Dimensions

Interest in sensations from removed body parts other than limbs has increased with modern surgical techniques. This applies particularly to operations (e.g., gender-changing surgeries) that have resulted in phantom genitalia. The impression given in modern accounts, especially those dealing with phantoms associated with penis amputation, is that this is a recently discovered phenomenon. Yet the historical record reveals several cases of phantom penises dating from the late-eighteenth century and the early-nineteenth century. These cases, recorded by some of the leading medical and surgical figures of the era, are of considerable historical and theoretical significance. This is partly because these phantoms were associated with pleasurable sensations, in contrast to the loss of a limb, which for centuries had been associated with painful phantoms. We here present several early reports on phantom penile sensations, with the intent of showing what had been described and why more than 200 years ago.     

Surveying the Boundaries of Historical Linguistics and Archaeology: Early Settlement in South Central Africa

Drawing on evidence from South Central Africa, this paper explores two methods for linking the linguistic and archaeological records. Since the 1960s, scholars have correlated the hypothesized spatial and temporal overlaps of linguistic speech communities and pottery traditions, with varying success in the face of revisions to linguistic classifications and debates over pottery typologies. This paper assesses similar correlations between speech communities within the Bantu-Botatwe family and ceramic traditions of South Central Africa. Then, it proposes direct associations for specific activities and tools attested in both the linguistic and archaeological records in order to test correlations between pottery traditions and speech communities as well as the reliability of glottochronology. The development of a dense cluster of direct associations between the two records converging on the “when and where” of historical processes allows for the incorporation of theoretical and historical interpretations founded on one body of evidence into narratives developed from another type of data and, therefore, facilitates a “peer” engagement between the disciplines.     

German Postcolonialism in Four Dimensions: A Historical Perspective

In 1919, the German overseas empire came to an end, a direct consequence of defeat in the First World War. Germany has thus been post-colonial, in the sense of being without colonies, longer than most other European nations. This article argues that German postcolonialism can best be understood as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon, one that envelops memories of colonialism in white German and diasporic communities, as well as developments in the nation's more recent past. Its most salient aspects include the cultural memory of the colonial period itself, the resonances between colonialism, National Socialism and the Holocaust, the recovery of histories of Afro-Germans, and discussions of race, migration and integration which draw a very broad arc from the colonial past into the multicultural present. The multidimensional nature of German postcolonialism can be both an advantage as well as a disadvantage when it comes to meaningful engagement with Germany's colonial past. This article ultimately seeks a way of re-inserting the ‘colonial’ into German postcolonialism, without flattening the concept.     

Chinese Engagement with Africa: The Case of Madagascar

Using field work in Madagascar as the foundation for a case study, two U.S.-based geographers examine the complex relations developing between many African nations and the Chinese government as well as ethnic Chinese citizens and guest-workers who live and work in Africa. The study investigates changes in the perceptions of Malagasy citizens of the Chinese presence and long-term effects of Chinese investments in Madagascar's economy. Although the Chinese living in Madagascar tend to be viewed as "cut from the same cloth," the study demonstrates that there is considerable differentiation depending on the length of residence, rates of intermarriage with Malagasy citizens, and feelings toward the recent "economic" immigrants and guest workers. The paper integrates archival data with interviews involving recent Chinese guest-workers living in Antananarivo in 2011 as well as results of a systematic survey of most active French-language "blogs" dedicated to Sino-Malagasy relations, with the goal of presenting a comprehensive account of past and present Chinese influences and behavior in Madagascar.     

《美国历史评论》:第一份科学的美国历史杂志

《美国历史评论》是美国主流的核心历史刊物,更是“第一份科学的美国历史杂志”。它是19世纪末西方史学职业化的产物,也是美国史学科学化、职业化的标志。100多年来,它坚持严肃的专业态度,坚持和发展了自己的栏目内容和形式,主旨是为了繁荣和发展美国的历史学术。它最初不是美国历史协会的机关刊物和出版物,但由于业务发展的需要,《评论》最终成为美国历史协会的“旗舰”。有人批判《评论》内容方面的保守,但细心考察会发现它是美国史学发展的晴雨表,尤其反映了第二次世界大战前后美国史学发展的趋势和变化。     

Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage in South Africa: The Development of Relevant Management Strategies in the Historical Maritime Context of the Southern Tip of Africa

South Africans have a long association with water. It has provided a source of food, a medium for trade and a catalyst for migration and development. The country??s geographical position as a crossroads of maritime trade between Europe and the East means that its history is inextricably linked to the history of the rest of the world. The result is a multi-faceted representation of sites, objects and mythologies related to water and maritime heritage that reflect not only local historical and social development, but global cultural change as well. Given the importance of South Africa??s underwater cultural heritage (UCH), managers have grappled with management principles, ethics and theoretical models in an effort to produce and enforce heritage legislation that is relevant and effective. This paper outlines South Africa??s maritime context from 1.5 million years ago until the present, summarises legislative and mitigation developments over the past half century and provides details of current trends in maritime archaeology and UCH management at the southern tip of Africa. Training programmes and public awareness are keys to this strategy to bring UCH and maritime archaeology into the mainstream and counter treasure hunting and looting of this rich, friable resource.     

Dimensions of remapping: Heinrich Schiffers and his mental map of Africa

ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Athenäum publishing house in Germany planned a revised and extended edition of Heinrich Schiffers’ (1901–1982) successful book Wilder Erdteil Afrika (English translation: The Quest for Africa). The bestselling author had published several monographs about Africa since the 1930s, and authored and edited numerous works after World War II. Nearly all of these works, whose substantial print runs are testament to their popularity, are characterized by an engaging combination of text, images, and cartographic material, creating narratives and mental maps about Africa, its history, and the colonial past. In his later writings, he stressed the importance of “relearning” with regard to Africa and struggled to remap the imaginative geography of Africa. In this paper, I examine the characteristics of Schiffers’ imaginative geography and the change in his writings and maps. I explore whether his concept of “relearning” was an epistemological decolonization or if there were any continuities found in his imaginative geography. In order to grasp the specifics of his thinking, his geography will be briefly compared with that of his contemporary, Frankfurt zoo director Bernhard Grzimek.     

South Africa: Reform,resistance and negotiation

Government reforms in South Africa during the 1980s have neither adequately addressed the problem of black political rights nor significantly improved the material well‐being of blacks. Nonetheless reform should not be judged irrelevant Reform divided the ruling National Party, weakened its support base and exposed new contradictions in apartheid policy. It also opened critical space in which black resistance movements could build essential organisational strength. By rejecting reform as cosmetic in the mid‐1980s black resistance organisations lost strategic advantages in their struggle which they have only now recovered. Ironically, the government's rhetoric of reform may well force it to enter into genuine negotiations.     

American Historical Demography: A Review Essay

Abstract

American historians of modern art routinely assume that after World War II New York replaced Paris as the center of the western art world. An analysis of the illustrations in French textbooks shows that French art scholars disagree: they rate Jean Dubuffet as the most important painter of the era, ahead of Jackson Pollock, and they consider Yves Klein's anthropometries of 1960 as the greatest contribution of a single year, in front of Andy Warhol's innovations in Pop Art. Yet the French texts also show that the French artists' practices and conceptions of art paralleled those of the Americans. Thus, whereas French and American scholars disagree over the relative importance of their nations' artists, there is no disagreement that the most important art of the 1950s was produced by experimental seekers, and that of the 1960s by conceptual finders.