Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Reintegrating the city is a priority of social justice and development in many urban centres of the ‘South’ that bear the legacy of forced displacement. In South Africa, much of the land restitution programme has thus far focused on urban areas. In certain large cluster claims involving the transfer and development of significant tracts of well‐placed land, restitution has presented the prospect of altering landed property regimes in the heart of the city. The predominantly rural and economic emphasis in scholarship and policy debate on land reform in South Africa — which reflects historical trends in development studies — has led to a narrowed vision of what is at stake in urban land restitution. Complex interventions aimed at redressing urban spatial segregation can potentially alter the relationship between citizens, institutions and urban space in ways that expand the possibilities for social and political agency in sites that are strategically important for influencing the direction of change more broadly. A key, as yet unrealized, challenge is how to articulate such struggles for a ‘right to the city’ with efforts at redressing the spatialization of poverty on the urban periphery.     

The Use and Abuse of Ideology: The Struggle for Africa

WILLIAM FREUND. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Pp. 357. $19.50 (US); MAI FALMBERO, ed. The Struggle for Africa, trans. E.M.K. Andree, Mai Palmberg, and Howard Simson. London: Zed Press, 1983. Pp. iii, 286. $31.95 (Can.).Reviewed by John Flint     

South Africa and the African Renaissance

This article addresses the question of the new South Africa's relationships with other countries in Africa in the context of the idea of an 'African Renaissance' which has recently gained currency. The authors identify two opposing conceptions of Africa's development, which they call 'globalist' and 'Africanist' respectively, and explore the tensions besetting South Africa's participation in an 'Africanist' project. They discuss the dilemma of South Africa's role on the continent as both an obvious and an impossible candidate for leadership, and argue for an 'Africanist' and post-structuralist approach to the political, economic and cultural development of the African continent.     

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.     

皖南事变之后国共两党的政治较量

皖南事变发生之后,国民党内随即产生四派意见：何应钦主张为叶挺另编一新四军;白崇禧主张取消新四军番号;徐永昌主张政治上与中共全面破裂;王世杰、张治中、贺耀祖等则力主缓和。蒋介石采纳了白崇禧的意见。国共在尖锐对立的同时,又都为避免全面破裂设置了各自的限制,这一设限集中表现为避免新四军牵扯八路军。在势态得到控制之后,最后一个问题即皖南事变政治了结的条件。国共围绕条件的较量集中在二届一次参政会。第三方面以调解国共纠纷为契机,提出了自己独立的条件。蒋介石运用现实利益的杠杆作用,满足了第三方面的条件从而将其吸引过来。结果,中共通过拒绝出席参政会,将皖南事变的政治性质暴露出来,而蒋则通过吸引第三方面使参政会全票否决中共条件,双方互有胜负。两党关系转入“拖”的局面。     

South Africa: a legacy of family disruption

This article draws together unusual characteristics of the legacy of apartheid in South Africa: the state-orchestrated destruction of family life, high rates of unemployment and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The disruption of family life has resulted in a situation in which many women have to fulfil the role of both breadwinner and care giver in a context of high unemployment and very limited economic opportunities. The question that follows is: given this crisis of care, to what extent can or will social protection and employment-related social policies provide the support women and children need?     

Divergent desires for the just transition in South Africa: An assemblage analysis

In this paper I establish a ‘just transition assemblage’ as a theoretical and empirical case-study to explore the plurality of justice in South Africa's energy transition. The coal phase-out is complicated by the legacies of apartheid, poverty, inequality, unemployment and structural crisis in the state-owned power utility. This transition is loaded with expectation but there is no consensus on what would qualify it as ‘just’. This assemblage analysis clusters desires around two distinct post-carbon imaginaries. The first is an ordering of desires for justice in a diffuse, distributional sense, targeting greenhouse gas emission reductions and looking to smooth the negative impacts of the transition. I label this approach ‘net justice’. This targets more justice overall in defined political spaces, and contrasts with the second orientation around recognising, reconciling, and addressing specific injustices. These desires are distinguished by a contrasting purpose of renewable energy and differing attitudes to its appropriateness or fit. There are incoherent spatial effects, where net justice is shown to be a territorialising project whilst specific injustices need to be de-territorialised. Emphasising desire shows how material and history are enrolled and enlivened, contributing to post-carbon imaginaries. This approach enables injustice and net justice to be understood as conceptually distinct, despite seeming unified calls for a just transition. The primary contribution of this paper is to show how in some cases, popular uses of the terms justice and injustice refer to different things. It forces attention on the question of: ‘justice for whom?’     

南非迷失在太阳城

“原始”、“野性”、“财富”、“神秘”点缀着非洲这片美丽的大陆。定格非洲大陆最南端,大西洋与印度洋的交汇处。这个历史上以常年大风大浪的坏脾气著称的风暴角,便是航海人心怀敬意的坐标——好望角。10米高的海浪在这块岬角附近屡见不鲜,航海船只都对它顶礼膜拜。然而今天,这里早已开发成国家公园,过往的只有游客,再大的浪也是风景.     

Rhodesia: Report on the Administration of Rhodesia. The British South Africa Company. Impressions of South Africa. James Bryce

EUROPE

A Geography of Europe. Edited by George W. Hoffman. 9×6. Pp. ix+775. 156 figs. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1953. 52s 6d.

Die Landschaften der britischen Inseln. By Johann Sölch. 9 1/2×6 1/2. Erster Band. England und Wales. Pp. xii+1–850. Figs. 1–154. Zweiter Band. Schottland und Irland. Pp. 851–1350. Figs. 155–225. Wien : Springer‐Verlag. Vol. I, 1951. Vol. II, 1952. DM 232, or £19, 17s.

Scottish Industry : An Account of what Scotland makes and where she makes it. Edited by C. A. Oakley. Foreword by The Rt. Hon. Lord Bilsland, M.C., D.L., LL.D. 8 1/2×6. Pp. xvii+332. Plates. Sketch maps. Glasgow: The Scottish Council (Development and Industry). William Collins and Sons Ltd, 1953. 25s.

Orkney Miscellany. 8×6 1/2. Pp. 104. 6 illustrations. Kirkwall: Orkney Record and Antiquarian Society Papers, Vol. 1, 1953. 8s 6d.

The Glasgow Story. By Colm Brogan. 7 3/4×5. Pp. 223. Drawings by Keir. London : Frederick Muller Ltd, 1952. 15s.

Devonshire Studies. By W. G. Hoskins and H. P. R. Finberg. 8 3/4 × 5 6/8. Pp. 470. 8 plates. 11 maps and plans. London : Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1952. 36s.

In Search of Winter Sport. By Monk Gibbon. 8 3/4×5 5/8. Pp. 223. 17 illustrations. End‐paper sketch map. London: Evans Brothers Ltd, 1953. 18s.

Three Rivers of France: Dordogne, Lot, Tarn. By Freda White. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. 232. 49 illustrations. Map. London : Faber and Faber Ltd, 1952. 25s. Reprinted, 1953. 15s.

ASIA

South China in the Sixteenth Century : Being the Narratives of Galeote Pereira ; Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, O.P.; Fr. Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550–1575). Edited by C. R. Boxer. 8 3/4×5 5/8. Pp. xci+388. 8 figs. 12 plates. [Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. CVL] London. 1953. 40s.

AFRICA

The Suez Canal in World Affairs. By Hugh J. Schonfield. 8 1/2×5 1/2. Pp. x+174. 9 illustrations. 2 sketch maps. [Constellation Books.] London : Vallentine, Mitchell and Co. Ltd, 1952. 15s.

AMERICA

Highland Settler : A Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Nova Scotia. By Charles W. Dunn. 9×6. Pp. xii+180. Frontispiece. 2 sketch maps. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953. $4.00. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege. 32s.

POLAR REGIONS

John Roe's Correspondence with the Hudson's Bay Company on Arctic Exploration, 1844–1855. Edited by E. E. Rich, M.A., assisted by A. M. Johnson. Introduction by J. M. Wordie, C.B.E., and R. J. Cyriax. 9 1/2×6 1/2. Pp. cvi+401+xiv. 2 illustrations. Sketch map and 2 maps. London : The Publications of The Hudson's Bay Record Society, XVI, 1953.