Contested heritage at the Cape Town waterfront

Abstract

Cape Town's Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is a prime example of the international trend of revitalising economically defunct harbour areas for tourism and retail usage. This paper examines the various contested images of heritage evoked at the site during the period of South Africa's political transformation in the early 1990s:‐ a nostalgic perception of a harmonious past (by middle‐class Capetonians) versus a place of privilege and exclusion (by predominantly black working‐class inhabitants); academic concerns to commemorate the social history of the area versus commercial sensitivity to current marketing image; and the multiplicity of images in a postmodern space of spectacle and pastiche.