Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse


Book Description

The book thus seeks to trace the construction and contestation of the central axes around which its political frontiers were organized.




Evolving Public Space in South Africa


Book Description

Evolving Public Space in South Africa discusses the transformation of public space highlighted in the country. Drawing on examples from major cities, the author demonstrates that these spaces are not only becoming wasted space, but are also adapting and evolving to accommodate new users and uses in various parts of the city. This process of evolution tends to challenge the more traditional visions and general global views of declining public space in cities and argues that it rather resembles the resilience of these spaces and the potential for regeneration through continuously emerging and mutating forms, functions and meanings. Including over 20 black-and-white images, this book would be beneficial to academics and students of urban planning and design and those interested in the regeneration of cities.




Washed with Sun


Book Description

South Africa is recognized as a site of both political turmoil and natural beauty, and yet little work has been done in connecting these defining national characteristics. Washed with Sun achieves this conjunction in its multidisciplinary study of South Africa as a space at once natural and constructed. Weaving together practical, aesthetic, and ideological analyses, Jeremy Foster examines the role of landscape in forming the cultural iconographies and spatialities that shaped the imaginary geography of emerging nationhood. Looking in particular at the years following the British victory in the second Boer War, from 1902 to 1930, Foster discusses the influence of painting, writing, architecture, and photography on the construction of a shared, romanticized landscape subjectivity that was perceived as inseparable from "being South African," and thus helped forge the imagined community of white South Africa. In its innovative approach to South Africa's history, Washed with Sun breaks important new ground, combining the persuasive theory of cultural geography with the material specificity of landscape history.




Deconstruction and Democracy


Book Description

'No democracy without deconstruction': Deconstruction and Democracy evaluates and substantiates Derrida's provocative claim, assessing the importance of this influential and controversial contemporary philosopher's work for political thought. Derrida addressed political questions more and more explicitly in his writing, yet there is still confusion over the politics of deconstruction. Alex Thomson argues for a fresh understanding of Derrida's work, which acknowledges both the political dimension of deconstruction and its potential contribution to our thinking about politics. The book provides cogent analysis and exegesis of Derrida's political writings; explores the implications for political theory and practice of Derrida's work; and brings Derrida's work into dialogue with other major strands of contemporary political thought. Deconstruction and Democracy is the clearest and most detailed engagement available with the politics of deconstruction, and is a major contribution to scholarship on the later works of Jacques Derrida, most notably his Politics of Friendship.




Space, Curriculum and Learning


Book Description

In recent years there has been increasing interest in issues of space and spatiality in the social sciences and humanities generally, if less so in the study of education. This relative lack of interest is surprising given the importance of space and time in the organization of teaching, learning and research. For instance, the timetable and project timeline are central to the organization of learning and knowledge production whether in schools, colleges or universities. Classrooms, workshops and laboratories have different spatial layouts, which support certain forms of interaction and communication. When we add to this, the increasing distances across which knowledge, understanding and competence are being distributed through the use of information and communications technologies, the fact that issues of space have not been taken up seems more than an oversight. This relative lack of interest in space becomes even more surprising when one considers the extensive use of spatial metaphors in the discussion of education and pedagogy. For instance, the notions of open, distance and distributed learning and student-centredness, border crossing, and communities of practice all have a spatial dimension to them. Notions of a spiral curriculum act as a spatial imaginary. Indeed some metaphors, such as flexibility seem to be suggestive of the possibility that all constraints of space and time can be conquered in the provision of learning opportunities throughout life. This collection of chapters from researchers around the world attempts to address these issues, to examine the significance of space for curriculum, learning and identity.




A History of Spaces


Book Description

This book provides an essential insight into the practices and ideas of maps and map-making. It draws on a wide range of social theorists, and theorists of maps and cartography, to show how maps and map-making have shaped the spaces in which we live. Going beyond the focus of traditional cartography, the book draws on examples of the use of maps from the sixteenth century to the present, including their role in projects of the national and colonial state, emergent capitalism and the planetary consciousness of the natural sciences. It also considers the use of maps for military purposes, maps that have coded modern conceptions of health, disease and social character, and maps of the transparent human body and the transparent earth.




Space, Place and Inclusive Learning


Book Description

This collection explores ways in which theories of space and place can be used in understanding processes of exclusion and inclusion in education. The contributions foreground how the ‘spatial turn’ and geographical knowledges can inform: debates on the relationships between learning, space and place understandings of the ways in which space and place affect education and learning ‘familiar’ research agendas through the application of conceptual perspectives from different disciplines The ten chapters which make up this book are by contributors from Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom who draw, in very different ways, on spatial theory as a means of exploring processes of inclusion and exclusion in education. Each one of the authors not only seeks to challenge growing orthodoxies in their respective field but is interested in cross-disciplinarity and spatial theory in education. This book provides key readings for experienced and beginning teachers studying for bachelors, masters and research degrees or professional qualifications. It will be particularly useful to equality and diversity post-holders, lecturers, researchers and policy makers working in all education establishments which take issues of inclusion seriously. The international content of the diverse papers in Space, Place and Inclusive Learning will be of interest not only to those practising in the United Kingdom but to educationists working in other countries who seek to understand how space and place modulate opportunities for inclusion. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.




Starring Mandela and Cosby


Book Description

Media, democratization, and the end(s) of apartheid -- Structured absences and communicative spaces -- In the absence of television -- "They stayed 'til the flag streamed"--Surfing into Zulu -- Living with the Huxtables in a state of emergency -- I may not be a freedom fighter, but I play one on TV -- Television and the afterlife of apartheid




One Foreigner's Ordeal


Book Description

One Foreigners Ordeal is a story of how a Zimbabwean civil servant; a teacher, is caught up in Zimbabwes economic implosion. It chronicles his flight into South Africa and depicts the new challenges that beset him in the new environment. Among these is the search for documentation enabling him to stay in the country legally, xenophobia and the all elusive search for employment. The book is alive. The characters are so real one can feel them and almost touch them. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. - Tsitsi Dzinoreva Lecturer in African Languages and Literature Great Zimbabwe University. Written with an eye for detail and a sense of humour any reader will find impeccable and refreshinga must read for serious lovers of literature. - Mika Nyoni Lecturer English Great Zimbabwe University.




African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective


Book Description

This book presents new and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of African urban history and culture. Moving between precolonial, colonial, and contemporary urban spaces, it covers the major regions, religions, and urban societies of sub-Saharan Africa. African Urban Spaces in Historical Perspective presents new and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of African urban history and culture. It presents original research and integrates historical methodologies with those of anthropology, geography, literature, art, and architecture. Moving between precolonial, colonial, and contemporary urban spaces, it covers the major regions, religions, and cultural influences of sub-Saharan Africa. The themes include Islam and Christianity, architecture, migration, globalization, social and physical decay, identity, race relations, politics, and development. This book elaborates on not only what makes the study of African urban spaces unique within urban historiography, it also offers an-encompassing and up-to-date study of the subject and inserts Africa into the growing debate on urban history and culture throughout the world. The opportunities provided by the urban milieu are endless and each study opens new potential avenues of research. This book explores some of those avenues and lays the groundwork on which new studies can build. Contributors: Maurice NyamangaAmutabi, Catherine Coquery Vidrovitch, Mark Dike DeLancey, Thomas Ngomba Ekali, Omar A. Eno, Doug T. Feremenga, Laurent Fourchard, James Genova, Fatima Muller-Friedman, Godwin R. Murunga, Kefa M. Otiso, Michael Ralph, Jeremy Rich, Eric Ross, Corinne Sandwith, Wessel Visser. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Steven J.Salm is Assistant Professor of History, Xavier University of Louisiana.