Waste, Reclamation and the Production of Racialised Space in Cape Town, 1882–1913
Zachary Fleishman
Waste has been a generally overlooked material for historians of Cape Town. However, this article contends that it is through attendance to the material demands of waste with waste management infrastructure that the city landscape has been and continues to be produced. I examine this through four interconnected viewpoints, focussing on the years 1882 to 1913. First, in the late nineteenth century demands to manage waste justified the centralisation of planning power within the Cape Town City Council, increasing their ability to curate the city landscape. Second, through consistent reclamation, waste physically extended the shape of the city and allowed for its spatial and social reconfiguration. Third, in the attempts to isolate the city's black population after plague, the infrastructure set initially for waste management was instructive in the selection of the specific site for the newly prescribed ‘Native Location'. Finally, as technological development in the twentieth century allowed the city’s wealthier residents to distance themselves further from their detritus, waste came to greater effect the social and spatial scripts for the performances of race and class in relation to space. In all of this, I contend that as the city makes waste, the waste, in turn, makes the city.
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Gender and Memory: Lessons from the Gukurahundi Massacre in Zimbabwe (Chapter 4). In Gender, Transitional Justice and Memorial Arts : Global Perspectives on Commemoration and Mobilization, edited by J. Boesten and H. Scanlon (1st ed.). Routledge.
Nompilo Ndlovu
This chapter examines the way memories of the Gukurahundi massacres, which took place in Zimbabwe between 1982 and 1987, are gendered. Seemingly, the narrative on sexual abuse and gender-based violence, while significant, limits other aspects of the gender and memory discourse. The chapter analyses the gendered consequences of Gukurahundi and, in the midst of state denial, draws attention to alternative methods of memorialisation and healing mechanisms for affected individuals, communities, and non-governmental organisations. Both men and women in the study equally identified the intricacies of openly sharing and revealing their experiences. It should be noted that increasingly, since the 2000s, more people have spoken up about Gukurahundi, in large part due to developments in modern technology and social media platforms combined with the time that had elapsed, as well as changes in the global political environment.
The growth and diversity of the Cape private capital market, 1892–1902
Lloyd Melusi Maphosa, Anton Ehlers, Johan Fourie & Edward M. Kerby
The adoption of limited liability in the nineteenth century is considered to have boosted economic growth and expanded capital markets in Europe and North America. Despite similar legal changes in frontier markets such as South Africa, very few attempts have been made to analyse the economic effects thereof. After the Cape Joint Stock Company Act No. 25 of 1892 there was an upsurge in new joint stock companies in the Cape Colony, but little is known about the people who financed them. This study is an enquiry into who they were. Using a list of 6883 shareholders from 263 companies, we show that the Cape’s sources of private capital were a diverse group of people. Unlike previous studies, we find that most capital came from the middle class at the Cape and very little from foreign investors. The paper contributes to our understanding of early financial developments on the frontier and the evolution of capitalism at the Cape. It also contributes broadly to the economic and business history of the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Cape.
BOOK REVIEW
Abraham Mlombo, Southern Rhodesia-South Africa Relations, and 1923-1953: Political, Social and Economic Ties, Cham, Springer Nature, 2020, ISBN: 978-3-030-54283-2.
Lloyd Melusi Maphosa
For those wishing to go beyond the often narrow history of relations between Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, this book offers fresh perspective and insight into the multifaceted connection these colonies had in the twentieth century. In a somewhat political economy approach, Abraham Mlombo successfully breaks down Southern Rhodesian and South African relations into economic, political and social spheres. He deliberately chooses the period between 1923 and 1953 to provide a nuanced perspective of how these relations developed. It was during these years that Southern Rhodesians developed a strong identity, one closely associated with the United Kingdom and not South Africa. As he puts it, Southern Rhodesia was a cultural refuge for English South Africans whose influence was slowly being diminished by the strong emergence of Afrikaner Nationalism (p.85). The outcome was vigorous campaigns for Responsible Government in Southern Rhodesia and the Central African Federation. While the relationship between the two colonies seemed to be fraught with suspicion and wariness, it was characterised by cooperation in economic, political and social realms under different circumstances. This then brings us to the core of the book.