Putting South Africa(n Geography) back into AfricaAuthor(s): David SimonSource: Area, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1994), pp. 296-300Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003461 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 15:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Area.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

296

Observations

Putting South Africa(n Geography) back into Africa David Simon Centre for Developing Areas Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX

There can today be few more globally recognised symbols of (white) South African isolationism under apartheid than the laager. The image of latterday trekkers huddled within a circle of ox wagons against a hostile external world has been

adopted by journalists the world over. More recently, it has found its way into the iconography of South African geography to symbolise the continued adherence by

most geographers to dated traditional epistemologies, theories and methodologies, together with their lack of concern for the human condition of the majority of South

Africans. Although South African geography became far more diverse-and at least streams within it also ' concerned ' and progressive-during the 1980s, Chris

Rogerson and Sue Parnell (1989) still titled their state of the art review ' Fostered by the laager '. This was one in a growing series of sometimes self-conscious reviews by progressive and radical geographers bemoaning the pedigree and seeking to promote different orientations (for example Crush et al 1982; McCarthy 1982; Wellings and

McCarthy 1983; Pirie 1985; Rogerson and Browett 1986; Wellings 1986; Mabin 1989; Rogerson 1990; 1991).

The most recent addition to this reflective literature is a book-length review and prospectus of Geography in a Changing South Africa, edited by Chris Rogerson and Jeff McCarthy (1992). There is a feast of ideas provided on individual sub disciplines, subject areas and issues by many of the leading writers and some of their postgraduates. Importantly, for the first time, some black South African geographers participate in an exercise of this nature. Inevitably, the chapters differ to some extent in tone, reflexivity, range of focus, views on engagement in praxis, and prognosis. Some devote the bulk of their pages to recent trends and preoccupations in the so-called ' international ' literature (for which read Anglo-American realm), and then evaluate the concerns of the relevant South African literature to these agendas. In

others the balance is reversed. Fair enough. This is, in any case, not the place for a

detailed review. The book undoubtedly fulfils its purpose well, in providing provocative food for thought and study within the country and among those elsewhere concerned with South African geography.

While in many ways it represents a milestone in shedding the burden of the past by geographers, in one crucial respect it does not. The laager has yet to be entirely abandoned. The colonial origins of South African geography-and other academic

disciplines-are well known as is the closely related and enduring tendency to adopt paradigm shifts and academic fashions in the Anglophone North with a lag of some

years. This reflects the source of most text books and ' mainstream ' journals, the locations where the vast majority of South African geographers (and other social scientists and planners) undertook their doctoral studies, and the directions in which

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Observations 297

academic links were largely maintained during the period of South Africa's wider international isolation. The phenomenon cannot be explained entirely in terms of ignorance, however. Access to the international literature has hitherto generally been good in many South African universities, even if it was for many years impossible to visit or undertake fieldwork in most of Africa. Rather, there has been a widespread South African-centred parochiality with respect to the rest of the continent, an implicit sentiment shared, ironically enough, with the architects of apartheid. Just as the latter dismissed Africa for decades as a ' disaster area ' from which South Africa had to be spared at all costs, many progressive and radical social scientists felt, either implicitly or explicitly, that apartheid (or racial capitalism) made South Africa unique, so that little of relevance could be learnt from experiences north of the Limpopo River.

Happily that is now changing as the 'new' South Africa dawns, and fact-finding tours apart, the semi-popular press often carries articles on the relevance of experience elsewhere (for example du Pisani 1993; Simon 1993). Even in the academic literature, it is only quite recently that there has been some attempt to adapt more critically the imported discourses and preoccupations to local conditions-echoed, for example by Jeff McCarthy (1992, 149)-and to draw on a wider international literature than hitherto with an eye to lessons for urban futures (for example Rogerson 1989; Dewar 1991; Simon 1986, 1991). Equally, attention is now being drawn to the potential for developing distinct local traditions and making worthwhile contributions to international debate on that basis (Smit 1992, 223-6).

With few exceptions, however, including those by McCarthy and Smit just cited, the contributors to Geography in a Changing South Africa still fail to engage with such issues or even to perceive the problems: ' international ' remains overwhelmingly the

Anglo-American realm. The sometimes rich and varied literatures of and on the rest of Europe, Asia, Latin America and especially Africa remain Terrae incognitae.

Africa, let alone the rest of southern Africa, rates barely a mention in the book. Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe are the only three African countries listed in

the index, and of these only Namibia rates at least limited discussion. Dhiru Soni (1992, 91-2) is alone in arguing the relevance of a particular experience there to South Africa. However, nowhere in the volume could I find mention of any African geographers or social scientists from outside South Africa, or the literatures which inform debate in and on the rest of the continent or other parts of the ' Third

World'. In fairness, the early papers by McCarthy (1982) and Wellings and McCarthy

(1983) did address southern African human geography, their very critical tone provoking a sharp exchange with geographers then working in Zambia (Henkel et al 1984; Wellings and McCarthy 1984). The edited collections in which the contri butions by Crush et al (1982), Wellings (1986) and Rogerson (1991) formed the introductory essays, did include a handful of contributions (generally by South

Africans or South African-based authors) dealing with countries other than South Africa. However, these are exceptions and do not detract from my essential argument about the lack of interest in and engagement with the rest of Africa by South African

geographers. Crush and Rogerson (1983) and the contributors to Rogerson (1989) have made some of the very few genuine attempts to do this-in terms of historical

geography and urban management issues respectively. Generally though, South African social scientists on the left have been just as guilty in the past as their more conservative counterparts of ignoring Africa and the rest of the Third World in favour of the very different Anglo-American realm, despite the obvious parallels of

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

298 Observations

decolonisation and post-colonial development and the numerous lessons to be learnt from experiences far closer to home. This omission is all the more remarkable, given the efforts over recent years by many progressive social scientists, including the geographers cited above, to overcome the burden of the past in their respective disciplines and ' decolonise ' their literatures within the South African context (see also Crush 1983).

This myopia is no less excusable than the all too common fashion among European and North American authors and even some international agencies, to omit South Africa, and until 1990, also Namibia, from studies or reports on sub-Saharan Africa on the rather spurious grounds that they lack(ed) legitimacy and/or were unique, with entirely different problems. 'Tropical Africa' has provided a convenient label and escape route for many on this score. Even the eminent French political scientist, Jean-Paul Bayart (1993), quietly omits South Africa from his recent volume, The State In Africa, one of the most important contributions to theories of the state in years. Yet, in both historical and contemporary terms, unequal links and interactions between South Africa and the rest of southern and East Africa, in particular, are fundamental. Any attempts at explanation or theorisation which ignore them are profoundly flawed (Simon 1992).

Over the five years since Rogerson and Parnell (1989) wrote, of course, the world has undergone momentous upheavals, and even though the clarion calls heralding the dawning of a 'new world order' have gone the way of the Bush Presidency, much has changed. In southern Africa, these have been dramatic times, making

Macmillan's ' winds of change ' seem rather like gentle breezes. Yet they have not stopped at the Limpopo and Orange Rivers. The magnitude, rapidity, complexity and sometimes even contradictory nature of developments has been bewildering: disengagement in Angola; implementation of UNSCR 435 leading to Namibian independence; the release of Mandela et al and the rapid demise of statutory apartheid amid a continuing toll of violence; rejection by UNITA of the September 1992 Angolan election results and that country's subsequent decline into unparal leled disaster just as Mozambique finally saw peace from October 1992; the impact

of the region's worst drought in at least fifty years; the burden of structural adjustment in Zimbabwe; the end of the Kaunda era in Zambia; still incomplete struggles for democratisation in Malawi and Lesotho and, as I write, the inauguration of South Africa's Transitional Executive Council and the formal abandonment by the international community of remaining sanctions.

Mere headlines do not capture their full significance, let alone the nature and magnitude of their impact upon the lives of ordinary people across the subcontinent. Further afield, sub-Saharan Africa struggles with the twin tigers of structural adjustment and democratisation, and in some places also with war and famine. Central and eastern Europe have experienced seismic change. The numerous variants of socialism, both there and across the Third World, have all but disappeared as forms of state ideology and control and as important modes of production. Cuba and in some respects still Vietnam are the principal remaining exceptions. The Israel

Palestinian impasse is arguably on the threshold of as dramatic a breakthrough as the arrival of the long awaited post-apartheid South Africa.

There are shifting alliances, major realignments, raging debates and burgeoning literatures of profound global importance. South Africa's rapid re-acceptance within the world community has opened new doors, new opportunities. Direct flights from Johannesburg to Moscow, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Cairo, and many capital cities across sub-Saharan Africa symbolise this just as powerfully as the large

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Observations 299

numbers of Nigerians, Ghanaians, Kenyans, Zairois, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and others forging commercial links or seeking better lives and refuge in South Africa. South African geographers and social scientists must open up their minds and research to these now more readily accessible avenues, the exciting-and sometimes depressing-opportunities, debates and literatures from which to enrich the existing traditions.

I hasten to add that I am not suggesting wholesale abandonment of concern with new trends in the Anglophone North, but a diversification. This I see as an essential prerequisite-quite in line with the pursuits of ' post-colonialism ' in literature and gender studies, for example-for the rediscovery of lost pasts, new and diverse presents and the forging of genuinely indigenous futures (Crush 1983). Central to such pursuits is the question of identity and the now widespread acceptance that individuals, not to mention collectivities, have-and use-multiple and flexible identities. Fundamental to senses of identity is one's individual or collective name and as the country's very geographical name makes explicit, South Africa IS part of Africa.

References Bayart J-P (1993) The State in Africa; the politics of the belly (Longman, Harlow)

Crush J (1983) 'The discomforts of distance: post-colonialism and South African geography' South

African Geographical journal 75, 60-8

Crush J, Reitsma H J and Rogerson C M (1982) ' Decolonizing the human geography of southern Africa'

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 73, 197-8 Crush J and Rogerson C M (1983) 'New wave African historiography and African historical geography'

Progress in Human Geography 7, 203-31 Dewar N (1991) 'Harare: a window on the future for the South African city? ' in Lemon A (ed) Homes

Apart; South Africa's segregated cities (Paul Chapman, London and David Philip, Cape Town)

du Pisani A (1993) 'Affirmative action in Namibia' Indicator South Africa 10, 29-31

Henkel R, Huckabay J D, Williams G J and Wood A P (1984) ' Comment on ' southern ' African human

geography as perceived by Wellings' Area 16, 258-60

Mabin A (1989) 'Does geography matter? A review of the past decade's books by geographers of

contemporary South Africa' Southern African Geographical journal 71, 121-6 McCarthy J J (1982) ' Radical geography, mainstream geography and southern Africa ' Social Dynamics 8,

53-70 McCarthy J J (1992) 'Urban geography and socio-political change: retrospect and prospect ' in Rogerson

C M and McCarthy J J (eds) Geography in a Changing South Africa: progress and prospects (Oxford

University Press, Cape Town)

McCarthy J J and Rogerson C M (1992) ' Geography in a changing South Africa-an introduction' in

Rogerson C M and McCarthy J J (eds) Geography in a changing South Africa; progress and prospects

(Oxford University Press, Cape Town)

Pirie G H (1985) ' Geography in South Africa' Professional Geographer 37, 479-83

Rogerson C M (ed) (1989) 'Urbanization in the Third World: policy papers for South Africa' South

African GeographicalJournal 71, special issue Rogerson C M (1990) ' A new South Africa-a new South African geography' Geojournal 22, 227-9

Rogerson C M (1991) ' A new southern Africa-geographical perspectives ' T#dschrift voor Economische en

Sociale Geografie 82, 323-4

Rogerson C M and Browett J G (1986) ' Social geography under apartheid' in Eyles J (ed) Social

Geography in International Perspective (Croom Helm, Beckenham)

Rogerson C M and McCarthy J J (eds) (1992) Geography in a Changing South Africa; progress and prospects

(Oxford University Press, Cape Town)

Rogerson C M and Parnell S (1989) 'Fostered by the laager: apartheid human geography in the 1980s '

Area 21, 13-26

Simon D (1986) 'Desegregation in Namibia: the demise of urban apartheid? ' Geoforum 17, 289-307

Simon D (1991) ' Windhoek: desegregation and change in the capital of South Africa's erstwhile colony '

in Lemon A (ed) Homes Apart: South Africa s segregated cities (Paul Chapman, London and David

Philip, Cape Town)

Simon D (1992) Cities, Capital and Development; African cities in the world economy (Belhaven, London)

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

300 Observations

Simon D (1993) 'Namibia's new geopolitics: lessons for South Africa' Indicator South Africa 10, 73-6 Smit D P (1992) 'Urban and regional planning in South Africa: the geographical nexus' in Rogerson

C M and McCarthy J J (eds) Geography in a Changing South Africa: progress and prospects (Oxford

University Press, Cape Town) Soni D (1992) 'Human geography in the 1990s: challenges engendered by transformation' in Rogerson

C M and McCarthy J J (eds) Geography in a Changing South Africa: progress and prospects (Oxford

University Press, Cape Town) Wellings P (1986) ' Geography and development studies in southern Africa: a progressive prospectus

Geoforum 17, 119-31 Wellings P and McCarthy J J (1983) 'Whither southern African human geography? 'Area 15, 337-45

Wellings P and McCarthy J J (1984) ' Response to Henkel et al ' Area 16, 261-2

The sin of transgression David Sibley, School of Geography and Earth Resources, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, published in December 1993, provides further evidence of the British government's concern with policing and control in the social sphere at the same time that it celebrates market freedoms. As Crouch and

Marquand (1989, viii) argued: 'One of the central assumptions of the new right is that choice is maximised through the market, not through politics; that the frictionless, undistorted market is a realm of freedom and the polity a realm of

domination, intimidation and manipulation'. This apparently paradoxical combi nation of freedom and control might be seen as a passing phase, a necessary mix of liberalism and coercion to create the right social conditions for the market to flourish.

However, Crouch and Marquand suggest that this strategy is no more than an

expression of the long-established tendency of the British ' political class ' to dominate through the centralised control of society. In Gamble's terms (Gamble 1988), we are witnessing the actions of a strong state which subordinates local political interests to the economic and political project of the centre.

The public order clauses of the Criminal Justice Bill are consistent with these views of the new right but they also suggest something rather more particular. It is not social control in general which the legislation addresses but social and spatial

boundary problems which are seen to constitute a threat to the order and stability of

society. A government which is having some difficulties with the economy is focusing on the margins in order to maintain the support of its traditional constituency. In the Tory administration's reaction to certain troublesome minorities in British society, we can discern, in Kai Erikson's terms (Erikson 1966) a 'boundary crisis ', which he

defined as ' a period in which a group's uncertainty about itself is resolved in

ritualistic confrontations between the deviant and the community's official agents' (cited by Cohen 1972, 192).

My reading of the bill is that the maintenance of public order is centrally concerned with restraining groups who ' invade ' others spaces, particularly those who come out of the city into the country to do things which disturb the rural calm enjoyed by middle-class and upper-class residents. The bill is emphatically concerned with controlling movement, the migrations of New Age Travellers1, the

incursions of hunt saboteurs or ravers who transgress boundaries, resulting in a

dangerous mixing of social groups. These pariahs disturb a purified rural space, one

which is populated by the white middle-class and which has no place for various

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.223 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:43:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions