Paper short abstract:

Race and space were two key elements of apartheid; a system that a white minority attempted to secure by, among other means, the development of nuclear energy and a nuclear weapons programme. This required more complex and designated spaces and spatial practices; further entrenching apartheid.

Paper long abstract:

Besides racism, spatiality was another key feature of apartheid. The meaning of the word apartheid is apart-ness indicating a spatial dimension. Separate development, Bantustans and the so-called Group Areas Act were just three illustrations of apartheid South Africa's spatial practices and discourses. White South African imaginaries also included space and expanses. Similarly, security and securing white minority rule took on a spatial dimension. For the purpose of this paper, the spatial dimension and the spatialising of apartheid South Africa's nuclear ambitions are presented and analysed. Four illustrative case are presented, namely the establishment of Vastrap (the country's nuclear weapons test site) in the Kalahari Desert, the location of the 1979 nuclear test in the south Atlantic in conjunction with Israel, and the sitings of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant (north of Cape Town on the Atlantic seaboard) and Vaalputs (the country's nuclear waste disposal site) in the semi-desert area called Namaqualand (now in the Northern Cape province). These cases are, amongst other aspects, illustrative of the construction of landscapes of risk, nuclear geographies, sacrifice zones, landscapes of secrecy, and the spatiality of tehno-ethno-nationalism. The paper intends to draw on archival resources pertaining to the country's nuclear energy and weapons programme, as well as material such as legislation, practices and imaginaries of the apartheid era.

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the geo-politics of future-making on the Zambezi in the age of African decolonization, focusing on the imperial ambitions of South Africa for the development of the Caprivi Strip in the context of deeper-rooted historical and political claims to sovereignty.

Paper long abstract:

As British colonial officials pursued plans in 1958 for decolonization in Africa, they received two proposals affecting the political future of the Caprivi Strip - the narrow pan-handle territory that gave South-West Africa (Namibia) access to the Zambezi River. The first, promoted by white settler politicians in Salisbury, was for Caprivi to be ceded to Northern Rhodesia, thus recognizing the historical claims of the Barotse kingdom while ensuring that Caprivi would become a strategically important part of the future Federation of Central Africa. The second proposal, enthusiastically pursued by the Nationalist government in Pretoria, was for the creation of a “school of tropical warfare” in Caprivi, on the northern frontier of South Africa’s own colony. As one empire ended on the Zambezi, others were being imagined. These proposals for Caprivi’s future are examples of many such schemes that emerged under the mandates, from Caprivi’s transfer to South-West Africa in 1929 to Namibia’s independence in 1990. Using British and United Nations archives to examine the ways in which Caprivi’s future was discussed and demarcated in a globalised geo-politics that took little account of the local political ecology of the region’s riparian environment, this paper is a first step in a wider project, building upon the work of Kangumu, Silvester, McKittrick and Lenggenhager, to present a history of “future-making” for Caprivi Zipfel.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Kamuzu Banda’s rumoured territorial ambitions in southern Africa, and considers the extent to which designs on Mozambican space shaped his often-contradictory engagement other regional actors, as well as Malawi’s broader foreign policy in the lead-up to Mozambican independence.

Paper long abstract:

In 1971 the South African Minister of Defence returned from a meeting with the Malawian President, at which the latter had reportedly floated the idea of jointly annexing all of Mozambique in the event of Portuguese decolonisation. Everything north of the Zambezi would go to Malawi; the southern provinces could be split between Rhodesia and South Africa. South African officials questioned the seriousness of this proposal, but the Minister confirmed this was not the first time that the idea had been raised by President Banda. The statements may have been made partly in jest, but rumours had abounded for some time about Banda’s designs on the neighbouring state which, if acquired, would provide much longed-for direct access to the sea.

This paper explores Banda’s territorial ambitions and the implications that these might have had for Malawi’s regional relationships in the lead-up to Mozambican independence. In discussing engagement with other actors in southern Africa, and a preoccupation with security in the Indian Ocean, it considers the extent to which designs on Mozambican space shaped Banda’s regional engagement in the 1960s and early 1970s. It suggests that understanding the nature of these designs – not only secret, but highly dependent on imagined future scenarios – could be key to understanding some of the more contradictory elements of Malawian foreign policy during this time.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores transformations of urban spaces in Namibia in relation to the commemoration of the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama (1904-08). Different interpretations of this history are negotiated through changes in the landscape, which span across the different phases of Namibian history.

Paper long abstract:

Since German colonisation of Namibia (1884-1915), the country has experienced multiple tumultuous transformations through South African rule, apartheid, a lengthy liberation struggle, and independence. Still, the traces of its early colonial history are inscribed into its urban landscapes so much so that “foreign visitors to the country will remark on the ‘European’ or even ‘German’ atmosphere that appears to characterise some of the settlements in the country” (Gewald 2009: 256). Namibia’s urban spaces are not neutral. Historical buildings and landmarks – whether in Windhoek or Swakopmund – emplace specific historical narratives and collective memories, often concealing other histories: since Namibian independence in 1990, there have been repeated efforts to remove (Marine Denkmal), replace (Reiterdenkmal), transform (Swakopmund Memorial Cemetery Park), or add on (Genocide Memorial) to the country’s memory artefacts, especially as to incorporate the commemoration of the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama populations by the German forces in 1904-08. These efforts relate to political and topographical developments throughout the twentieth century, and are embedded in ever-changing forms of commemoration, wider societal discourses, and (inter)national politics. Transforming urban spaces is a difficult and often contentious undertaking, as conflicting interpretations of the past and convictions about how to deal with shared histories surface and collide. In this vein, conflicts over interpretations of history are reflected in and negotiated through changes in physical memory landscapes. Studying recent transformations in Namibian memory landscapes and the discourses connected to them may also deliver valuable insights into such developments over time.

Paper short abstract:

While the property is critical in space-making by organising human relations over land, its role in the making of apartheid geography is often understudied. This paper attempts to do so by investigating the role of property, packaged as trusts in producing space and the geography of inequality.

Paper long abstract:

There is a long history of conceptions of property and the critical role property plays in space-making by organising human relations over land. Less critically studied is how property, packaged through trusts, was instrumental in the making of apartheid geography in South Africa. This paper investigates the linkages between trusts and state-making in (post)apartheid South Africa. It uses legislation, parliamentary minutes, and court documents layered with interviews to trace the trusteeship model from its inception in 1844 to 2022. The paper pays particular attention to the 20th century when the South African Development Trust (SADT) was established as it held most land in communal areas (i.e., Bantustans). Through the SADT, historical owners of the land were transformed into beneficiaries with no decision-making powers, and this skewed the dynamics of space-making in favour of the state. This trusteeship model that was instrumental for land dispossession under apartheid re-emerged in the democratic era in the form of community development trusts (CDTs) in mining areas. The paper locates the phases of trusteeship within the broader political history of South Africa to argue that CDTs are not community-driven but are instead designed and created by the state to continue to serve as an avenue for state control over valuable resources. The paper concludes that trusts must be seen as a space-making practice that deploys property to produce space and to perpetuate the geography of difference, inequalities and injustice

Paper short abstract:

The black woman writers’ imagination of the shebeen rewrites the domestic, public and aesthetic spaces of apartheid, illuminating the shebeen as a heterotopic space of black women’s liberation situated amidst the unrelenting oppressive forces of the apartheid era.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the way in which black women writers reconstruct the landscape of apartheid South Africa through their work, specifically in their imagination and portrayal of shebeens – illegal taverns that operated in black women’s homes. As black women’s work was made obsolete during apartheid, due to restrictive publication acts until the late 1980s in South Africa, the global comprehension of black women’s lives and experiences during apartheid was restricted. This lack of literary circulation of black women’s writing, in addition to the political disavowal of their humanity, obscured the presence of the black woman’s body in apartheid society. Through the analysis of Fatima Dike’s play, So What’s New?; Miriam Tlali’s auto fictional short story, “Gone are Those Days”; and Ellen Kuzwayo’s autobiography, Call Me Woman, I examine how the most marginalised individuals in apartheid South Africa reimagined, rewrote and reconfigured the landscape of their nation, through their written words, to make themselves visible in the historiography of apartheid. This paper argues that the black woman writers’ imagination of the space of the shebeen rewrites the domestic, public and aesthetic spaces of apartheid, illuminating the shebeen as a heterotopic space of black women’s liberation which opposes the unrelenting intersectional oppressive forces of the apartheid era.