Explaining the apartheid city: 20 years of South African urban historiography

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The theme of urban segregation/apartheid has generated a considerable body of scholarly writing in the past 20 years. This urban research has been highly interdisciplinary, mainly involving geographers and historians and has tended to be afrocentric in focus. Numerous case studies have been produced, but few works that have synthesised or theorised. Much attention has been given to the process of urban segregation, as scholars have traced its origins and tried to explain the imperatives and mechanisms that governed the process. The overall picture to emerge shows urban segregation evolving over a long period of time in a rather haphazard, piecemeal way. The continuities before and after both the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act and the 1950 Group Areas Act are more striking than the discontinuities. South African urban historical research has also provided a clearer understanding of such themes as housing policy, urban ‘native administration’ and influx control, but has generally not succeeded in elucidating the central — local state relationship in the making of urban policy. South African urban historiography has also been influenced by the recent trend away from materialist analysis. While the abandonment of reductionism and mechanistic explanations is welcomed, this article stresses the importance of material forces in the making of urban segregation and apartheid.