This edited collection examines contemporary directions in geographical research on South Africa. It encompasses a cross section of selected themes of critical importance not only to the discipline of Geography in South Africa, but also of relevance to other areas of the Global South. All chapters are original contributions, providing a state of the art research baseline on key themes in physical, human and environmental geography, and in understanding the changing geographical landscapes of modern South Africa. These contributions set the scene for an understanding of the relationships between modern South Africa and the wider contemporary world, including issues of sustainable development and growth in the Global South.
This book embraces South Africa and its place in the Global South, providing a succinct theoretical and empirical analysis and discussion of urban issues in the country. There have been sporadic calls from the Urban Geography community for the development of an overarching and comprehensive text that explores contemporary processes and practices taking place in urban South Africa and, more widely, the Global South. This is an edited collection of chapters by leading urban theorists and practitioners working on various themes within urban South Africa and serves as a base for scholars and students interested in urban perspectives from countries in the Global South.
The publication provides the first comprehensive text that reflects on a century of the development of geography as an academic discipline at South African universities. The book showcases a broad and textured review of South Africa's geography departments, their staff members, their times, and the different Geographies they engaged in. The book lays thefoundation from which more expansive individual departmental histories can be written in the future.
In the last two decades, various states from the Global South have emerged as important players in international relations. Most popular among them is China. Brazil, India and South Africa have also taken essential roles in global and regional politics. Compared to traditional great powers, they can be labelled ’regional great powers’ or ’regional powers’ because their influence is - with the exception of China - concentrated on their neighbourhood. The impact of regions, meaning the impact of geography, on the economics and politics of regional powers is surprisingly understudied. This book analyses how geographical conditions influence the regional economics and politics of South Africa, allowing the author to delineate its region of influence.
This book presents a beautifully illustrated overview of the most prominent landscapes of South Africa and the distinctive landforms associated with them. It describes the processes, origins and the environmental significance of those landscapes, including their relationships to human activity of the past and present. The sites described in this book include, amongst others, the Blyde River Canyon, Augrabies Falls, Kruger National Park, Kalahari desert landscapes, the Great Escarpment, Sterkfontein caves and karst system, Table Mountain, Cape winelands, coastal dunes, rocky coasts, Boer War battlefield sites, and Vredefort impact structure. Landscapes and Landforms of South Africa provides a new perspective on South Africa’s scenic landscapes by considering their diversity, long and short term histories, and importance for geoconservation and geotourism. This book will be relevant to those interested in the geology, physical geography and history of South Africa, climate change and landscape tourism.
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.
The volume of W.S. Barnard is a first in a series of life-histories of the founding geographers in South Africa published by the Centre of Geographical Analysis at Stellenbosch University. Life-histories are reported in five ways: the commendation lauds the winner of an award; the obituary by necessity speaks well of the dead; the brief entry in a dictionary or encyclopedia is highly stylized and constrained by editorial guidelines; in the autobiography the author tells his own story in his own way; and, finally, the biography comes in a range of formats and structures. At the one extreme is the complete life-history, written by a specialist following the historiographical method and based on the critical assessment of primary sources; at the other is the belletristic overview: descriptive, anecdotal, facile and artful.
The dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa caused massive transformation in both geographical and economic terms, not only in this country but also in the region as a whole. As the post-apartheid government enters its second term, this captivating volume assesses its progress in unravelling the geography of apartheid, both in South Africa itself and in its relationships with other countries in Southern Africa and Africa. It also considers the ways in which South Africa, now that it is no longer a pariah state, has begun to position itself within the current global economy. Examining South Africa's land and agriculture, mining and minerals, manufacturing, tourism, corporate finance, the labour market and transport, the volume discusses the challenges of balancing growth and redistribution, the extent and nature of progress, change and relationships within the regional and global economy. A compelling investigation into the economics of South Africa's neighbouring states in relation to their natural resources, colonialism and inter-relationships with themselves and with South Africa leads to a focus on the region as a whole and its relations with the global economy.
Africa is working toward the goal of creating a common currency that would serve as a symbol of African unity. The advantages of a common currency include lower transaction costs, increased stability, and greater insulation of central banks from pressures to provide monetary financing. Disadvantages relate to asymmetries among countries, especially in their terms of trade and in the degree of fiscal discipline. More disciplined countries will not want to form a union with countries whose excessive spending puts upward pressure on the central bank's monetary expansion. In T he Monetary Geography of Africa, Paul Masson and Catherine Pattillo review the history of monetary arrangements on the continent and analyze the current situation and prospects for further integration. They apply lessons from both experience and theory that lead to a number of conclusions. To begin with, West Africa faces a major problem because Nigeria has both asymmetric terms of trade—it is a large oil exporter while its potential partners are oil importers—and most important, large fiscal imbalances. Secondly, a monetary union among all eastern or southern African countries seems infeasible at this stage, since a number of countries suffer from the effects of civil conflicts and drought and are far from achieving the macroeconomic stability of South Africa. Lastly, the plan by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to create a common currency seems to be generally compatible with other initiatives that could contribute to greater regional solidarity. However, economic gains would likely favor Kenya, which, unlike the other two countries, has substantial exports to its neighbors, and this may constrain the political will needed to proceed. A more promising strategy for monetary integration would be to build on existing monetary unions—the CFA franc zone in western and central Africa and the Common Monetary Area in southern Africa. Masson and Pattillo argue that the goal of a creating a s
