Introduction: Historical Geographies of Southern Africa¶

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Alan Lester (2003). Introduction: Historical Geographies of Southern Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (special issue). Taylor & Francis (Carfax Publishing).


Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	synthesis review
Period studied	1960s–2002
Regions	South Africa, Southern Africa, Zimbabwe
Themes	comparative theory, methods data sources, origins segregation, demography urbanisation, politics ideology elections
Citation key	`lester2003`

Argument¶

Lester traces the formation of a radical South African historical geography, from liberal descriptive work in the 1960s-70s through structural Marxism and then social history in the 1980s. He argues the tradition was shaped by trans-national intellectual circuits and never truly 'delinked' from metropolitan theory. He defends its materialism and empiricism against purely cultural postcolonial approaches. He calls for 'networked' historical geographies that connect localities across the southern African region and the globe, and for attention to subaltern voices and to places outside South Africa. The special issue papers are presented as starting to meet this agenda.

Evidence and method¶

Historiographical survey of published geographical and historical scholarship (Crush, Mabin, Christopher, Parnell, Robinson, Marks, van Onselen and others). It also draws on summaries of the special issue's papers (Parnell, Hyslop, Foster, Ngwane, Mazarire, McGregor, McEwan, Robinson). It uses no original archival or statistical data.

Place in the debates¶

Liberal vs radical (Marxist/social-history) approaches to South African historical geography (see Historiographical approaches). Sides with the radical critique of liberal descriptive work as complicit in white privilege, while stressing that the radical tradition's materialism and empiricism remain valuable.
Whether South African geography 'delinked' from metropolitan theory (Crush) (see Historiographical approaches). Rejects the delinkage claim; argues ideas were routed through North American and British academic centres and that total delinkage is neither feasible nor helpful.
Comparative vs connected/networked history (see Historiographical approaches). Favours tracing causal connections between sites over simple comparison of parallels and differences.
Cultural/postcolonial turn vs material analysis of colonial inequality (see Historiographical approaches). Warns that cultural enthusiasm must not obscure the material injustices and 'structural inhumanity' of segregation and apartheid.

Findings¶

Early historical geography avoided the issues of exploitation and dispossession and ignored the post-1910 period. (p. 597)

Pollock and Agnew, too, steered clear of what they saw as the contentious issues of colonisation and exploitation.
Radical geographers charged liberal predecessors with legitimating colonisation and white privilege. (p. 597)

Historical geography, they argued, had been complicit in the legitimation of colonisation, and of contemporary white privilege.
Mabin criticised Christopher for focusing on planning ideology instead of political economy, thereby missing the class-race overlap in urban segregation. (p. 598)

Christopher's ideological focus, argued Mabin, ignored the 'political economy of exploitation', which had resulted in the coincidence of class and race segregation.
Structural Marxist ideas reached South African geography via Europe and North America, through Wolpe, Legassick and Johnstone among others. (p. 599)

These analyses had been developed partly by 'Third World' writers, but they were routed through, and established discursively within, the universities of Europe and North America.
In the 1980s geographers followed historians away from deterministic Marxism toward social history and black agency. (p. 600)

During the 1980s, South African historical geographers thus followed, rather than led, local historians' shift away from the cruder and more deterministic versions of Marxism
The 1976 Soweto Revolt exposed geographers' ignorance of township life and spurred a new geography of the common people. (p. 601)

Suddenly [after Soweto] we were confronted by a host of questions which pitifully we were unable to answer: what was everyday life like in the townships?
Radical historical geography was largely urban and archive-based, so hidden spaces were seen through white officialdom. (p. 604)

hidden space is therefore often 'refracted through the "external" eyes of white officialdom rather than the "internal" experiences of the residents of these spaces'.
Lester doubts the claim that the tradition 'delinked' from metropolitan theory. (p. 604)

I do not see such 'delinkage' as having taken place.
Parnell's article shows that mining and manufacturing capital influenced Johannesburg's urban segregation in the 1910s-20s, alongside a class-transcending white electorate. (p. 604)

Susan Parnell's article in this issue is set firmly within the radical tradition of South African historical geography.
The call is for connected rather than merely comparative accounts, focused on causal links between sites. (p. 607)

Research in the latter vein is centred rather on explanatory, causative links spanning the spaces between two or more sites.
Historical geography outside South Africa, and links to the wider region, remain underresearched. (p. 609)

scholars (at least those scholars writing in English) have thus far explored the relations between space, place and identity in other parts of southern Africa far less intensively than they have in South Africa.
Christopher's land records show massive transfer of land to white ownership in the nineteenth century. (p. 611)

showing how 65 million hectares was transferred to private white ownership in the 60 years from the mid nineteenth century

Evidence ledger¶

Sources used¶

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Christopher's land grant and ownership records (as used in The Crown Lands of British South Africa 1853-1914)	secondary literature compilation	mid-nineteenth century to c.1914	Cited as an example of an empirical analysis of land records showing the scale of transfer of land to white ownership, which informed later restitution work.
Rogerson and Beavon's reflection on the 1976 Soweto Revolt (quoted testimony)	secondary literature compilation	1976 (published 1988)	Quoted to show how local political conditions galvanised Witwatersrand geographers toward radical historical geography.
Pollock and Agnew, An Historical Geography of South Africa (1963)	secondary literature compilation	1963	Characterised as a liberal historical geography that avoided exploitation and the post-1910 period; serves as the foil for the radical tradition.

Inference¶

Quantification: None.

Historiographical and intellectual-history essay: traces the formation of South African radical historical geography through readings of published scholarship and programmatic statements, and argues for a 'networked' research agenda. Its claims rest on interpretive synthesis and on summaries of the other articles in the special issue, with no primary-data analysis.

Key claims¶

Claim	Basis	Strength
South African radical historical geography in the 1980s was shaped by trans-national intellectual circuits (Marxism, then social history, then Foucault) rather than being 'delinked' from metropolitan theory. (p. 603-604)	Reading of published works by Crush, Mabin, Robinson and others, plus footnoted citations of influences; no systematic data.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Earlier liberal historical geography (Pollock and Agnew, Christopher) focused on land surveying and settlement and avoided dispossession, exploitation and the post-1910 period, which radical geographers criticised as complicity with white privilege. (p. 597)	Quotations from Pollock and Agnew and Crush and Mabin's critiques, read as evidence of the discipline's orientation.	Illustrative or anecdotal
The radical tradition was constrained: it focused overwhelmingly on urban rather than rural spaces and relied on archival rather than oral sources, so hidden spaces were viewed through white officialdom. (p. 604)	Crush's own self-assessment, quoted and cited (including the opening of municipal and mining company archives).	Asserted
South African historical geographers followed rather than led historians in shifting from structural Marxism to social history, adopting archival and oral methods and a 'strong empirical turn'. (p. 600-601)	Quoted statements by Mabin and Crush and a list of cited works by Marks, Bonner, Beinart, Bundy and others.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Historical geography of the wider southern African region outside South Africa is thin, with the Zimbabwe landscape school the main exception, and little connection exists between it and the South African tradition. (p. 609-610)	Author's survey of the literature in footnotes (Ranger, Alexander et al., Worby, Noyes and others).	Asserted
Parnell's article in the issue shows that manufacturing and mining capital and a class-transcending white urban electorate shaped Johannesburg's inconsistent implementation of urban segregation in the 1910s and 1920s. (p. 604)	Author's summary of another article in the issue; no sources are given here.	Asserted

The author's caveats¶

The author notes the tradition's own limits (urban focus, reliance on archives over oral sources, speaking for black subjects) and the linguistic, spatial and temporal limits of treating the South African tradition as standing for the region.

Gaps in the evidence¶

As a historiographical essay it makes claims about the shape of a literature without any systematic survey, such as a bibliometric count of publications by theme, region or method. A coded corpus of South African Geographical Journal and Journal of Historical Geography articles would test the claims about urban bias, archival reliance and regional neglect; that material has long existed. Claims about the material causes of segregation are deferred to other articles and not evidenced here.

Replicability: Not applicable.