Book Review

Interrogating the remnants of colonialism and apartheid

Book title: In Whose Place? Confronting Vestiges of Colonialism and Apartheid

Author: Ali Hlongwane
Arianna Lissoni
Hilton Judini

ISBN: 9781431434466

Publisher: Jacana Media, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2024, R450*

*Book price at time of review

Review Title: Interrogating the remnants of colonialism and apartheid

Reviewers:
Butholezwe Mtombeni¹

Affiliation:
¹Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Corresponding author: Butholezwe Mtombeni, mtombb@unisa.ac.za

How to cite this book review: Mtombeni, B. “Interrogating the remnants of colonialism and apartheid” New Contree 92(0) (2025): a893. https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v92i0.893

Copyright Notice: © 2025. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction

In Whose Place? Confronting Vestiges of Colonialism and Apartheid is a valuable study that explores the remnants of colonialism and apartheid. In this well-researched volume, historians, activists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and architects investigate how, in post-colonial contexts, people are reusing, reimagining, and critiquing colonial and apartheid architecture and infrastructure. It problematises the place of colonial and apartheid architecture in post-colonial contexts. The colonial and apartheid remnants are noticeable in the built environment, education, language, legal system, fashion, and food. These vestiges of colonialism and apartheid are a painful reminder, for some, of subjugation, dispossession, displacement, and imposition, which continue to shape the post-colonial societies that are trapped in the labyrinths of global capitalism. They still emphasise and highlight the geography of apartness.

In their introduction, the editors noticed that colonial and apartheid remnants of the built environment and statues, in the most recent past, led to the Rhodes Must Fall campaigns, where Manxwele (one of the campaign leaders) posed the famous question: ‘Where are our heroes and ancestors?’ This was a war cry for the replacement of the colonial and apartheid statues with African heroes. Colonial and apartheid statues in the citadels of education and government buildings are reminders of the bitter past. Thus, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign revealed the existence of multiple layers of unresolved colonial and apartheid past that might corrode the country’s social fabric if left unresolved. The campaign raises a thought-provoking question: ‘Where is the place for colonial and apartheid architecture and infrastructure in the post-colonial contexts?’

A look at colonial settings in various locations of Africa

The book is divided into three parts (part 1: place of heritage, part 2: buildings as place and part 3: residual places), packaged with chapters by various scholars. In part 1, chapter 1 entitled Save Our Berea!: Whose Place? Whose Heritage?, Davis, Gumede and Valley interrogate the Save Our Berea civic organisation in Durban, South Africa. They notice that since the attainment of democracy, the South African cities have undergone remarkable geopolitical changes. Berea’s architecture is predominantly Victorian and Edwardian, and was once a suburb for the rich British settlers. However, in the post-independent South Africa, and with the white flight, the suburb is now predominantly Indian and black. The remaining white residents are fighting to preserve Berea because it is attached to their glorious past. The authors pose an interesting question: What are they attempting to save Berea from? They conclude that the suburb’s colonial past should not be completely erased; instead, it should also accommodate the post-colonial modes of urban development. Urban geographies have undergone demographic changes, from racial suburbans into diverse suburban neighborhoods, and therein resides the potential of reconciliation and reparations. The chapter reveals residents’ topophilia for their place, which is evident in their attempt to preserve their glorious past. Therefore, there is always an emotional bond to a place, linked to individual memories and experiences. Cognitive and emotional ties to a place can inspire residents to protect and preserve it.

The cognitive and emotional ties to a place are further depicted in Hlongwane’s work, entitled: Forced Removal: Reflections on Fietas’ Photographic Archive, Museum and Heritage Trail. It examines the struggles of forced removals in Fietas, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Forced removals destroyed the residents’ topophilia to their place, Fietas. Moreover, the images of forced removals take one through the experiential heritage path of the bitter apartheid past. Fietas Museum serves to monumentalise, recreate, and relive the past. Usakos Museum in Namibia reimagines the colonial spaces in post-colonial contexts. Florence Khaxas further reveals the cognitive, psychological, and emotional ties to a place. The removal of residents of the Old Location to the new township in Namibia is memorialised in Usakos Museum. Although they were removed from the Old Location, they remained emotionally attached to the place.

Essa’s contribution: Building as Artefact: From a Prison to Museum is a testament that colonial architecture does not belong in graveyards or angry flames of fire. Essa examines how the infamous number 4 prison and Old Fort complex, located in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, were turned into a court and a museum – Constitution Hill. The old colonial architecture and infrastructure were demolished and replaced. Thus, the site of violence and oppression was turned into a space of freedom and the rule of law. It is now a window through which one can consume the colonial past that is strewn with the history of subjugation, and settlers’ brutality, together with post-colonial constitutional democracy. The author maintains that the site has become a tourist attraction that attracts tourists from across the globe to consume contested histories of violence, struggle, liberation, rule of law, and memorialisation. He concludes that colonial spaces need countermapping to give the formerly marginalised narratives a voice and exhume alternative histories of place.

Bantfu Netindzawo (People and Places) by Mkabela and Bawa, using panels extracted from their graphic novel narrates the history of Alexandra Township in Johannesburg, from its roots in the mineral revolution on the Rand to the post-apartheid era. The panels depict the daily economic and socio-political struggles of Alexandra residents who are often on the peripheries of the economy and society. Mkabela and Bawa posit that the residents narrate their past and present in an attempt to grapple with the complicated contingencies of citizenry. Alexandra’s architecture and population density reflect its apartheid history. Although the township is one of the poorest urban areas in the country, it is a home to many, and they are cognitively and emotionally attached to it. Interestingly, on the other side of Alexandra is Sandton, an affluent city. These contrasting urban geographies are a relic of the colonial and apartheid past.

The evolution of a place is further unpacked in Judin’s chapter, Political Evolution of Building Type: Community Centres at the end of Apartheid. In the apartheid era, community centres were zoned into black and white. Buildings evolved in response to the changing sense of the public. In the post-apartheid era, architecture is now found in common shared purposes, regardless of the resistance in the years after apartheid. Socio-economic mobility of black people has drawn them to the spaces formerly and ideally afforded by white people. Judin notes that in South Africa, shared civic buildings and public spaces would not come as imagined in the townships because civic buildings remain unbuilt. Judin’s assertion provokes the question: Does the evolution of community centres in post-apartheid South Africa mean that the civic buildings are still divided into unbuilt in townships and built in low-density areas? It is, therefore, worth noting that, civic buildings are no longer divided along racial lines; they are now divided along economic lines.

Brandon Hart further examines the evolution and repurposing of place. He focuses on the rescripting of the Johannesburg West Dutch Reformed Church in Mayfair West. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) used to be the social-cultural and political hub of the Afrikaners in the colonial and apartheid era. It played a pivotal role in shaping the apartheid ideology and Afrikaner nationalism. The demographic transformation of Mayfair in the post-apartheid era (after repeal of the Group Areas Act in the 1990s) led to the expansion of the Muslim community and the shrinking of the Afrikaner community, and consequently, the repurposing of the Johannesburg West DRC. The church building was converted into a mosque. The author notes that the church was not completely architecturally transformed, but hybridised. It is on this basis that he argues that the expansion of the Muslim community in Mayfair West was a sign of social and physical changes in the post-apartheid South Africa. Herein, the author underscores the rise of hybrid spaces and identities in the post-colonial and post-apartheid spaces.

Conclusion

In Whose Place? Confronting Vestiges of Colonialism and Apartheid is a valuable book for historians, activists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and architects. The most important contribution of this book is that it focuses on colonial environments in different parts of Africa. Furthermore, 13 chapters, by different authors, from different parts of Africa, enriched this book. The chapters are masterfully woven together to explore how, in post-colonial African contexts, people are reusing, reimagining, and critiquing the colonial and apartheid architecture and infrastructure. The book is, therefore, not a descriptive account, but a thought-provoking analysis of confronting the impact of colonialism and apartheid in different contexts. The book drew on a range of research methodologies to make the best possible use of the available sources. Therefore, various secondary and primary sources were utilised to reveal that colonial and apartheid remnants are noticeable in the built environment, education, language, legal system, fashion, and food. The book might help in the long term in repositioning and carving a place for contested colonial environments.