OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Jechoutek, Karl G"

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Religious competition, Creole identities, and economic development : foundations of competitive diversity in early Victorian Cape Town
(2010) Jechoutek, Karl G
What kind of economic development trajectory can be expected in cosmopolitan cities that display a high degree of cultural, religious, ethnic and social diversity? Much can be gleaned from examining defined periods in their history that show a rapid transition in religious/cultural and socio-economic terms. Cape Town, a city that prides itself on its deeply rooted diversity and hybridity, and aspires to global status as a creative urban hub after having emerged from the rigidities of apartheid, appears not to be able to manage a breakthrough to sustained long-term development. An examination of the city's transformational period during the early decades of the nineteenth century may explain why this is so. Competitive diversity in religion, culture and business provided the template for a highly individualised development path with a short time horizon. This work uses the analytical tools of human development theory, cultural value analysis, the linkages between religion and economics, rational choice theory, urban development studies, and the study of identity formation and creolisation to construct a lens for the review of religious and socio-economic discourse in Cape Town during the first half of the nineteenth century.