Browsing by Subject "Heritage Studies"

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    Renaissance and revenants in an emerging global city: discourses of heritage and urban design in Cape Town's District One and District Six, 2002-2014
    (2017) Ernsten, Christian; Shepherd, Nick
    On 10 January 2014, the New York Times placed Cape Town at the top of its list of the "52 places to go in 2014". The hopeful rhetoric of the city as ultimate holiday destination, African creative metropolis, prime global-events location and city of freedom indicates powerful cultural discourses at work. Looking at how Cape Town is simultaneously reinvented and haunted, this thesis poses a set of questions regarding the discourses associated with the reinvention of the city, on the one hand, and the city's unresolved pasts, on the other. Situated at the convergence of two fields, Urban Studies and Heritage Studies, it sets out to investigate the workings of heritage and urban-design discourses in the city of Cape Town over the period of 2002 to 2014. It describes the unfolding of these discourses, and discusses the organisational process of both the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 World Design Capital in relation to the exhumation of human remains at District One and the restitution of land at District Six. Using as its methodology a combination of embedded ethnographic research, qualitative indepth interviews, desktop and archival research, and a form of embodied research, the thesis points to a historical hinge upon which these discourses shift. Through discourse analysis, it examines what this discursive shift entails, and how it takes place. It points to "moments of poignancy" in the construction of Cape Town's recent urban transformation. As such, this study offers a series of insights into the links between colonial modernity, on the one hand, and the origins of contemporary heritage and urban-design discourses in Cape Town, on the other. It examines the function of official discourse concerning the design of the city, as well as the sudden eruptions of public dissent that disturb this official discourse. The central argument of this thesis is that, through an in-depth understanding of the shifts, transformations and internal workings of the discourses of heritage and urban design, a critique can be made of the way contemporary Cape Town has been repositioned in relation to the city's past, present and future.
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    State-prioritised heritage: governmentality, heritage management and the prioritisation of the liberation heritage in post-colonial South Africa
    (2017) Manetsi, Thabo; Shepherd, Nick
    This study seeks to examine and trace the notion of state prioritisation of heritage in relation to state intervention through political, policy and governance regimes in heritage management in South Africa. The study covers key highlights in the evolution of heritage management and developments through specific epochs and contexts such as the colonial, apartheid and post-colonial South Africa. Drawing on theories such as 'governmentality' and 'authorised heritage discourse' the study provides a perspective on the extent of state influence and dominance in the formalisation of heritage management through policy, legal instruments and governance processes. Using the National Liberation Heritage Route project in South Africa as a case study, the research illustrates the notion of state prioritisation of heritage in relation to the deployment and mobilisation of state resources (policy, legal instruments and material resources) in heritage management to support a select past as 'official' heritage of the nation state. The politics of transforming the heritage landscape in post-1994 South Africa witnessed the emergence of the idea of state prioritisation of the liberation heritage as a site for restorative justice particularly to honour and recognize the legacy of the political struggles for freedom against colonialism and apartheid. Conversely, the framing of the liberation heritage also demonstrates political uses of heritage at expedient moments to achieve political goals by the regime in power and state control. While normative approaches to heritage management tend to emphasise the disjuncture between colonial and post-colonial periods, the results of this study confirm strong ties to colonial and European influences across these categories. The findings outline the complexity of state intervention and its inherent biases that inform the governance of heritage. In this light the study contributes to ongoing research on the discourse of evaluating the global, local, and transnational dimensions of heritage management and practices, in relation to the problematics of heritage as mainly a product of state authority and political power.