From Liberation to Liberalization
Newtown, the Market Theatre, and Johannesburg's Relics of Meaning
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18992796 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ed Charlton (0000-0001-7563-9472, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 826-838 |
| Publication date | 2015-11-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Interventions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1369801x.2014.998263 |
| OpenAlex | W1725921273 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
Under colonial and then apartheid rule, Johannesburg has long endeavoured to deny the traces of its own geopolitical development. Promoting itself as the ‘ultimate city of the present’ (Palestrant 1986, 7), incessant cycles of urban renewal have ensured it has always boasted the latest in western metropolitan design, all the while dismissing any concern for the conservation of its past. The district of Newtown, situated in a liminal space on the margin of the city, offers an unlikely exception to this rule. Tracing its deterioration as much as its development, this essay begins by making example of the district as a vital contest to Johannesburg's governing logic. It draws out a critical link between its spatial decay, its history of political dissent and the accomplishments of the Market Theatre, established in the district in 1976. With Newtown's renovation in 2001 as part of Johannesburg's rebranding as a world city, however, the district has come under threat from increasingly globalized forces. Making example of the Market Theatre's recent revival of Woza Albert!, staged originally in 1981, the essay concludes by assessing the perilous impact of these recent developments on Newtown as a space of heterodoxy on the margins of the metropolis
Archaeology · Colonialism · CONTEST · Economics · Economy · Geography · Geopolitics · Liberalization · Liminality · Metropolitan area · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · History · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South African History and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2015 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |