Double vision and suspended conversations

Reconstituting landscapes of memory in Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID2186897
AuthorsNaomi Roux (0000-0003-3394-2873, University of Cape Town, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume42
Issue1
Pages59-73
Publication date2019-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology Southern Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2332-3264 • E-ISSN: 2332-3256
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/23323256.2019.1583065
OpenAlexW2944538257
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

Between 1968 and 1975, the neighbourhood of South End in Port Elizabeth underwent a traumatic process of destruction as its residents were forcibly removed under the Group Areas Act and the suburb was razed. This paper traces some of the practices of memory in South End that work in the interstices between material remnants and ephemeral memory, to unpack the various ways in which these practices make use of traces, ruins, embodied experience and personal iconographies to reconstitute landscapes that cannot ever be fully recovered. The paper draws on Martha Langford's concept of the photograph as a "suspended conversation," exploring the ways material traces and ruined objects in urban landscapes are used to reconstitute and narrativise traumatic pasts. In this work I consider the ways in which such traces become activated by the presence of an interpolator whose presence is vital to the reconstitution of the remembered landscape

Archaeology · Geography · Media studies · Port (circuit theory · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Engineering · Public Spaces through Art · South African History and Culture

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