Writing on the earth: Early European travellers to South Africa
The issue of land in South Africa has always been problematic. This is to be expected in a country whose history has been one of colonisation, contested borders and, in the more recent apartheid past, of legalised removals of people from the land. In recent post-colonial theory too, the notion of sp...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Afrikaans |
| Published: |
AOSIS
1996-04-01
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| Series: | Literator |
| Online Access: | https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/583 |
| Summary: | The issue of land in South Africa has always been problematic. This is to be expected in a country whose history has been one of colonisation, contested borders and, in the more recent apartheid past, of legalised removals of people from the land. In recent post-colonial theory too, the notion of spatiality has proved to be significant: to write a history of a country and its people is to write a spatial history through the processes of naming, mapping, classifying and painting. Our project in this article is to explore some of the ways in which early European travellers to South Africa traced their presence in this country, and in so doing began a chapter of “writing on the earth", the ideological marks of which linger on into this century. |
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| ISSN: | 0258-2279 2219-8237 |