This study provides a window into the lives of ordinary South Africans more than ten years after the end of apartheid, with the promises of the democracy movement remaining largely unfulfilled. Catherine Besteman explores the emotional and personal aspects of the transition to black majority rule by homing in on intimate questions of love, family, and community and capturing the complex, sometimes contradictory voices of a wide variety of Capetonians. Her evaluation of the physical and psychic costs to individuals involved in working for social change is grounded in the experiences of the participants and illu-minates two overarching dimensions of life in Cape Town: the aggregate forces determined to maintain the apartheid-era status quo, and the grassroots efforts to effect social change.

“An engaging, insightful and at times beautifully written account of post-apartheid transformation in the city of Cape Town. Besteman shows the continuing legacy of apartheid, racial segregation and poverty in South Africa as well as glimpses of new forms of cultural creativity and identity formation that are characterized by empathy, compassion, and hope. Transforming Cape Town deserves to be read by anthropologists and anyone interested in how people confront the challenges of racial exclusion and historical inequality, and how a few bold agents of transformation seek to create new social spaces to cross old barriers.”—Richard A. Wilson, author of The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa “Cape Town and anthropology come alive in Besteman's work. Insightful, dynamic, and well-written, this book opens a 'space of trust' to understanding the pains and creative innovations of transition—of people, politics, and daily survival—in a new light.”—Carolyn Nordstrom, author of Global Outlaws and Shadows of War “Besteman navigates and illuminates post-apartheid Cape Town with uncommon skill. She brings to bear an anthropologist's training, a reporter's eye and ear for the choice remark, the telling detail and a candid sympathy for the disenfranchised, whose lot in South Africa has not necessarily improved under democracy. It's a distressing picture she draws: the persisting mutual ignorance, even reciprocal demonization, across old ethnic and racial lines, alongside the ongoing economic injustice. The revolution in South Africa has been a piecemeal affair, and Besteman's descriptions of the difficulties that even the best-intentioned individuals encounter as they struggle toward creating a general social transformation ring painfully true.”—William Finnegan, author of Crossing the Line, Dateline Soweto, A Complicated War, and Cold New World “Transforming Cape Town is a fascinating account of how people in this divided city engage with democracy, transformation, and the legacies and ongoing realities of radical inequalities. Through conversations with ordinary people, Besteman explores the ways in which apartheid's legacies continue to shape interactions both intimate and public. In doing so, she restores a sense of faith in anthropology as a tool for understanding and critiquing social worlds.”—Fiona Ross, author of Bearing Witness: Women and Truth and Reconciliation

This book traces and analyses the role of heritage in the urban transformation of the city of Cape Town. By looking at discourses of heritage and urban design, the book shows how Cape Town positions itself as an emerging global city in the context of a series of global events. The book points at how a heritage focus on the themes of post-colonial and post-apartheid reconciliation, restitution and memory in the city shifts to a focus on creativity, design and the arts. Thereby showing how traumatic remnants of colonialism and apartheid are reframed as “design challenges”. Furthermore, it argues that the idea of a transformed society is projected into a future time and the chaotic present everyday life is left to its own devices. Against this backdrop, the book lays out the opportunities for epistemological reset and decolonial reflection on the city’s deep histories, its embedded injustices and traumas that surfaced.​

With detailed city maps and plenty of relevant photographs, this is the perfect guide for navigating Cape Town's unique neighborhoods or exploring one of the surrounding wine estates for an afternoon of wine tasting and gourmet meals. The guidebook is also packed with recommendations for adventure activities, including practical advice on which route to ascend Table Mountain to the best destinations for riding an ostrich or cage diving with great white sharks. Along with insider tips and detailed coverage of Cape Town’s coastal cities and vibrant townships, accurate satellite-based maps and GPS coordinates are provided for every listing to make finding destinations as easy as possible.

This volume consists of selected papers from the 10th Congress of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies. An Editorial Introduction, giving an overview of the contents, is followed by 14 contributions from different parts of the world. The papers examine the themes of equity and transformation in relation to many educational issues including gender equity, globalisation, the erosion of state provision, the growth of free-market approaches, the weakening of theoretical perspectives, the post-colonial heritage and the emancipatory potential of lifelong learning.

A detailed look at how South Africa's museum present the nation's past, and how they can serve as a lens for examining changes in South African society at large.

What is transformation in contemporary South African higher education? How can it be facilitated through research and pedagogic practices? These questions are addressed in this edited collection by established academics and emerging research students from nine South African universities. The chapters give us access to students? worlds: how they construct, experience and navigate their complex spheres, on and off campus. By engaging with students as knowledge producers, we transform popular ways of thinking about race, gender, class, sexuality, disability and age as singular and natural markers of difference and diversity.ÿ Rather than taking diversity as fixed and rooted in nature, we explore how diversity is imagined and lived in particular contexts on and off campus.

This book engages with the thorny question of global urban political agency. It critically assesses the now popular statement that in the context of paralysed and failing nation state governments, cities can and will provide leadership in addressing global challenges. Cities can act politically on the global scale, but the analysis of global urban political agency needs to be firmly embedded in the field of urban studies. Collectively, the chapters in this volume contextualize urban agency in time and space and pluralize it by looking at how urban agency is nurtured through coalitions between a wide range of public and private actors. The authors develop and critically assess the conceptual underpinnings of the notion of global urban political agency from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives. The second part contains several (theoretically informed) empirical analyses of global urban political agency in cities around the globe. This book geographically expands analysis by looking beyond global cities in diverse contexts. It is highly recommended reading for scholars in the fields of international relations and urban studies who are looking for an interdisciplinary and empirically grounded understanding of global urban political agency, in a diversity of contexts and a plurality of forms.

Time and Transformation in Architecture, edited by Tuuli Lähdesmäki, approaches architecture and the built environment from an interdisciplinary point of view by emphasizing in its theoretical discussions and empirical analysis the dimensions of time, temporality, and transformation—and their relation to human experiences, behavior, and practices. The volume consists of seven chapters that explore the following questions: How do architectural ideas, ideals, and meanings emerge, develop, and transform? How is architecture manifested in relation to time, time-space, and the social dimensions it entails and produces? The volume provides both multifaceted theoretical discussions on time and temporality in architecture and empirical case studies around the globe in which these theories and conceptualizations are tested and explored. Contributors are Eiman Ahmed Elwidaa, André van Graan, June Jordaan, Joongsub Kim, Tuuli Lähdesmäki, Assumpta Nnaggenda-Musana, Sanja Rodeš and Smaranda Spânu.

This informative resource is a fascinating compilation of the history, politics, and culture of every capital city from around the world, making this the only singular reference on the subject of its kind. Every country, even the world's youngest nations, has a capital city—a centralized location which houses the seat of government and acts as the hub of culture and history. But, what role do capital cities play in the global arena? Which factors have influenced the selection of a municipal center for each nation? This interesting encyclopedia explores the topic in great depth, providing an overview of each country's capital—its history and early inhabitants, ascension to prominence, infrastructure within the government, and influence on the world around them. The author considers the culture and society of the area, discussing the ethnic and religious groups among those who live there, the major issues the residents face, and other interesting cultural facts. Capital Cities around the World: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture features the capital cities of 200 countries across the globe. Organized in alphabetical order by country, each profile combines social studies, geography, anthropology, world history, and political science to offer a fascinating survey of each location.