Socio-Spatial Practice and Racial Representations in a Changing South Africa

This article argues (a) that the content of racial representations in South Africa has changed historically, and (b) that these representations are grounded in concrete patterns of spatio-temporal interactions between blacks and whites that have characterised different historical epochs. These arguments are developed by means of a consideration of racial interactions and representations in four historical periods: the early Cape colony, the frontier, apartheid and the contemporary post-apartheid period. The bulk of the discussion concerns the kinds of representations that are being developed and perpetuated in the present desegregated context, where whites experience displacement at the hands of blacks, and blacks experience whites running away from them.