Spaces of alienation: Dispossession and justice in South Africa

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Spaces of alienation: Dispossession and justice in South Africa
 
Creator Delport, Petrus T. Lephakga, Tshepo
 
Subject History; Theology; Philosophy Colonialism; Accumulation; Dussel; Dispossession; Alienation
Description Theories and philosophies of space and place have seen a rise in prominence in recent times, specifically in the disciplines of theology, law and philosophy. This so-called spatial turn in contemporary theory is one that attempts to think through the vicissitudes and conceptual lineages related to the existence of space as both a physical and a social reality. The politics of space in South Africa, however, cannot be thought of separately from the concept of alienation. South Africa is a space whose existence is predicated upon a relationship of alienation to its located place. South Africa, like most other settler colonies, is a space that was created through occupation and alienation: the occupation of a territory and the alienation of the indigenous people from this occupied territory. This relationship of alienation is not only observable in the physical reality engendered by this occupied space but also by its social reality. In this paper we reflect on the intersections of the physical and social manifestations – in Bourdieu’s sense – of an occupied space and consider its effects of alienation on the indigenous people. To this end we will proceed to interrogate current South African geographical markers – such as the existence of townships and suburbs – from its positionality within the history of South Africa as an occupied space. To discern a theological agenda for the issue of spatial justice would also require an investigation into the theological agenda that prohibited the realisation of spatial justice in South Africa or, in other words, the religious reconciliation preached post-1994 at the expense of justice.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-12-01
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v72i1.3567
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 72, No 1 (2016); 9 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3567/9147 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3567/9146 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3567/9148 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3567/8676
 
Coverage South Africa; Global South — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Petrus T. Delport, Tshepo Lephakga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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