Apartheid Remains

Sharad Chari's book explores how people handle the remains of segregation and apartheid in South Africa, using portals in an industrial-residential landscape in Durban. He argues that South Africa's twentieth century is a palimpsest that conserves the remains of multiple pasts, and that submerged traditions of the Indian Ocean and the Black Atlantic offer powerful resources for resistance. Black documentary photography is particularly insightful audiovisual blues critique.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 496 pages
Publication date: 10 May 2024
Publisher: Duke University Press

Apartheid Remains , by Sharad Chari, delves into the ways in which people in South Africa have dealt with the remnants of segregation and apartheid in the country's industrial-residential landscape in Durban, located on the Indian Ocean. Through extensive historical and ethnographic research, Chari presents South Africa's twentieth century as a palimpsest that preserves the traces of multiple pasts, including the racial state's attempts to reshape territory and personhood while exacerbating spatial conflicts and struggles. When the residents of South Durban collectively mobilized through various means, such as Black Consciousness politics and other efforts to resist the destructive fusion of biopolitics, sovereignty, and capital, they found solace in the rich traditions of the Indian Ocean and the Black Atlantic. Chari particularly highlights the insightful audiovisual blues critique offered by Black documentary photography at this critical juncture where Marxism, feminism, and Black studies converge. He proposes a method and form of geography that attends to the spatial and embodied remnants of history, situated at the intersection of Marxism, feminism, and Black studies. Through this work, Chari envisions an abolitionist future, one that seeks to eradicate all forms of racial capitalism and environmental suffering, which are central to our planetary predicament.

Weight: 718g
Dimension: 154 x 230 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478030416