Abstract:
The overall purpose of this study was to investigate the transformation of a South
African region, with the city of Pretoria at its core, from pre-historical times up to
1 994, and with consideration of the prospects for the immediate future, in terms of
the dynamic nature of South African society. The names Tshwane, Pretoria and
Phelindaba in the title of the study refer to the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial
eras in the historiography of the region and symbolize the notion of transformation.
The aim was to contextualize, exemplify and understand structure-agency interaction,
with particular emphasis on the territorial outcomes of the interrelationship between
identity and place.
The approach of the study was area specialization, based on the principles of
contemporary locality and regional studies, and combining a structurationist ontology
with the epistemology of postmodernism.
Chapter 1 introduces the purpose, theme, theoretical framework, sphere, subject field,
approach and methodology of the study. After defining the study area and describing its natural environment, the chapter discusses the operational paradigm and the
research process of this study.
Chapter 2 describes the occupation of land, the control of resources and the
organization and transformation of society in the Bankenveld up to 1840 in relation to
the limitations and possibilities of a dynamic natural environment. A time-space
schema integrating human-environment interaction in the study area over two million
years of human occupation is presented.
Chapter 3 describes the development of a colonial land policy set against the formation
of a new colonial society in the Pretoria District after 1840. Further, it details the
findings of a reconstruction of territoriality, based on an identity-in-land. These findings
are at variance with established views on land occupation in the Pretoria District as at
19 June 1913, and at the same time lend support for the current post-apartheid land
reform programme.
The focus in Chapter 4 is on the development of a racial land distribution policy in
tandem with the evolution of a Euro-colonial segregationist ideology in South Africa.
The objective was to conduct an audit of land occupation in the Pretoria area between
1 91 0 and 1 940. This quantitative analysis provides the basis for a critical evaluation
of historical land policies and their influence on contemporary land reform policies.
Chapter 5 presents an analysis of the development of the apartheid spatial planning
strategy in terms of the micro-environment of public urban amenities, the mesoenvironment
of urban planning and the macro-environment of homeland formation
against the background of the evolution of the apartheid racial ideology from 1 940 to
1990. It further traces the desegregation of public amenities and the demarcation of
new provinces during the period of negotiations for a political settlement in South
Africa between 1 990 and 1 994, and considers prospects for spatial development in
the study area.
Chapter 6, the final chapter, reflects on the conceptual framework, approach, and aim
of the study in an attempt to understand fully the particularities of the Pretoria region
within the larger national context and within the context of an integrated human-earth
in a fully theorized and integrated way.
