Tshwane, Pretoria, Phelindaba : structure - agency interaction and the transformation of a South African region up to 1994, with prospects for the immediate future

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.