Towards a narratology of planning - stories of a South African gold mining town

Abstract

The study had a dual objective, namely 1) to add to the body of knowledge of South African planning stories and 2) to consider the possibility of a narratology of planning. The study considered the role of narrative in four aspects of planning, namely 1) the use of narratives as a way of telling and understanding practice stories (stories of places or planning processes); 2) the narrative or elements thereof as a structure to make plans accessible and understandable/readable; 3) the use of narratives to enable “world-making” through planning and, 4) the reading of spaces (cities and towns) as narratives. In order to meet these objectives, the stories of Virginia, a gold mining town in the Free State gold fields of South Africa, were collected, interpreted and analysed. The study was mainly ethnographic in nature, relying heavily on personal interviews with long-time residents and former residents of the town. In addition, textual analysis was employed in a reading of the provincial and municipal plans pertaining to the town as narratives. The Virginia stories were read against six different, but integrated elements. These are: The notions of utopia/dystopia; the concept of hope as proposed by Bloch (1995); the construct of (post)modernism (with special reference to Berman (1988)); the Apartheid history of South Africa; selected planning trends/approaches/theories and the stories of selected other South African single industry settlements (Johannesburg, Benoni, Sasolburg and Secunda). The stories shared by the people of Virginia provided significant insights into their experience of their town and also into the many attempts made by the municipality (in earlier years) and residents of Virginia to improve the prospects of the town. The provincial and municipal plans that have a bearing on Virginia were found to have shortcomings when read from a narrative perspective. The Virginia study confirmed the value of applying not only the form of narrative, but also the art and science of narrative to the field of planning. While not as clearly indicated as for planning, such cross-disciplinary research was found to also have potential for the enrichment of the field of narratology.