Place Re-Naming, Jurisdictional Integration, and Political Representation: Lessons from South Africa

Keywords: South Africa, naming, jurisdiction, apartheid, democracy, urban planning, local government, racial capitalism, world systems
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Over the past two decades, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) government has advanced place re-naming alongside jurisdictional re-scaling. Such a confluence allows scholars to examine the political-economic dimensions of spatial inscription. Specifically, the state has created a wall-to-wall system of local and district municipalities to rectify the inequality-exacerbating geography of apartheid and advance a more robust and redistributive local state. Concomitantly, jurisdictional toponyms celebrate anti-apartheid struggle heroes and cut across fault lines of White and Black, haves and have-nots. Integrated Development Plans reformulate local and regional jurisdictions through participatory and consultative means, and have been assessed through quantitative, qualitative, and case-study methods. Based on dissertation fieldwork in the Mahikeng Local Municipality, North-West (formerly two cities, Mmabatho and Mafikeng, in the Bophuthatswana ‘Bantustan’), I find that new local-government and district-level jurisdictions can indeed integrate across prior racial and socioeconomic fault-lines. Yet newly formed municipalities may lose institutional memory, state capacity, and communities of common interest. These communities shape residents’ sense of political belonging and hold governments accountable. Residents’ perceptions of local onomastics are differentiated: some employ new place and jurisdictional names and are proud of state efforts at decolonization; others are disillusioned with new efforts, seeing them as symbolic changes justifying corruption, opaque governance, and state-capture; and still others applaud South Africa’s efforts but see limited results, blaming a world system of racial-capitalist urbanization. This research reveals how attempts at place-naming and jurisdictional reformulation are worthwhile steps towards rectifying apartheid-era inequalities, but only when resulting from grassroots popular democratic decision-making.