In the third unit of our course, we paused to consider the ways in which twentieth-century African cities were—and in some ways remain—spheres of colonial power. To open our unit, we explored the writings of Robert Home, Ambe Njoh, and Waseem Bin-Kasim to think about the links between urban planning and the inequalities colonialism sought to produce and reproduce over time. But for most of this unit we paused on a particular case study of offered in At Home with Apartheid by Rebecca Ginsburg (2011).
In her book, Ginsberg offers an account of the racial, spatial, geographical, and cultural landscape of Johannesburg’s middle and upper-middle-class neighborhoods during the height of apartheid (c. 1960-1975). Her specific focus, however, concerns the lives and experiences of the thousands of black domestic workers who were central to the household rhythms and patterns of apartheid urban life. Here, students offer their thoughts on Ginsberg’s book, which they provide through book reviews of 1450-1600 words.