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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1230

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Cities within cities: changing faces of Cape Town, South Africa

Authors: Banda, Felix; Peck, Amina
Submitted by: Banda, Felix (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)

This paper explores the multilayered and contrasting faces of Cape Town as an urban city. Ultra modern space epitomizing liberal and cosmopolitan landscapes are counter pointed with ramshackle slums and everything in between. Specifically, the neighbourhood of Observatory is analyzed as one such ultra modern space which, with its century old colonial heritage and its flood of new transnational cultural occupants combines to create a cosmopolitan and trendy cultural pressure point. The neighbourhood of Blikkies Dorp (“Tin City” in English) stands on the opposite spectrum with occupants, who have been dumped there by the municipality, use recycled materials to shape and structure their living spaces and livelihood.

 The aim of the paper is to show how the urban cityscapes and linguistic ecologies in these two sites in Cape Town still reflect apartheid rollover inequalities and imbalances. In terms of social networks and linguistic practices both sites still reveal historical stratification with localization of scape that take on the appearance of those that occupy those spaces. Thus, as the face of Cape Town changes, the more it stays the same. Ultimately, we argue that the kinds of social networks and linguistic ecologies in place reflect historical and semiotic landscapes that constituted the material world. In turn, we argue that the architecture and linguistic landscapes of the contrasting cityscapes still reflect the apartheid planning, which has increasingly less to do with race, and more to do with new socio-economies within the cityscapes.

 

 

 

References

 

Scollon, Ron and Suzie Wong Scollon.  (2003). Discourse in Place: Language in the Material World, London: Routledge.

Shohamy, E. and  D. Gorter (eds.). (2009). Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York and London: Routledge.

Shohamy, E, E. Ben- Rafael, and M. Barni (eds.), (2010) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.