IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cjssxx/v29y2003i3p657-680.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Land of Contrasts’ or ‘Home we have always known’?: the SAR∓H and the Imaginary Geography of White South African Nationhood, 1910–1930

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Foster

Abstract

Railways played a crucial role in building the modern South African nation during the early decades of the Twentieth Century. After 1910, the SAR&H became not only the white state's primary means of building the economic independence of the newly-formed Union, but also its sole agency for promoting tourism, settlement and investment. The many thousands of images of the South African landscape it commissioned and distributed at home and abroad in various formats and contexts were a key to this promotion. The synergistic relationship that developed between this photographic array and the transformation of the lived space by the SAR&H's lines and services helped construct an imaginary geography of emergent nationhood. This paper explores how this joint social spatialisation by travel and landscape representation underscored the discourse of a modern, non-partisan white national identity during these politically-formative years.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Foster, 2003. "‘Land of Contrasts’ or ‘Home we have always known’?: the SAR∓H and the Imaginary Geography of White South African Nationhood, 1910–1930," Journal of Southern African Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 657-680.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:29:y:2003:i:3:p:657-680
    DOI: 10.1080/0305707032000094965
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0305707032000094965
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0305707032000094965?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:29:y:2003:i:3:p:657-680. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cjss .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.