Human Geographies of Stellenbosch

Book excerpt: Amid a growing ‘turn’ towards Southern cities, South African urban geographers continue to remind us why and how to attend to local context and draw on theory from elsewhere. Human Geographies of Stellenbosch: Transforming Space, Preserving Place? (edited by Ronnie Donaldson) provides a deep look at crucial questions facing one of South Africa’s most well-known town-cities. Written from years of local knowledge by scholars at Stellenbosch University, this volume asks what urban transformation means, who it is for, and the politically tantalising question of whether and how we might hold on to some of the old while aspiring towards the new? In a global context in which we are all searching for how to justly remember our messy past, how to decolonise and hold onto what makes places unique, this volume will be of interest to scholars asking such questions in and beyond urban studies.