High and low in the townscapes of Dutch South America and South Africa: the dialectics of material culture

Hall, M

Abstract

The Dutch East and West India Companies established colonies in the Caribbean, Brazil and at the Cape of Good Hope. The resulting townscapes can be read as artefacts of domination - attempts to stamp order on the chaos of newly-colonized lands. But at the same time, such built forms incorporated knowledge of the "low-other" - the underclasses in highly hierarchical colonial worlds. As a result, the experience of resistance (rarely directly visible in such public constructions as street grids and building facades) was incorporated into the symbolic language of dominance, setting up a dialectical relationship between the High and the Low.

Citation

Hall, M. (1991). High and low in the townscapes of Dutch South America and South Africa: the dialectics of material culture. Social Dynamics, 17(2), 41-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533959108458512

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 1991
• Deposit Date: Apr 7, 2010
• Journal: Social Dynamics-a Journal of the Centre for African Studies University of Cape Town
• Print ISSN: 0253-3952
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 41-75
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02533959108458512
• Keywords: CAPE
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02533959108458512