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Visual Impersonation. Population registration, reference books and identification in the Eastern Cape, 1950s-1960s

Rizzo, Lorena. (2014) Visual Impersonation. Population registration, reference books and identification in the Eastern Cape, 1950s-1960s. History in Africa, 41. pp. 221-248.

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Official URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/59579/

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Abstract

The paper looks at the population registration and issuing of reference books in the Transkei in the 1950s and 1960s. The dompas became the iconic object of apartheid policing within the logic of urban racial segregation and capitalist labour exploitation. The analysis proposed here investigates population registration through the lens of materiality and visuality. It sketches the visual economies that facilitated the scheme in a rural area and explores the role of photography in one of apartheid's most notorious administrative schemes. Along the lines of Walter Benjamin's reflections on technological mediation the paper retraces how the dompas as an image/object oscillated between panoptic surveillance and subaltern contestation.
Faculties and Departments:04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Departement Geschichte > Ehemalige Einheiten Geschichte > Geschichte Afrikas (Harries)
04 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Departement Gesellschaftswissenschaften > Fachbereich Soziologie > Afrikastudien (Macamo)
UniBasel Contributors:Rizzo, Lorena
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
ISSN:1558-2744
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:29 Mar 2021 08:11
Deposited On:14 Mar 2021 14:21

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