Growing up in Canaansland

Children's recommendations on improving a squatter camp environment

Lauretta Ngcobo’s death in November 2015 robbed South Africa and the African continent of a significant literary talent, freedom fighter, and feminist voice. Born in 1931 in Ixopo in the then Natal Province, South Africa Ngcobo was one of three pioneering black South African women writers – the first to publish novels in English from the particular vantage point of black women.

Fatima Meer was an intellectual, academic, writer and activist – a tireless fighter for social justice and human rights. Her intellectual work sought to intertwine place, identity, and ethical commitment.

The author takes as his starting point events that shock us in their extreme violence, such as the burning of the Mozambican man Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave and the Marikana shootings. He notes how the language of the commentary on these events evokes a complex continuation of apartheid�s historical legacy. Using both psychoanalytic and social theory, he then proceeds to craft a theoretical framework within which to trace a sustained analysis of the psychic life of power in (post)apartheid South Africa: an awareness of how social structure and psychical or affective forces jointly produce material reality. Power itself has its psychological facets and social formations may themselves exhibit patterns of psychical causality.

This research monograph defines 'intangible heritage' as oral traditions, memories, traditional arts and rituals, languages and knowledge systems. It reviews the international legislative and financial tools to manage heritage resources and makes recommendations for safeguarding the intellectual property of communities.