Munsieville
Date
2018
Authors
Van Heerden, Bianca
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Abstract
Munsieville is a township west of Johannesburg, South Africa , located on the
outskirts of the town previously known as Krugersdorp, which since February 2001
falls under the Mogale City Municipality. In 2014 a largely Afrikaans-speaking group
living in Coronation Park - a caravan park in Krugersdorp - were forced to relocate
from the space they named 'die kamp' (Afrikaans for 'the camp') to nearby
Munsieville in an attempt to upgrade the dilapidated campsite that was in the
process of being revamped. Coronation Park had become home to this group of
people for nearly a decade, and they were hesitant to move. At the time of writing
this thesis in 2018, the group was living in informal structures on a plot of land in
Munsieville in hope of receiving Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)
housing from the local municipality. The creative component of this thesis is a
photographic project that focusses on Munsieville, in particular a section known as
and referred to by its residents as the 'Pangokamp' (Afrikaans for 'Pango
Camp'). Munsieville centres on a photographic project that explores the idea of
'home' as a central concept of place. As is argued in this thesis, and what I attempt
to show in the creative work, is that the need for establishing one's identity as a
person is connected to the notion of feeling like one belongs in a space. I created a
body of creative work that explores ideas around identity within what the residents
call their 'community' - variously self-identified in a broad sense as changes within
their identification around whiteness and Afrikanerness in post-apartheid South
Africa. Through analysing theories on 'home' by Peter Somerville, Mary Douglas,
Hazel Easthope, and other theorists who explore the meaning of home, this thesis
also focuses on the use of documentary photography to create an aesthetic of shock
images of poverty by several photographers, including E.G. Malherbe and Dorothea
Lange, who are some of the original forerunners of the documentary aesthetic still
often used in South Africa.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts to the Faculty of Arts, University of the
Witwatersrand, 2018