“Waar Val Jy Uit?”: District Six, Sacred Space, and Identity in Cape Town

Abstract

This article discusses apartheid-era urban redevelopment in Cape Town,
South Africa, and the forced removal of the residents of District Six in the
mid to late twentieth century in particular. It looks at how the memories
of former District Six residents have been enrolled in the shaping of
coloured subjectivity in Cape Town. Moving beyond conventional
social scientific approaches of history and memory studies, it critically
engages with former residents’ recollection of the suburb as a form of
mythopoeia using theory and method from religious studies. In so doing,
it demonstrates that District Six evictees interpreted their experience
of forced removal and the radical transformation of the city’s urban
profile through concepts of District Six as a utopian space of Fairyland, a
degenerating space of Wasteland, and a lost space of Exile. Attending to
religious-like practises aimed at recovering human dignity in a context of
urban and social dehumanisation that resonated with a particular segment
of the coloured population, this article posits that the District Six story
became a form of symbolic currency in post-apartheid claims of coloured
cultural and subjective authenticity. Overall, it seeks to extend the work of
previous analyses of sacred space in the city of Cape Town, and highlight
the significance of religious studies methodology for understanding the
practise of subjectivity formation in South African urban settings.