Framing interior: race, mobility and the image of home in South African modernity

Framing interior: race, mobility and the image of home in South African modernity

Author: 
de Almeida, Fernanda Pinto
Publisher: 
Taylor & Francis Group
Date published: 
2015
Record type: 
Journal Title: 
Social Dynamics
Source: 
Social Dynamics, Vol. 41, No. 3, September 2015, pp. 461-481
Abstract: 

This paper explores the depiction of dwellings in order to locate the emergence of a particular framing of the interior in South Africa. I suggest that in the first half of the twentieth century, images of domestic spaces pointed both to racially distinct interiors and racialised forms of interiority. As an aesthetic technology of the late nineteenth century, photography aided in the production of visual motifs that fixed the appearance of race in a new way, and located such an appearance in particular places. The visual intertwining of race and place – designating racially proper and improper places – was instrumental to apartheid’s attempt to curtail racial mixing and unregulated mobility. In contrast with the imposed movement engendered by migrant labour, I suggest that the figure of the interior becomes a privileged standpoint from which to view the triumph of race as a form of fixity in modern South Africa.

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CITATION: de Almeida, Fernanda Pinto. Framing interior: race, mobility and the image of home in South African modernity . : Taylor & Francis Group , 2015. Social Dynamics, Vol. 41, No. 3, September 2015, pp. 461-481 - Available at: https://library.au.int/framing-interior-race-mobility-and-image-home-south-african-modernity-1