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Welcome to Greater Edendale is a compelling investigation of environmental, health and gender issues in urban South Africa. Although South African cities are well-researched in comparison with many other southern urbanisms, this book is a reminder of our limited understanding of the past and present, and how much work remains to be done. In a scholarly context dominated by the article, this in-depth case study is a particularly useful contribution for its detail- and thus its ability to challenge unreflexive narratives, including political tropes and the use of South Africa as an example of a general academic theory.
The task which this book undertakes is a brave one: Epprecht carefully investigates and evaluates urban public health during the apartheid era. Understandably, it remains politically difficult to do more than critique the policies of the racial state, yet Epprecht convincingly argues for the need to learn from rather than dismiss or reject this history. The apartheid state was not monolithic, and although paternalism underlay many humanitarian interventions, he demonstrates that these actions are worthy of our consideration.
The detailed investigation helps us to see fractures, to disambiguate tropes that universalize urban apartheid and the racialized experiences of residents. The book centres around Greater Edendale, and this intellectual and geographical focus is, as Epprecht claims, “deliberately cheeky” (pg 31). Early chapters position Edendale’s unique history and growing relationship to and interdependence with Pietermaritzburg, the provincial capital and “white” city. Founded in 1851 by amakholwa (“believers”) from various ethnic groups in the region (thus challenging a universalized Zulu identity), residents typically had “faith in the power of modern education and legal rights to bring social and economic advancement” (pg 17), and eventually held freehold title over the land. Although the conurbation has many similarities to the classic apartheid...