The Material Legacy of Late Colonialism in South Africa

Summary

This paper explores the legacy of late colonial mineral extraction in South Africa through its architectural and archaeological remains. Key sites of the late 19th century diamond fields, particularly the labor compounds, do not figure into portrayals of the history of the diamond rush at the De Beers corporate diamond museum.   The aim of this paper is to examine how material sites and archaeological remains can tell the story of the tightly interlocked corporate-colonial project in Southern Africa, and how historical archaeology can play a role in clarifying the often ignored relationship between corporate mineral extraction and colonialism more generally. 1

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Late Empires: the archaeology of recent colonialism and imperialism - 1860s to the present   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 240