Safari Nation

“In Safari Nation, the Kruger Park and South African ideas of nature and nationality are revealed in profoundly new and insightful ways. Jacob Dlamini captures South African experiences of nature and leisure that have largely escaped the historical profession, focusing his sharp eye on the significant minority of black South Africans who managed to live ‘with—as opposed to under—colonialism and apartheid.’ An enjoyable book, full of surprises.” “An innovative work of intellectual, political, and social history, Safari Nation advances a compelling new explanation for why the ANC government has chosen not to dismantle colonial-era conservation projects whose origins lie in the dispossession of countless black families. Dlamini’s skillful storytelling throughout the book manages to balance compassion and concern for justice with careful empirical detail in a direct, graceful prose that makes Safari Nation an enjoyable read from start to finish.” “Safari Nation is a highly original treatment of the history of Kruger National Park from a black perspective. Dlamini does not pursue a polarized interpretation of the park and conservation as simply white/colonial constructs but instead develops a growing literature that presents African people as engaged in many different facets of park history, as agents, and conservationists.” “This book is about nature and black South Africans, but not as daughters and sons of the soil. Rather, Jacob Dlamini describes people on the move towards Kruger National Park, a place where conservation meant racial exclusion. On their way, they made a space of belonging through political effort, not nativism. Following its own eclectic route through rural reserves, cities, and mines, from Table Mountain to the lowveld, Safari Nation offers a bold argument that by making claim on the more-than-human world, black South Africans created an inclusive nation.” “Safari Nation is more than a social history of KNP. It is a history of black South Africans opposed to injustice engaging with the land, leisure, what it means to be South African, and ‘ways of being’ under colonialism, apartheid, and a still unequal nation…. Indeed, Dlamini’s history of Kruger National Park makes a bold and hopeful statement about conservation and the land question in South Africa.” (American Historical Review)

Jacob S. T. Dlamini is assistant professor of history at Princeton University and is a qualified field guide. He is the author of  Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle  and  Native Nostalgia.

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