Safari Nation (2020)

- PICKED BY HANNEKE-
April 2022

In Safari Nation (2020), Jacob Dlamini meticulously reorients cultural archives on Kruger National Park. Rather than moving along with the stringent consensus that Kruger Park was predominantly a white space from its outset, Dlamini reveals how black histories and experiences of the park emerge from careful readings of its archive.

He writes, “Each testified to histories of presence that can be recuperated and understood only if historians learn not to grant the colonial and apartheid a hegemony they did not have” (257).

Incisive in method and compelling to read, Dlamini offers new ways to understand how national parks come into existence in relation to their situated ecologies and politics.

Safari Nation (Jacob Dlamini, 2020)