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Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025.
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2026
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| _version_ | 1867614103019716608 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Vosloo, Jana Lydia |
| author2 | Du Toit, Louise |
| author_browse | Du Toit, Louise Vosloo, Jana Lydia |
| author_facet | Du Toit, Louise Vosloo, Jana Lydia |
| author_sort | Vosloo, Jana Lydia |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134869 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:46:42.610Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134869 Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick Vosloo, Jana Lydia Du Toit, Louise Viljoen, Stella Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Feminist theory -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Women, Black -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Marasela, Senzeni, -- 1977- McKittrick, Katherine Human geography -- Philosophy Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. Vosloo, J. L. 2025. Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: Exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/e1e350bb-7592-42e3-ab83-55d55205cb3a ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation explores what kind of feminist philosophy of space, rooted in Johannesburg, may result from bringing Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick into conversation. Both Marasela and McKittrick have received little scholarly attention within the context of sub-Saharan Africa. In Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006), McKittrick rethinks geography through Black feminist thought, revealing how Blackness is historically positioned as spatially dispossessed, yet always engaged in the imaginative remaking of place. Similarly, Senzeni Marasela’s multimedia artworks over the last two decades have creatively grappled with the numerous ways in which the legacies of spatial dispossession impact Black women. By placing herself within her art as a character, Theodorah, in the city of Johannesburg, Marasela archives the often underdocumented histories of Black women’s urban experiences, especially in relation to the history of migrant labour and the ontologies of waiting that accompany the disintegration of the Black family. I trace the existing philosophical engagement with urban space, and argue, at the hand of McKittrick, that Black feminist thought offers generative sites of theory that must be paid close attention to. By reading across McKittrick’s oeuvre, I argue for an understanding of urban space that views geography and epistemology as inextricably linked to one another. In doing so, I show that McKittrick’s work calls for a fundamental reorientation of how space is known: one that is interdisciplinary, based on the limits of knowing, and attuned to the liberatory possibilities of “Black livingness” in the face of “Black death”. Such an understanding reveals “alternative” and subversive Black feminist geographies that often fall outside the realm of conventional/ traditional cartographic impulses. With this spatial understanding in mind, I employ McKittrick’s methodologies by turning to Marasela’s work as “alternative” Black geographies of Johannesburg. Through interviews with Marasela and visual analysis of her work, I draw out three thematic pathways into knowing Johannesburg otherwise. Firstly, I show how textiles can be a marker of place, revealing how waiting, marginality, and dispossession are spatially embedded in the fabric of Johannesburg’s migrant history. Secondly, I consider the extractive legacies of mining in Johannesburg and argue that it is an enduring racial-spatial regime that requires feminist and philosophical attention. Marasela’s portrayal of the mine slopes introduces a larger conversation surrounding cartography, which I link to McKittrick’s discussion on the logic of the plantation. I introduce my own analytic frame of un/re/mapping to show how Marasela’s work offers an embodied countercartography that refuses “Black death”. The third thread relates to finding ways of living in an oppressive world without being defined by it. I consider how instances of “Black livingness” manifest in Marasela’s work by turning to themes of joy/enjoyment, fantasy, and the notion of being “elsewhere”. Finally, I arrive at an “entangled” understanding of geography as a method of reading mutual implication within uneven spatial and racial orders. Placing McKittrick and Marasela alongside one another unearths new ways of “doing philosophy”, where art, conversations, and geographic sites become methodologically radical world-making tools. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar. Doctoral 2026-01-13T10:18:02Z 2026-01-13T10:18:02Z 2025-12 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134869 Stellenbosch University 252 pages application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Feminist theory -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Women, Black -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Marasela, Senzeni, -- 1977- McKittrick, Katherine Human geography -- Philosophy Vosloo, Jana Lydia Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title | Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title_full | Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title_fullStr | Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title_full_unstemmed | Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title_short | Knowing Johannesburg otherwise: exploring Black feminist space in conversation with Senzeni Marasela and Katherine McKittrick |
| title_sort | knowing johannesburg otherwise exploring black feminist space in conversation with senzeni marasela and katherine mckittrick |
| topic | Feminist theory -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Women, Black -- Johannesburg (South Africa) Marasela, Senzeni, -- 1977- McKittrick, Katherine Human geography -- Philosophy |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134869 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT vosloojanalydia knowingjohannesburgotherwiseexploringblackfeministspaceinconversationwithsenzenimaraselaandkatherinemckittrick |