Revisualising township tourism in the Western Cape: the Migrant Labour Museum and the re-construction of Lwandle

Abstract

This article uses a case study of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, 40 km outside of Cape Town, to discuss how places and their histories come to be reconstituted in and along tourist routes. It argues that responsible tourism cannot merely be analysed through a hosts/guests approach that relies upon investigating impacts. This formulation does not take into account the fundamental ways that tourism is always about appropriation, systems of knowledge production, and the making of signs and values. The ways that Lwandle has been re-visualised suggests that it is much more useful to consider how places, people, cultures and histories are made and re-made in an image economy. The vast visual apparatus of tourism, depictions of place through writers, travellers and officials, gender relations, allocation of resources, claims to expertise, local and national politics, institutional arrangements and previous histories of images, are powerful mechanisms in the establishment, production and circulation of visual tourist knowledge. The journey constructed through Lwandle's past is one through a visual economy in which images are made, contested, altered and sometimes remain firmly in place.

Keywords:

• Lwandle
• township tourism
• memorial
• museum
• experiential economy
• migrant labour
• xenophobia
• ethnicity
• restoration
• visual history

Notes

1. This paper is based upon research conducted for the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded focus area project based in the History Department at the University of the Western Cape entitled ‘The Heritage Disciplines’. The financial support of the NRF towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed in this paper and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF.

2. The other organisers were Shades of Black Works (SOBW), a Cape Town based social responsibility company and the tour company Springbok Atlas Safaris.

3. The name was initially ‘The Strand’ but was shortened in 1937. See Rhoda (2006, 1, 14).

4. Letter from the Divisional Council of Stellenbosch to Provincial Secretary, Native Affairs, 23 December 1955. All documents cited are in the collection of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum.

5. ‘Divisional Council of Stellenbosch – Establishment of a Location and a Native Village’, Government Notice No. 71 of 1958.

6. The Divisional Council of Stellenbosch: Layout of Lwandle Native Location Near the Strand, Drawing No. 1189c (revised May 1959), drawn by FHS.

7. Urban Areas Commissioner, Cape Western Area to Secretary, Divisional Council of Stellenbosch, 21 October 1954.

8. Secretary Divisional Council of Stellenbsoch to C.P.J. van Vuuren, 22 August 1956.

9. The Divisional Council of Stellenbosch: Layout of Lwandle Native Location near the Strand, Drawing No. 1189c (revised May 1959), drawn by FHS.

10. Board 2, ‘Ukujonglea phantsi 1977’, Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum.

11. Helderberg District Mail, 11 April 1986.

12. Spend the night in Lwandle? Helderberg District Mail, 25 April 1986.

13. Petition and Extract of Minutes of Strand Municipality, 7 June 1988.

14. ‘Strand staan vas oor Lwandle teenstand’; ‘Chamber disputes Strand's view’, Helderberg District Mail, 24 June 1988.

15. Email from Lunga Smile to Leslie Witz and Noëleen Murray, 12 June 2007.