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Notes

The most important of these are Rogerson and McCarthy's Geography in a Changing South Africa (1992) (see particularly the chapters by Badenhorst, Lammas, Lupton, McCarthy and Robinson) and the special edition of the South African Geographical Journal, ‘Geographical Renaissance at the Dawn of the Millennium’ (Vol. 84(1), 2002) (see particularly the papers by Ramutsindela, Christopher, Fairhurst, Maharaj and Narsiah, and Bob and Musyoki).

This re‐engagement, particularly with the African continent, is evident in the teaching as well as research environment. In the 2003 keynote address at the Society of South African Geographers Conference, Professor Roddy Fox, Head of Department at Rhodes University, asserted that it is fundamental that students should have a concrete understanding of the geography of Africa as a whole, rather than academically marginalizing it to give way to ‘more important’ (i.e. Anglo‐American) geographical perspectives. He argued that the Africanization of the discipline should affect subject, theory, methodology and even teaching practice so that it becomes academically and culturally relevant to our location.

There are twenty‐one geography departments in the country, and due to the apartheid educational legacy, the bulk of the research output derives from the historically advantaged universities (Fairhurst et al. 2003: 88).