Concrete Oceans: The Dolos, Apartheid Engineering, and the Intertidal Zone

Abstract

This article is concerned with an object called the “dolos,” a concrete coastal structure developed by the South African state at the height of apartheid, in 1963. A twisted H-shape with attenuating limbs, it is formally rather beautiful, exhibiting a kind of brutal elegance, and it has been successfully used in hydraulic engineering projects around the globe. It is, nevertheless, a relatively unremarkable invention. Even in its category of “coastal armor,” it was invented 14 years after the first, French-patented Tetrapod. And yet, during apartheid and after, it captured the popular imagination of many white citizens who proudly connected with the narrative of innovation, self-sufficiency and apartheid modernity. The history of the dolos reveals a modernizing state that worked vigorously through its parastatals and research institutions to explore the material, structural and esthetic possibilities of concrete to articulate a convincing and legitimate national identity. This article joins with scholars in the critical oceanic humanities who are arguing for more-than-human, Anthropocene-directed research in the Global South, framed by Kimberley Peters and Philip Steinberg’s call to adopt a more-than-wet ontology addressing the (i) materiality, (ii) motion, and (iii) temporality of the ocean and, indeed, of ocean infrastructure.

这篇文章关注一种叫做“多洛斯”的物体，它是南非在种族隔离鼎盛时期于1963年开发的一种混凝土海岸构造。多洛斯具有扭曲的H形，四肢下垂，以前相当美丽，表现出一种野蛮的优雅。多洛斯已成功地应用于世界各地水利工程项目中。然而，多洛斯是相对不起眼的一项发明。即使在“海岸护甲”的范畴里，它也是在四脚锥体获得法国专利的14年后发明的。然而，在种族隔离期间和之后，它抓住了许多南非白人公民的普遍想象，他们自豪地把多洛斯同创新、自给自足和种族隔离的现代性相互联系起来。多洛斯的历史，揭示了一个现代化国家，如何通过国有单位和研究机构，积极探索混凝土在物质、结构和美学上的可能性，以阐明可信、合法的民族认同。金伯利·彼得斯和菲利普·斯坦伯格呼吁采用超水体的本体论，来讨论海洋和海洋基础设施的物质性、移动和时间性。与批判海洋人文主义学者们一起，本文主张在发展中国家进行超人类的、以人类世为指导的研究。

Este artículo concierne a un objeto denominado el “dolos”, una estructura litoral de concreto desarrollada por el estado sudafricano en el pico del apartheid, en 1963. Una retorcida cosa en forma de H, con extremidades adelgazadas, aquello formalmente es bastante hermoso, exhibiendo una suerte de elegancia brutal, y ha sido usado exitosamente en proyectos de ingeniería hidráulica alrededor del globo. Se trata, no obstante, de una invención relativamente ordinaria. Incluso en la categoría de “armadura litoral”, esto fue inventado 14 años después de la primera, el Tetrápodo, patentado en Francia, Y, con todo, durante el apartheid, y después, capturó la imaginación popular de muchos ciudadanos blancos que orgullosamente se conectaron con la narrativa de la innovación, autosuficiencia y modernidad apartheid. La historia de los dolos revela un estado modernizante que trabajó vigorosamente a través de sus instituciones paraestatales e investigativas para explorar las posibilidades del concreto como articulador de una identidad nacional convincente y legítima. Este artículo se suma al trabajo de eruditos de las humanidades oceánicas críticas que están bregando por una investigación más-que-humana en el Sur Global, de orientación antropocénica, enmarcada por el llamamiento de Kimberley Peters y Philip Steinberg en pro de adoptar una ontología más-que-húmeda que enfrente (i) la materialidad, (ii) el movimiento, y (iii) la temporalidad del océano y, en verdad, de la infraestructura oceánica.

Key Words:

• apartheid
• concrete
• infrastructure
• oceanic humanities

 :

• 种族隔离
• 混凝土
• 基础设施
• 海洋人文主义。

 :

• apartheid
• concreto
• infraestructura
• humanidades oceánicas

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to acknowledge valuable input from the peer reviewers and special issue editor Lindsay Bremner; Isabel Hofmeyr, Graeme Reid, Noëleen Murray, André Prado, Gerrit Olivier, Saul Dubow, Kishan Tulsi, Tauqeer Ahmed, Yolanda Meyer, the Transnet Heritage Library, the CSIR Stellenbosch Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. I acknowledge funding support from the A.W. Mellon through Oceanic Humanities for the Global South located at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Notes

1. The relational “contact zone,” the “edge of the sea” (Carson 1955), where ocean and land meet has emerged as a key area of research for understanding how the ocean is conceptualized and, indeed, how climate change and sea level rise is to be understood. Samuelson’s argument for “coastal form” aligns with work by feminist thinkers who have variously suggested the concept of “tidalectics,” “a dynamic and shifting relationship between land and sea that allows island literatures to be engaged in their spatial and historical complexity” (Deloughrey 2007, 2–3); “contact zones” with their “edge effects, are where assemblages of biological species form outside their comfort zones. These interdigitating edges are the richest places to look for ecological, evolutionary, and historical diversity” (Haraway 2008, 217); “unruly edges” (Tsing 2012); “borderlands/La Frontera” (Anzaldúa 1987); “contact zones” (Pratt 1992); “hybrids,” “quasi-objects,” and “water/lands” (Lahiri-Dutt 2014).

2. One way to decenter the whiteness of the dolos is to center black labor and expertise involved in working wet concrete, transporting and placing dolosse by crane into the ocean. This viscous intelligence of crane drivers, laborers, and technicians is an essential component of the technopolitics of the dolos, and concrete construction in general. Cheap black labor was a key feature of apartheid which allowed for the muscular expression of engineering modernity. Race-based job reservation was an essential component of apartheid technopolitics and was especially acute in the civil engineering sector. Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Schneider show that, for instance, in the construction of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, work relating to marble and stone were reserved for whites and European craftsmen, but black labor was surreptitiously used for working concrete (2020, 69). This hidden labor had a material specificity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Cane

JONATHAN CANE is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include histories of concrete in the Global South and visual cultures of the Anthropocene.