Research in African Literatures

This essay explores the changing politics of place, ownership, and access to public space in the New South Africa. In the transition to a postapartheid South Africa, a robust theory of multiculturalism—Rainbow Nation Ideology-was employed to bring people together. But how does that relate to the redistribution of actual nation-space, in the sense of material urban space? Through the literary exegesis of two seminal texts, this essay attempts to address how and why Rainbow Nation Ideology is effective in the abstract sense of establishing democratic parity for South Africa's multicultural population but fails to address socioeconomic disparity.