Geography Reference
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and single-use zones in the city landscape. The fundamental ideology behind the design
of its commercial districts and residential neighborhoods was to prevent any possibility
ofracialmixing:“tokeepapartratherthanbringtogether”(Murray2011,177).Asares-
ult,everydaylifewasconductedwithinluxuriousandcocoonedenclavesforthewhites,
whilst for the blacks, this life took place “in ramshackle townships on the urban fringe,
blighted inner-city ghettoes or featureless squatter settlements” (Murray 2011, 148).
However, as the twentieth century came to an end, a progressive breach in and dis-
integration of a racially exclusive metropolitan area started to emerge in cities such as
Johannesburg.Certaingroupsofpeople:afewliberalwhitesaswellasblacks,startedto
challenge the racialized exclusivity of certain spaces within the city, constituting a pro-
foundcrisisforapartheidgovernance(Conway2009).Yetsincetheeventualabolitionof
apartheid in 1994, this early promise of changing the positions and identities of people/
space has only been very partially delivered. Many white people have resisted the full
democratization ofspaceinanumberofways(e.g.Ballard2005;Lemanski2007),such
that,inshort,spacecontinuestobeakeyresourcebywhichprivilegeisconstructedand
maintained (Leonard 2010).
In this chapter, I draw on new ethnographic and biographical research to explore this
issuefurther.IexaminehowoneparticulargroupofSouthAfricanresidents,whiteBrit-
ishexpatriatesinSouthAfrica,drawonthespatiallandscapetonegotiatetheiridentities
and social relations in this changing political context. “The British” or, as they are now
601) are a group that has clearly lost much of its political power in contemporary South
Africa, but by and large they continue to enjoy a privileged lifestyle economically, so-
cially, and geographically (Conway and Leonard forthcoming). Space, in the material
ways in which it is managed and lived, as well as through its cultural imaginings, is a
key resource in the making and maintaining of this privilege (Hughes 2010). The ways
in which this process is further marked by nationality is explored here by examining
the everyday lives of British residents living in Johannesburg. Not only does Johannes-
burg have a significant history of segregated white presence, but it has also maintained
transnationalconnectionswithWesternEurope.ThewaysinwhichBritishresidentsloc-
ate themselves within this dynamic context reveals a diversity of positions but, for all,
the geographies of privilege are a continuing accomplishment, forged both locally and
through transnational connections. This chapter argues that landscape undoubtedly still
provides a powerful means by which whiteness sustains its privileges in the new South
Africa. It also hints that other possibilities may exist (Merleau-Ponty 2002).
