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a rethinking of notions of agency, rationality
and subjectivity. While ‘anti-humanism’ is a
term that can encompass a range of different
perspectives, it generally takes its philosoph-
ical basis from Friedrich Nietzsche’s thinking
through of the death of God. For Nietzsche, it
was not enough to replace God at the centre
with the human but, rather, the implications
needed to be thought through more funda-
mentally. Martin Heidegger’s 1947 ‘Letter
on Humanism’ (see Heidegger, 1991[1947])
was a major influence on a generation of
French writers such as Michel Foucault
(1970 [1966]) and Jacques Derrida (1982b),
collectively identified under the sign ofpost-
structuralism, whose reformulations proved
influential in the Anglophone academy. The
white, male, heterosexual adult who is gener-
ally a cipher for the ‘human’ of classical hu-
manism has also been criticized from a range
of perspectives. Not all of these take the strong
anti-humanist perspective that denies agency
and responsibility, which is often seen as pol-
itically disabling, but the challenge to the uni-
versalizing tendencies of classical humanist
reasoning has been pervasive. Inhuman geog-
raphy, this critique has led to a broadly under-
stoodposthumanisttradition. seSuggested reading
Soper (1986).apartheid A political and legal system
of racial classification, spatial separation and
discrimination against black South Africans.
Associated with the white minority National
Party that came to power in 1948, apartheid
policies built on pre-existing forms of racial
segregation and dispossession, but took
them in new directions.
Dismissing presumptions of South African
exceptionalism, Mamdani (1996) maintains
that apartheid was simply a variant of indirect
rule through which colonial power operated in
other parts of africa (see colonialism).
While acknowledging these continuities, Alex-
ander (2002, p. 140) insists that ‘the fact of a
large population of European descent [ .. .]
doesmake all the difference’. So, too, do the
interconnections between institutionalizedra-
cismand forms ofclassexploitation that char-
acterized apartheid.
Apartheid officially died in 1994, when the
African National Congress (ANC) received
overwhelming support in South Africa’s first
non-racial election, which marked the transi-
tion to liberaldemocracy. Yet apartheid re-
tains a powerful afterlife in terms of persistentracial, spatial and economic inequalities in
South Africa, and as emblematic of ongoing
forms of racialized oppression around the
world.
Gross violations ofhuman rightscommit-
ted during the apartheid era were the focus of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
(TRC), which has become a model for coun-
tries all over the world seeking to come to
terms with histories of violence. Between
1996 and 1998, the TRC received 20,000
statements from victims and nearly 8,000
applications for amnesty from perpetrators.
In her compelling account of the TRC, Krog
(2000) illuminates its accomplishments, limi-
tations and ambiguities, along with chilling
testimonies of many who bore the brunt of
state-sanctioned violence. The final report of
the TRC, submitted in 2003, recommended
that the government pay some US $375 mil-
lion in reparations, and that businesses that
had benefited from apartheid policies make
reparations through a special wealth tax. Presi-
dent Thabo Mbeki authorized a one-time pay-
ment of R30,000 (approximately US $5,000)
to each of about 22,000 people defined as
victims of apartheid, but refused to impose a
tax on businesses.
The debate over apartheid reparations over-
laps with the ANC government’s controversial
embrace of a conservative package of neo-
liberal macro-economic policies in 1996
(Bond, 2000; seeneo-liberalism). The post-
apartheid era has seen the rapid emergence
of an African middle class and a small but
extremely wealthy corporate black elite. Yet
huge numbers of black South Africans remain
in impoverished conditions in poorly serviced
and densely populated townships, rural
reserves and slum settlements. Persistent
poverty and inequality have prompted some
critics to argue that there has been a shift
fromrace toclassapartheid, while others
contest this formulation. Since 2001 many
oppositional movements have arisen demand-
ing access to resources, and fierce protests
have erupted in many different parts of the
country. Despite these challenges, the ANC
continues to exercise considerable hegemonic
power – a testimony, perhaps, to the ongoing
importance ofnationalism,groundedpartlyin
histories and memories of the struggle against
apartheid.
Global apartheid, some maintain, is a more
adequate description of the current world
order than apparently race-neutral terms
such asglobalizationor neo-liberalism, and
can also bolster efforts to transform globalGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_A Final Proof page 33 31.3.2009 9:44pmAPARTHEID