Page 142 - Tributaries Catalogue

A fluctuating tide of trash and toxic effluent
pollutes the river from the moment it

emerges from the Groendal nature reserve
outside Uitenhage. The city’s continuing
racial division is demonstrated by

differential human interactions with the

river and estuary. The ecological crisis of the
Swartkops is the consequence of a social
and a political crisis. To make sense of these

multiple, mutually reinforcing crises, the
paper homes in on discourses swirling

around two sites visited on the pilgrimage:
the Cape Recife Lighthouse and the stretch

of the Swartkops estuary in the vicinity of
Redhouse. Sedimented histories reveal

themselves through colonial lore and
nostalgia that these sites invoke. Across the

postcolonial wasteland drift deceitful
phantoms and spectres, foreclosing futures.