Met haar innemende en boeiende vertelstyl teken Dot Serfontein in Systap onder die juk verhale oor die lewens van ’n versameling merkwaardige mense op.

Die leser leer ken ’n groep Noord-Vrystaters wat aan dié wêreld sy sonderlinge geskiedenis en karakter verleen het. Dit is ’n distrik “lankal reeds bewoon deur verantwoordelike, stoere mense wat hulle deur niemand laat voorsê nie”, soos dit in die titelverhaal gestel word.

Van hierdie stoere mense is byvoorbeeld die unieke tant Hannie Wolmarans. Die staaltjies oor haar het vir die skryfster as kind so onwaarskynlik geklink dat hulle in dieselfde klas as sprokies geval het. Daar is byvoorbeeld ook oom Lood, wat selfs in die eienaardige Serfontein-familie, hom kon onderskei as ’n eienaardige mens. Die luimige aard van die vertellings word ook in hierdie bundel deurweef met waardering en deernis, veral vir haar ma Boeta en pa Oupats.

This unique book demonstrates the utility of big data approaches in human geography and planning. Offering a carefully curated selection of case studies, it reveals how researchers are accessing big data, what this data looks like and how such data can offer new and important insights and knowledge. Contributions from key scholars working in the field bring together an international series of case studies on demography and migration, retail and consumer analytics, health care planning, urban planning and transport studies. Chapters also discuss how data sets leveraged from commercial and public agency sources can greatly improve the data traditionally worked with in academic geography, regional science and planning. While addressing the challenges and limitations of big data, the book also demonstrates the usefulness of data sets held by commercial agencies and explores data linkage between big data and traditional public domain data sources. Focusing on the applications of big data to investigate issues in a spatial context, this book will be an essential guide for scholars and students of planning, mobility and human geography, particularly those who specialise in economic and transport geography. Its use of key case studies to demonstrate the applications of big data analytics in planning will also be useful for planners in these fields.

This major international Handbook offers the most up-to-date and original viewpoints on critical debates relating to the rapidly transforming geographies of regions and territories, as well as related key concepts such as place, scale, networks and regionalism. This interdisciplinary Handbook brings together renowned specialists who have extensively theorized these spatial concepts and contributed to rich empirical research in disciplines such as geography, sociology, political science and international relations. It offers fresh, cutting-edge, and contextual insights on the significance of regions and territories in today?s dynamic world. This is a timely and vital resource for both students and researchers of human geography and regional studies. Political geographers and international relations scholars will also benefit from reading the Handbook as it offers a comprehensive yet accessible examination of the geography of regions and territories. Contributors include: J. Agnew, B.T. Asheim, S. Ayres, A. Beer, I. Braverman, G. Bristow, J. Bryson, I. Calzada, R. Castriota, J. Clark, A. Cochrane, R. Comunian, K.R. Cox, M. Deciancio, K. Dodds, M. Dunford, L. England, J.N. Entrikin, D. Gibbs, M. Glass, J. Harrison, A. Hemmings, Y. Herrera, R. Huggins, B. Jessop, A.E.G. Jonas, A. Jones, M. Jones, R. Jones, J.M. Kanai, D. Kofanov, D.F. Kogler, W. Liu, J. Loughlin, F. Mattheis, S. Moisio, R.L. Monte-Mor, C. Nine, A. Paasi, M. Pace, K. Peters, P. Riggirozzi, D. Rwehumbiza, S. Schindler, A. Shirikov, C. Sohn, D. Storey, N.-L. Sum, K. Terlouw, P. Thompson, I. Turok, L. Van Langenhove, A. Whittle

A quest is never what you expect it to be.

Elizabeth Madeline Martin spends her days in a retirement home in Cape Town, watching the pigeons and squirrels on the branch of a tree outside her window. Bedridden, her memory fading, she can recall her early childhood spent in a small wood-and-iron house in Blackridge on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Though she remembers the place in detail – dogs, a mango tree, a stream – she has no idea of where exactly it is. ‘My memory is full of blotches,’ she tells her daughter Julia, ‘like ink left about and knocked over.’

Julia resolves to find the Blackridge house: with her mother lonely and confused, would this, perhaps, bring some measure of closure? A journey begins that traverses family history, forgotten documents, old photographs, and the maps that stake out a country’s troubled past – maps whose boundaries nature remains determined to resist. Kind strangers, willing to assist in the search, lead to unexpected discoveries of ancestors and wars and lullabies. Folded into this quest are the tender conversations between a daughter and a mother who does not have long to live.

Taken as one, The Blackridge House is a meditation on belonging, of the stories we tell of home and family, of the precarious footprint of life.