Editorial

Abstract

The articles in this edition of Image & Text demonstrate how issues surrounding the construction and visualisation of identity continue to present fertile ground for critical and sustained engagement. The distinctive circumstances of South Africa and its physical, political, cultural, social and historical richness encourage an on-going desire to examine how it represents itself with images and stories that reflect its diversities more candidly. Four of the five authors published in this edition locate their investigations of identity in the South African environment. The fifth article adopts a more distant perspective in its focus on Victorian England. In the articles, themes of socio-political thinking and concern, personal politics and autobiographical urges variously intersect with considerations of historical and contemporary contexts, imaginative powers, unique insights and technical virtuosity. Class, race, gender, personal and national identities are placed under close scrutiny.