Research Articles (School of Government)
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Item An exploration of the concept of community and its impact on participatory governance policy and service delivery in poor areas of Cape Town, South Africa(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Thompson, Lisa; Tapscott, Chris; De Wet, Pamela TsolekileThe inclusion of citizen participation as a means to the equitable delivery of public services has distinguished South Africa’s democratic development trajectory over the last 20 years. While equitable resource allocation remains high on the agenda of more recently democratised states, most of which have highly diverse and unequally resourced populations. Influencing the design of more inclusive participation is the notion of a universal citizenship that applies the concept of the equality of individuals to the needs, identities and sense of agency of citizens both between and within states. The liberal democratic theoretical conceptualisation of the individual centres on the notion of universal citizen, who is the recipient and embodiment of democracy through the rights bestowed through the democratic model. This conceptualisation has been criticised for its inability to deal with the imprecision of individual and collective political identities, especially as these evolve in newly democratic contexts. The construction of a single identity citizen living in communities imbued with homogenous characteristics is carried forward into the policy construction of participatory governance. This article explores and challenges the notion of the single identity citizen that belongs to one homogenous community that can be identified and drawn into formally constructed government spaces. The paper explores the construction of political and socio-economic identities and how notions of community are constructed by citizens, on the one hand, and government policies, on the other.Item The politics of knowledge: Knowledge management in informal settlement upgrading in Cape Town(Springer, 2015) Jacobs, Floortje; Jordhus-Lier, David; Tsolekile de Wet, Pamelat In situ solutions, participatory practices and the inclusion of community knowledge have become key ingredients in urban upgrading policies across the world. Knowledge, however, is not neutral, but value-laden, representing different and conflicting interests. Including community-based knowledge, therefore, is far from straightforward. To understand the politics of urban development interventions, a deeper conceptualisation of the relationship between knowledge and power is required. This article tries to contribute to this conceptualisation through an empirical analysis of informal settlement upgrading. Specifically, it interrogates the role of community knowledge in urban development through a study of two informal settlements in Cape Town. Findings from this qualitative research contradict the notion of a unified community whose ‘community knowledge’ can be engaged with. In both settlements, knowledge politics have resulted in tensions within the settlement, creating new interest groups and knowledge alliances, showing the complex interconnectedness of knowledge, power and mobilisation.Item ‘This land is not for sale’: Post-1994 resistance art and interventionism in Cape Town’s precarious publics(Elsevier, 2021) Makhubu, Nomusa; Ruiters, GregThe control, regulation and commodification of space has been fundamental in reinforcing structural racism and social identities. In a city such as Cape Town, where colonial architecture and heritage as well as apartheid racial zoning forms part of the spectacularisation of the city, racial conflict seems to have deepened. Through dis- cussing public protest, artistic public interventions and live art, we argue that young black artists in South Africa are heralding a new phase of post-1994 resistance art which exposes conflictual cultural politics of public space in Cape Town rather than a healing democracy and multi-culturalism. As protesters and activists, artists deface the myth of a reconciled non-racial post-Apartheid society by targeting officially sanctioned art. Drawing from Faranak Miraftab’s notion of ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces as well as Chris Dixon and Angela Davis’ concept of prefigurative politics, we argue that precarious South African publics are experienced as a ‘battleground’ rather than a space for liberal deliberation and democracy. New resistance art, therefore, tends to be protest-centred in engaging with the conflictual nature of the city.