Related Papers
Are Johannesburg’s peri-central neighbourhoods irremediably ‘fluid’? Local leadership and community building in Yeoville and Bertrams
Claire Bénit-Gbaffou
This chapter, based on intensive ethnography in Johannesburg inner city neighbourhoods, engages with South African literature on the fluidity and uncertainty of African cities (Simone, Chipkin) by looking at the way local leaders (councilors, civic leaders, party representatives) attempt at constructing local ‘communities’ in areas largely characterized by a high level of migration and mobility (from South Africa and from the rest of the African continent). While community building responds to a variety of objectives (developmental, electoral, managerial, safety-oriented, etc.), and local leaders construct different types of local communities according to their objectives, they all have to position these constructions in a context of mobility, diversity, poverty and competition for access to resources –but also, due to the peri-central location of the neighborhoods, external influence in the form of pressure for gentrification and regeneration policies. The paper in particular contrasts two neighbourhoods affected by urban regeneration policies – Yeoville and Bertrams- seeing how the contrasted level of political and social fragmentation of the two neighborhoods affects their ability to build local communities and shapes the way they respond to urban changes.
Politics and Community-Based Research
2019 •
Claire Benit-Gbaffou
Wits University Press
The Politics of Community Based Research Lessons from Yeoville Studio
2019 •
Claire Benit-Gbaffou
Exploring the role of party politics in the governance of African cities
2013 •
Jeanne Vivet
Against ourselves - Local activists and the management of contradicting political loyalties: The case of Phiri, Johannesburg
2012 •
Boitumelo Matlala
Community Activists Tell Their Story: Driving Change in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni
2013 •
Claire Bénit-Gbaffou
This is a research project coordinated by Claire Benit-Gbaffou with her 2013 Masters class on Community Participation in Urban Governance, within CUBES focus on activism and urban change in post apartheid cities. The goal of this project is to examine local activism as a driver urban change, through interviews with key community activists or leaders acting at the local level (neighborhood or metropolitan scale). The 2013 report compiles 13 portraits of community activists in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, focusing on a variety of issues (resistance to eviction, education, environmental issues, art, local development), and reflects on the difference activists make in their communities, the joys and challenges of community leadership and on the multi-dimensional nature of urban change. The report is based in story-telling, reflection, and living narratives, and offers a picture of post-apartheid community activism in contemporary Johannesburg.
Third World Quarterly
Do street traders have the ‘right to the city’? The politics of street trader organisations in inner city Johannesburg, post-Operation Clean Sweep
2016 •
Claire Benit-Gbaffou
Migration in South Africa: tensions and post-apartheid inter-ethnic compromises in a central district of Johannesburg In The challenge of the threshold. Border closures and migration movements in Africa, Jocelyne Streiff-Fénart and Aurelia Wa Kabwe Segatti (Eds), Lanham, Lexington Books, 288 p.
Élise Palomares
This chapter is set against the backdrop of the multiple forms of violence committed against foreigners in South African cities that underwent a sudden systematisation in townships and informal camps in 2008. The chapter focuses specifically on the increasing demographic diversity of a central district of Johannesburg, formerly a white preserve. The recent urban compromise reached between the local authorities, foreign Africans and native South Africans originally from rural areas and the old Bantustans has proved fragile. The compromise governing urban coexistence has been frequently challenged by discourses and practices positing the radical alterity of foreign migrants. While for some migrants there is significant evidence of inclusion, other migrants have been treated less favorably. Such treatment may involve never gaining recognition as an immigrant, forever remaining at the threshold, waiting indefinitely for a passage to the West, being subject to escheat or being forced to return to the country of origin.
Strategies used by street trader's organisations to influence trading policy and management in the city of Johannesburg
2013 •
Mamokete Matjomane
Migration in South Africa: tensions and post-apartheid inter-ethnic compromises in a central district of Johannesburg
2012 •
Catherine Quiminal
This chapter is set against the backdrop of the multiple forms of violence committed against foreigners in South African cities that underwent a sudden systematisation in townships and informal camps in 2008. The chapter focuses specifically on the increasing demographic diversity of a central district of Johannesburg, formerly a white preserve. The recent urban compromise reached between the local authorities, foreign Africans and native South Africans originally from rural areas and the old Bantustans has proved fragile. The compromise governing urban coexistence has been frequently challenged by discourses and practices positing the radical alterity of foreign migrants. While for some migrants there is significant evidence of inclusion, other migrants have been treated less favorably. Such treatment may involve never gaining recognition as an immigrant, forever remaining at the threshold, waiting indefinitely for a passage to the West, being subject to escheat or being forced to ...
