Land Restitution's ‘Rights Communities’: The District Six Case*

Beyers, Christiaan

doi:10.1080/03057070701292582

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Since the end of the apartheid in 1994, a land restitution process has been under way to facilitate the return of forcibly removed families across South Africa. Yet, this process has been particularly slow in the case of District Six, due to various institutional, political and administrative blockages (Beyers, 2007a(Beyers, , 2007b. It is against this deeply contentious historical and political backdrop that plans were developed in the early 2000s to establish a new design and innovation precinct in the East City.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the success/failure of travelling urban models: Exploring the politics of time and performance in Cape Town’s East City

Robin

Nkula-Wenz

2020

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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In this paper, we highlight the importance for policy mobility research to engage with the ‘multiple temporalities’ of globally prevalent urban policy ideas to understand how these eventually come to shape localities incrementally, and as we show, in sometimes unexpected manners. Through the study of over 10 years of (failed) redevelopment policies in Cape Town’s East City, we formulate two distinct contributions to existing urban policy mobility research. Firstly, we show that looking at the micro-politics of policy mobility in particular places, and over time, can help elucidate how conflicts and resistance to globally mobile urban models shape which aspects of a policy solutions are rendered mobile or immobile, present or absent and, finally, what ends up being implemented in the local context through specific projects. Secondly, we expand on new materialist approaches to urban policy mobility, bringing insights from performativity theory, to look at how ideas and models come to be ‘enacted’ in the real world through various and, perhaps more importantly, uncoordinated means. Our case study shows that policy mobility research should attend to disparate, uncoordinated, more-than-human activities, and how these end up shaping places even in the absence of purposive planning. That way, we show how changing and complex configurations of more than human networks, objects, money, buildings, etc. support the concrete performance of abstract and mobile urban models – in place and over time.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the success/failure of travelling urban models: Exploring the politics of time and performance in Cape Town’s East City

Robin

Nkula-Wenz

2020

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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“…In practice, however, former titleholders are usually most privileged in the restitution process, as their deeds provide clear legal evidence to support their claims. They have also mobilized more effectively than tenants because: they typically have greater material resources, and can thus afford the costs associated with claiming and resettling; they tend to be ideologically more inclined towards asserting property rights; and they are better positioned to access systems of justice administration (Beyers, : 275). Moreover, implementation during the formative phases of the programme occurred by bureaucrats who tended to have a formal understanding of rights in land and property (Walker, ).…”

Section: Anti‐urbanism and The Politics Of Property Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beall and Todes, 2004;Parnell and Beavon, 1996;du Toit, 1999), and some do this while attempting to integrate symbolic and psychosocial questions (e.g. Beyers, 2007Beyers, , 2010Mojapelo, 2009;Walker, 2008).…”

Section: Reorienting Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Beyers¹

2013

Development and Change

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Reintegrating the city is a priority of social justice and development in many urban centres of the 'South' that bear the legacy of forced displacement. In South Africa, much of the land restitution programme has thus far focused on urban areas. In certain large cluster claims involving the transfer and development of significant tracts of well-placed land, restitution has presented the prospect of altering landed property regimes in the heart of the city. The predominantly rural and economic emphasis in scholarship and policy debate on land reform in South Africa -which reflects historical trends in development studies -has led to a narrowed vision of what is at stake in urban land restitution. Complex interventions aimed at redressing urban spatial segregation can potentially alter the relationship between citizens, institutions and urban space in ways that expand the possibilities for social and political agency in sites that are strategically important for influencing the direction of change more broadly. A key, as yet unrealized, challenge is how to articulate such struggles for a 'right to the city' with efforts at redressing the spatialization of poverty on the urban periphery.

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“…Surprisingly, the scope of research within an urban context remains relatively scant (see Battersby 2012;Cavanagh, 2013;Dhupelia-Mesthrie, 2006;Parnell, Beavon, 1996;Thompson, 1999;Beyers, 2007Beyers, , 2013Maqasho, Bank, 2001;Dewar, 2001;Carruthers, 2000). This is attributed to the fact that "urban land restitution has been criticised for contributing only marginally to social and economic development and transformation.…”

Section: Down South: the South African Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Urban land restitution in Cape Town: demanding the return of land rights in Constantia and Kensington/Ndabeni

Donaldson

Hyman

Chang

et al. 2014

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series

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One of the hallmark policies implemented post-apartheid, the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994, is a rights-based program aimed at addressing the loss of land resulting from past racially discriminatory laws or practices. The aim of this research was to identify what are the factors that determine the different outcomes of the restitution process when claimants are demanding the return of land rights and to highlight the challenges regarding the implementation of this land restitution policy. Focusing on two specific yet contrasting areas in Cape Town, Constantia and Kensington, it was determined that due to factors pertaining to the lands in question, the neighborhood surrounding the lands, the claimants, as well as the organization, function, and performance of different public entities, the policy has managed to fulfill restorative justice, but has yet to fulfill its ultimate goal of returning land rights to the claimants and undoing the injustices of the apartheid regime.

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Land Restitution's ‘Rights Communities’: The District Six Case*

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Beyond the success/failure of travelling urban models: Exploring the politics of time and performance in Cape Town’s East City

Beyond the success/failure of travelling urban models: Exploring the politics of time and performance in Cape Town’s East City

Urban Land Restitution and the Struggle for Social Citizenship in South Africa

Urban land restitution in Cape Town: demanding the return of land rights in Constantia and Kensington/Ndabeni

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