Passage, Profit, Protection, and the Challenge of Participation: Building and Belonging in African Cities

Abstract

Accepting that successful "development" is premised on a population's participation in a collective undertaking, we must understand urban residents' interactions and ambitions. In African cities being transformed by geographic and social mobility, it is unclear what forms of inclusion, solidarity, or mutual recognition are desired or possible among those who live there. This paper argues that the pursuit of three objectives-profit, protection, and passage-is shaping these cities' social formations in ways that limit the ability of official and non-official institutions to interweave popular aspirations-however temporarily-to promote a common and mutually beneficial future. The paper starts from the premise that the novelty of the emerging social forms within Africa's cities requires a willingness to induce: to build a conceptual vocabulary of belonging reflecting practices of those living in and moving through Africa's cities. Only after doing this will we have the building blocks for further debate. With this in mind, the paper works towards a pair of interrelated tasks. The first is to challenge three premises often informing discussions of mobility and urban politics: (1) the presence of a dominant host community or political order; (2) that cities are destinations and not points of transit; and (3) that state institutions are the primary source of exclusion and the most potent tool for fostering inclusion in a collective endeavor. Second, it considers one form of membership and inclusion that can emerge where the presumptions outlined above do not hold. In doing so, it points to a kind of "tactical cosmopolitanism", a set of discourses and practices that can subvert ethnic or national chauvinism and restrictive migration or anti-urbanization policies and practices. Drawing primarily on examples from Johannesburg, it shows how migrants negotiate partial inclusion in transforming societies without becoming bounded by them. The paper ends by reflecting briefly on the challenges such tactics pose for generating a collective urban project.

Supporting the agency of cities as climate migration destinations

“…What can be observed is that when rural households use migration to cope with climate variability and shocks, the movement tends to be temporary or only undertaken by some household members. Cities become a node in a trans‐local mobility system, rather than a place of permanent settlement and attachment, which has implications for urban governance (Blaser Mapitsa, 2020; Landau, 2010). Indeed, recent research further underscores the reality that many rural dwellers do not want to leave their homes owing to strong attachment to place and dependence on traditional social networks (Adams & Kay, 2019, Mixed Migration Centre forthcoming ).…”

The social dynamics of community development in a suburban Johannesburg public open space: Verity Park

“…The reorganising of urban space in post-Apartheid South Africa becomes the site whereby identity, difference, citizenship and democracy are tested and reformulated (Popke and Ballard, 2004). The contestation of urban space in Johannesburg is a reaction to the fragmentary history of South Africa as well as to globalisation's excesses and the erosion of identity boundaries (Landau, 2010).…”

“…Inclusion is a very complicated phenomenon. It is not just about claiming the right to the city or being part of an established community, but it also recognises diversity, requires mutual recognition and some reciprocal obligations among residents (Landau, 2010). One group of people might think the park is inclusive, but others might see themselves as being in the park but on the periphery and for them the park might not be inclusive.…”

The Backstory

“…Today the city is the largest in southern Africa and an economic hub on the continent. Over the years, millions of people have flocked here in search of refuge, or riches, experiencing both risk and reward (Landau, 2010;Moodie & Ndatshe, 1994;Nuttall et al, 2008). For a few there are fortunes to be made, but for many of the city's inhabitants, like the people in this book, Johannesburg is a place of struggle, a daily reality of multiple and intersecting precarity.…”