Pounding at the Tip of the Iceberg: The Dominant Politics of Informal Settlement Eradication in South Africa

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of the South African target to eradicate informal settlements by 2014 within the political position of the Ministry of Housing. It shows an interaction as well as a disjuncture with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with South African policy and legislation. In so doing, the article differentiates between an indirect engagement in policy with the causes of land invasion, and a direct (iceberg-pounding) approach in politics and practice to doing away with informal settlements. It associates the non-implementation of the national Programme on Upgrading of Informal Settlements with the widely practised direct approach to slum elimination, which includes eviction and relocation to transit areas. The article points to the centralized political approach in South Africa but does not analyse the reasons for the narrow political agenda on informal settlements. It seeks to expose a trend that is in need of political scientific debate and analysis.

Shifting approaches to slums in Chennai: Political coalitions, policy discourses and practices

“…Raman () has for instance described how the World Bank profoundly influenced state practices in the 1970s and 1980s in Madras. In addition, the utopian idea of ‘cities without slums’ supported by the United Nations was used to legitimize slum eradication in housing policy rhetoric (Huchzermeyer, ). The international policy norms allied with national and regional actors often resulted in constraining local bodies which are limited by the ‘legislation, policy and funding mechanisms’ regulated by multiple institutions (Sutherland et al ., :50).…”

Waiting for the state: a politics of housing in South Africa

“…A product of apartheid segregation and its institutionalisation of racial inequality (Wilkinson, 1998;Williams, 2000), as well as of the adoption of neoliberal policies after apartheid (Huchzermeyer, 2009), conditions in informal settlements, backyard shacks, and overcrowded formal homes shape, and in many ways constrain, citizens' everyday lives (see Lee, 2005;Ndinda, 2007;Ross, 2005;Salo, 2004), as well as generate contentious city politics (Oldfield, 2000;Pithouse, 2009). In a democratic regime that proclaimed a 'better life for all' after apartheid (Huchzermeyer, 2010), housing, moreover, clearly has a social function beyond its materiality as a shelter and an asset (Butcher and Oldfield, 2009;Pithouse, 2009). A symbol and important material aspect of citizenship and belonging (Charlton, 2009;Ross, 2005, page 633), access to housing frames legitimacy to live in a city and partake in what it has to offer (Simone, 2009).…”

“…For each of these options, there is a list of criteria. (12) The integrated housing database itself, however, is complicated: information regarding how it actually functions is not readily accessible, and many administrative changes have been made to housing waiting lists since (11) See, for example, Tomlinson (2006), Charlton (2009), Huchzermeyer (2010, and Tissington et al (2013) for discussion on the roles of various state institutions involved in housing delivery. While this subject is crucial and one explanation of the delays in housing development which lead to waiting, it is not the focus of this paper.…”

Barriers to risk reduction: Dontse Yakhe, South Africa

“…The researchers recognise the complexity of settlement upgrading (see Fieuw, 2011;Huchzermeyer, 2009Huchzermeyer, , 2010 and an emerging body of literature, which suggests that informal settlement upgrading may not reduce risk of these vulnerable communities, as suggested in the DMA and NDMF, because residents continue to be exposed to a range of hazards (see Benjamin, 2008;Govender et al, 2011;Pharoah, 2014). In order to address the aim of investigating risk reduction strategies in Dontse Yakhe, however, the paper must include the following discussion on the CoCT's official informal settlement upgrading initiatives because of their impacts on risk in the Dontse Yakhe community.…”