Sowing the seeds of conflict? Low income housing delivery, community participation and inclusive citizenship in South Africa

Abstract

The delivery of housing to low income citizens across South Africa reflects the state’s realisation of citizens’ social rights to housing and can help to strengthen a citizen’s sense of belonging. Additionally, through the very processes of housing delivery, such as decentralised mechanisms with strong community participation, principles of inclusive citizenship are forged and enacted. However, it is argued in this paper that because housing allocation is devolved and power granted to local elites, an important aspect of citizenship-making has also been devolved with insufficient checks and balances. The paper cautions that the decision-making of local elites who determine access to housing and thus the realisation of citizenship rights, is mitigated by their subjectivities. Based on case studies of selected settlements in eThekwini (Durban), the paper examines how residents access housing in slum upgrade programmes. It finds that, beyond national eligibility criteria additional localised criteria are evident which demand that residents use their identity and social relationships to both provide evidence of their eligibility and negotiate access. The paper further cautions that these local processes may be sowing seeds of conflict by propagating existing social tensions, particularly around ethno- and xenophobia, and party political contests. Such conflict ultimately undermines citizenship ideals.

Urban land conflict in the Global South: Towards an analytical framework

“…There is increasing evidence that titling is both difficult to implement in many urban situations and does not deliver all the benefits claimed for it (Payne et al, 2009;Rakodi, 2016). This consideration underlines a third analytical challenge relating to the potential for tenure formalisation or legalisation to create as well as ameliorate conflict, as discussed in Lombard's, Rigon's and Patel's papers (Lombard, 2016;Patel, 2016;Rigon, 2016).…”

A Decent House, a Decent Job, a Decent Life: Social Reproduction Theory and Working Class Organizing in Cape Town.

“…This is the case whether intentional-the common perception-or merely a circumstance of the competitive process of housing allocation in the context of budgetary constraints, private sector dependent delivery mechanisms and demand that vastly exceeds supply. In this context racial and xenophobic explanations of why housing and services are being delivered to some and not others find fertile ground and are counterproductive to challenging the policy trajectory of the state (Patel 2015). For one organizer (Organizer B, November 2015), HA work is vital to the process of overcoming these divisions, not by making statements for racial harmony or through reconciliation activities infused with the nationalism of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" but by "working in… communities, going around and collecting peoples' demands, speaking to them about their issues, relating to their issues in their own comfortable space [because we] are in the same situation and I'm relating with your issues and the importance of why we need to stick together…, as the working class."…”

Juxtacity: an Approach to Urban Difference, Divide, Authority, and Citizenship

“…At the same time, even in the context of these divisions and conflicts, there is evidence of inclusive or negotiated forms of governance within fragmented urban spaces (see, for example, Millstein, Miraftab, Qayyum, van Voorst, this issue), double-edged as these forms and their effects may be (Beall 2001;Jensen 2004;Millstein 2011;Patel 2016). Additionally, there is the demanding, often risky, yet also potentially redemptive, labour of autonomous agency and activism among marginalized citizens in resisting, contesting, and re-shaping such divides, disparities, and practices of exclusion, dispossession, and violence (Appadurai 2002;Caldeira 2014;Das 2011;Holston 2011;Hammar 2017; see in this issue Millstein, Miraftab, Qayyum, Shearer, van Voorst, and Yiftachel).…”