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14
Exploiting the infrastructural labour of logistics: Circulation and the reproduction of racialised capitalism in Gauteng, South Africa
Zoom Link:
https://pari.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAocemupjouHNCjOa5qSDJoR88evM4G4ySW#/registration
This paper examines the spatial expansion of warehousing and logistics in Gauteng, South Africa. Logistics is constitutive of a reorganisation of capital investment, which has rewritten the landscape, shifting from production to distribution. Based on interviews with industry experts, warehouse and logistics workers and unions in and around greater Johannesburg, the paper examines the restructuring of investment, rescaling of space, and reorganization of the labour process and conditions of work in key firms involved in logistics in South Africa. It argues that these processes rely on exploiting this located infrastructural labour, which is mostly black and further invisibilised, reinforcing a long history of racist labour regimes in the country. Logistics
becomes a particularly vivid site for a conjunctural analysis of changing capital accumulation, the enduring exploitation of living labour, and powerful significations around new technology, development and the nation which undervalue and obscure black workers’ labour in a repetition of historical forms of racialised capitalism in South Africa now.
State of Local Government in Gauteng by Rashid Seedat
A multidisciplinary approach to the study of Urban Crisis: A focus on the City of Johannesburg
Attend online: https://pari.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIpc--vrTksGNaOd5KO-7vMmJKD9onC5ygV#/registration
Register to attend in-person: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqew6yHn-DCAs20s_WRkXyTdfSXGqWPwyCwXzGZySKuqR7ow/viewform
Background
The ‘State of Local Government in Gauteng’ is derived from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s seventh Quality of Life (2023/24) survey. It is one of the largest social surveys in SA that conducted about 14,000 face-to-face interviews in Gauteng to understand the dimensions of quality of life. The presentation will cover access and satisfaction with basic services; factors shaping satisfaction with government; participation in social and political life; and satisfaction with national, provincial, and local government – down to individual metro and local municipalities in the province.
08
Faces of the City seminar - Dr Mamokete Modiba
‘Township economies’: Uses, meanings and key debates in the Gauteng context presented by Dr Mamokete Modiba.
Online Event Details
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93840708080?pwd=SzN1aXk0dzdWbkN0L3l3NnJqZXRmUT09
Meeting ID: 938 4070 8080
Passcode: 918068
In South Africa's post-apartheid era, township economic development has gained significant political traction at various levels of government. The government has prioritised changing township development patterns from underprivileged settlements to liveable areas with economic activities. In the Gauteng province, township economic development is anchored by the Transformation, Modernisation and Reindustrialisation agenda championed by the Gauteng Provincial Government since 2014. Various strategic directions including the Gauteng Township Economies Revitalisation Strategy, Gauteng Township Economic Development Act and the Townships, Informal Settlements, Hostels programme have been adopted to intensify township economic development. These strategic directions exemplify the Gauteng Provincial Government’s agenda to reinvent townships as liveable and economically viable spaces. Based on documentary analysis, a limited number of interviews with government officials and workshops on township economic development in Gauteng, this GCRO Occasional Paper presents the multiple meanings of the terms ‘township’ and ‘township economies’, the township development challenge, key debates associated with township economic development and the implications these different meanings and debates have for framing government-led township economic development strategies in post-apartheid Gauteng.
01
Faces of The City - Multisectoral approaches as a tool to determine the impact of social determinants of health: Linking SARS-CoV-2 wastewater and clinical epidemiology with socio-economic indicators spatially
Online Event Details
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93840708080?pwd=SzN1aXk0dzdWbkN0L3l3NnJqZXRmUT09
Meeting ID: 938 4070 8080
Passcode: 918068
This presentation will first discuss the process of developing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding diseases. Second, we will discuss the relationship of SARS-COV-2 clinical testing and socio-economic parameters. Last, we will show how environmental surveillance can be used as a tool to monitor disease in urban populations.
Speakers biography:
Gillian Maree is a GCRO Senior Researcher with more than 20 years’ experience in urban environmental planning, governance and sustainability. Her research interests lie at the intersection of research and policy-making, and her work focuses on water security, water governance, environmental surveillance and urban environmental planning.
Fiona Els has a foundation in biological and environmental sciences, with academic qualifications including a BSc in Biological and Environmental Science, a BSc Hons in Aquatic Health Science, an MSc in Biochemistry, and an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She gained valuable experience in respiratory diseases while working at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) for 3 years and has contributed to the field through several publications. Currently, Fiona works as an epidemiologist on the
Seweresheds Project at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), in collaboration with Centre for Vaccines and Immunology at the NICD on efforts to enhance disease prevention and control using wastewater surveillance.
01
A demonstration on using data to build trustable and developmental public procurement systems
The use of data in building procurement system is an evolving and dynamic field internationally. In the Gauteng Province the process is emerging one, with the identification of three objectives for procurement reform (viz. 1. Ethical transactions 2. Supporting public procurement reform and 3. Ensuring that procurement opportunities are available to businesses in deprived areas). The current procurement systems are in consistent reform process and the GCRO advocates for a proposal based on using open-source software and focusing on business processes. The workshop will demonstrate a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and share resources for replication in the developing world. In addition, the potential for using algorithms to monitor procurement will be discussed.
Research Colloquium - Township Economies: Uses, Meanings and Key Debates in the Gauteng Context.
Presentation of research findings by Dr Mamokete Modiba, Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)
GTAC 2024 PUBLIC ECONOMICS CONFERENCE
This year's Public Economics Conference will explore how technology & data can optimise government service delivery. Exciting developments are happening both locally & internationally in various government departments. #GTACPEC2024
This year's theme, “Technology and Data for Enhanced Service Delivery” promises to deliver groundbreaking insights and transformative discussions on how government can use data to improve decision-making and foster growth.
The dynamic three-day event features experts from across the globe who will be discussing digital transformation, digital inclusion, and digital dividends.
Keynote by Professor Melanie Garson
Hear from the expert at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and University College London on "A Resilient Government for the 21st Century."
Digital Access and Inclusion
Exploring the reality of digital access and inclusion in a developing country.
Data Analytics and Digital Platforms.
Learn how these tools connect governments with citizens, taxpayers, and service users.
Revolutionary Case Studies
See how emerging technologies are transforming education and healthcare.
Don't miss out!
View the full programme and get more information HERE:lnkd.in/dkQY_T3b
05
Reality check: is South Africa’s climate change adaptation plan fit for purpose?
In this science-policy dialogue, The Conversation Africa brings together leading researchers, and policymakers to discuss the government’s plan and whether it is still fit for purpose. Register to attend here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fZPfLB-oSkWXn9qPqvgiLQ#/registration
Faces of The City - 'Urban Power: Democracy & Inequality in Sao Paulo and Johannesburg'
Please join us for the next Faces of the City series - Urban Power: Democracy & Inequality in Sao Paulo and Johannesburg.
About the author:
Benjamin Bradlow is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, appointed in both the Department of Sociology and the School of Public and International Affairs.
Online event details:
Zoom Meeting ID: 938 4070 8080
Passcode: 918068
To attend in person at PARI offices contact: federicad@pari.org.za
Off-Grid Cities and the Governance of the Just Urban Transition
Join us on the 22 July 2024, from 10am-12pm for a thought-provoking online Knowledge Exchange Event on "Off-Grid Cites and the Governance of the Just Urban Transition" co-hosted with the South African Cities Network University of the Western Cape Politics and Urban Governance Research Group (PUG)
For more information and registration, please see below
20
National Essay Writing Competition Against Racism
The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation is organizing a National Essay Writing Competition Against Racism to empower young voices in the fight against racism. With support from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Foundation, in partnership with the GCRO, will publish a collection of the top 10 entries from the 2023 competition in the categories of essays, poems, and artwork. RSVP to attend here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfI4w-cZEHtMzidnDhrCEpWi2MidA7kYV4GMRc8afFlEoH5AQ/viewform
GCRO Live - Tackling Race & Class in Gauteng
This Occasional Paper analyses racial segregation and socio-economic sorting in Gauteng at the microscale. The three inquiries highlight continued segregation, but also nuances like desegregation in the Gauteng province at various macro- and microscales. Register to attend here
Access the paper: An analysis of microscale segregation and socio-economic sorting in Gauteng | GCRO
05
Empowering Smart Cities Redefines Urban Development Through Public Private Partnerships and Innovations
Today, cities grapple with formidable challenges, from climate change and the digital divide to social injustice and inequality. "Empowering Smart Cities" introduces a groundbreaking approach to addressing these issues through Community-Centered Public-Private Partnerships (CP3). Join this upcoming webinar hosted by the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation to explore this book, which serves as a comprehensive guide for policymakers and stakeholders seeking actionable solutions to urban challenges.
The Webinar will include the following speakers:
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory- Graeme Gotz
Marshall Plan MA- Grant Ervin
Smart Docklands- Darach Mac Donncha
Hull Net Zero- Louise Smith
Andrea Fernandez
Debra Lam
22
SARChI Chair in Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability 4th Annual Prestige Lecture 2024
Join Dr. Richard Ballard as he breaks down the complex and multidimensional process of urban spatial transformation in South Africa. Gain valuable insights into this critical issue and enhance your understanding of the factors that contribute to it. Don't miss out on this enlightening lecture!
GCRO Brownbag Seminar - Inside Out: Photography from Lister Building, Inner City of Johannesburg
This seminar on inner city photography will have a presentation from Alastair Mclachlan who has photography work conducted in Johannesburg.
23
FACES OF THE CITY - TWO PART SEMINAR
Please join us for the next two-part seminar in the Faces of the City series - Statistical surprises: Key results from Census 2022 for Gauteng presented by Graeme Gotz and the second presentation titled Thirty years of democracy in South Africa: Witnessing freedom and development in the Gauteng City-Region by Rashid Seedat.
Online event details:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/95400916436?pwd=NGRzbzgvUUJucTdCRnZJa21UVGUrZz09
Meeting ID: 954 0091 6436
Passcode: 547224
Abstract 1 by Graeme:
Census 2022 was conducted nationally by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) starting in February 2022, and the results were released on 10 October 2023. A week after the Census 2022 numbers were released, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory published an initial analysis of the data in a Rapid Research Paper titled 'Statistical surprises: Key results from Census 2022 for Gauteng'. The paper highlighted that unlike previous census results, which seemed to simply confirm what was already well known from other available data, Census 2022 results offered some real surprises. Some of the data, especially on population growth, changes in certain age categories, the presence of migrants, the drop in the percentage in informal housing, and attainment of post-schooling qualifications, amongst others, seem bewildering. They speak to trends that confound expectations. While various commentators have questioned the validity of the numbers, pointing in particular to the large undercount, it is worth noting that the 2012 census was conducted in a time of crisis – the tail of the COVID pandemic, the aftermath of the July 2021 violence, a growing wave of infrastructure failings, and governance instability at the local level. It is not impossible that these ruptures are indeed reshaping Gauteng in dramatic and unexpected ways. This presentation briefly reflects on what Census 2022 seems to say about development and change in Gauteng, with some comparison to other key population centers elsewhere in South Africa.
Abstract 2 by Rashid:
Three decades have passed since 27 April 1994, when millions around South Africa cast their ballots that signalled the advent of democracy in South Africa. As we look back at 30 years of freedom, we cast our eyes on the progress that has been made in attaining our fundamental human rights. Nobel laureate and eminent scholar Amartya Sen (2000:10) argues in Development as freedom that “freedoms are not only the primary ends of development, they are also among its principal means". Different kinds of freedoms – political, social and economic – reciprocally strengthen one another and create the underlying conditions for development. This idea was implicit in various foundational policies and laws issued in the early years of democracy, notably the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and the 1996 Constitution. They linked the attainment of democratic political rights with addressing socioeconomic conditions, in line with Sen’s dialectic of freedom and development. This presentation reflects on key spatial, political, social, environmental and economic developments we have witnessed in the Gauteng City-Region over the last three decades. It does not purport to be an integrated comprehensive analysis or a summary scorecard of achievements and challenges; rather, through a review of selected highlights, it offers a perspective on the complexity of the changes that have occurred.
Speaker biographies:
Rashid Seedat is the Executive Director of the GCRO. Rashid joined GCRO in June 2021 from the Gauteng Office of the Premier (OoP), where he worked since 2011 as the Head of the Gauteng Planning Division. Here he was responsible for strategic, spatial and infrastructure planning, as well as performance monitoring and evaluation for the Gauteng Provincial Government. From 2016, he also headed the Delivery Support Unit in the OoP, designed to set priority targets and accelerate delivery across provincial departments. In this capacity as a senior provincial official, Rashid has had a longstanding relationship with the GCRO as a previous Board member.
Graeme Gotz is Director of Research at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, where he works with a team of researchers to define and drive the research agenda of the GCRO. Until June 2009, Graeme was a Specialist: Strategy & Policy in the Central Strategy Unit, Office of the Executive Mayor, at the City of Johannesburg. He developed a number of strategies including the 2006 Growth and Development Strategy and the 2007 Inner City Regeneration Charter. Graeme’s academic work focuses on city development and urban renewal, urban economic development, local government, government strategy, intergovernmental relations and state theory.
17
Launch of two books on the afterlives of mining extraction in Gauteng
Please join GCRO's Ngaka Mosiane, Guy Trangoš, and the authors to discuss Gabrielle Hecht’s Residual Governance and Potšišo Phasha’s A City on a Hill. The In-person event will be hosted at WiSER, 6th floor, Richard Ward Building, East Campus, Wits University.
Please RSVP to: Najibha.Deshmukh@wits.ac.za (by 10 April for catering purposes).
Mediated Conversation: Draft White Paper on Human Settlements
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory is hosting a mediated conversation on the Draft White
Paper on Human Settlements (published for public comment on 18 December 2023). This conversation will discuss the main features of the White Paper and gather insights from experts in academia and civil society. The Gauteng City-Region Observatory will publish a summary of the major threads across available submissions to the Department of Human Settlements on its website.
Launch of 2 books on urban governance
The School of Architecture and Planning at Wits, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, and Wits University Press, invite you to the launch of two books on urban governance.
– Governing Complex City-Regions in the Twenty-First Century: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. By Philip Harrison
– Housing in African Cities: A Lens on Urban Governance. Edited by Margot Rubin, Sarah Charlton & Neil Klug
Wednesday, 6 March 2024, 16:00–18:00
Venue: Breeze Block Café, 29 Chiswick St, Brixton, Johannesburg
Please RSVP by Monday 4 March to info.witspress@wits.ac.za
Roundtable: GCRO-High Level Committee on Urban Planning, India
The Government of India's Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has invited Executive Director Rashid Seedat to participate in a technical roundtable to discuss the work of the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). The roundtable has been organized following engagements held towards the end of last year with staff and students from CEPT University. The students had attended a summer school hosted by the Urban Planning Department at the University of Johannesburg.
The organizers of the roundtable have extended invitations to several key Indian state governments to participate in a discussion concerning Urban Observatories, such as the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). The primary objective of the discourse is to unpack the need, structure, and key activities of these observatories. It is expected that this platform will facilitate a comprehensive examination of the subject matter and enable the participants to share their insights, experiences, and recommendations. The purpose of this event is to foster a better understanding of the role that Urban Observatories play in promoting urban development and to identify potential areas of collaboration among stakeholders.
01
Faces of the City Seminar | ‘Global China’ (un)scripted. Towards a relational approach of urban shifts in Southern Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - '‘Global China’ (un)scripted. Towards a relational approach of urban shifts in Southern Africa' presented by Romain Dittgen
Online event details:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
The emergence (and expansion) of varieties of ‘global China’ in Southern Africa has not only gained traction in terms of geopolitical, socio-economic, and cultural perspectives, but has also been coupled with a varied spatial manifestation. Particularly visible in urban environments, Chinese investments, entrepreneurship, and a multifaceted presence have contributed towards shaping the morphology of the urban fabric at different scales. However, whether knowingly or subconsciously, ‘Chinese spaces’ often end up being framed as exotic, different, and operating in parallel to the host society. This has also largely been reflected in scholarly work, where analytical framings of difference and othering, as well as fixed associations with certain imaginaries have been privileged. This paper aims to disrupt this predominant script. Drawing on fieldwork in Johannesburg and Lusaka, alongside a joint method of un-writing and writing anew, it explores how the spatial translation of Chinese capital, people and ideas has become entangled in a much wider and complex reality of urban change in these two cities. This work has been part of a larger research collaboration with the late architect Dr. Gerald Chungu and photographer Mark Lewis.
Speaker biography:
As a human geographer by training, Romain Dittgen is interested in questions of urban change, both through the lens of materiality and forms of living together, as well as in the interplay between city-making and migration. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning (Utrecht University) and a research associate at the Centre for Asian Studies in Africa (University of Pretoria).
Faces of the City Seminar | Gender and the City: modes, methods and means: reflections from the Gender Urban Research Workshop
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Gender and the City: modes, methods and means: reflections from the Gender Urban Research Workshop' presented by Margot Rubin
Online event details:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
The study of gender in urban environments is a key and rising concern for policymakers, practitioners and academics alike; finding new ways to engage with questions lying at the intersection of these issues is imperative to discover new ways to address existing challenges, develop new conceptual tools to understand and explain contemporary phenomenon and train new generations of researchers keen to engage with these questions. A hybrid workshop was held on the 6th and 7th July at Cardiff University, in partnership with the NRF SA&CP and the GCRO. The intention was to provide immersive experiences as well as papers and posters on the topic. Researchers from across the Global North and Global South attended and gave insights into innovative and exciting practices that are being carried out in a range of urban environments. This session will offer some sense of the themes and debates that took place during the workshop and will identify areas for productive discussion and directions in the future. It will also argue for the value of North/South and South/South and inter-disciplinary engagement.
Speaker biography:
Margot Rubin is a lecturer in Spatial Planning at the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University and guest lecturer at the School of Architecture and Planning, and a research associate with the Gauteng City Region Observatory. Recently, she co-edited the volume Densifying the City? Global Cases and Johannesburg and Housing in African cities: a lens on urban governance. Her research focuses on housing and urban governance in the Global South. She has been writing about inner-city regeneration and housing policy, and is currently engaged in work around mega housing projects and issues of gender and the city.
Gender and the City: Urban and Gender Research Methods Hybrid Workshop
Cardiff University, the University of the Witwatersrand (NRF Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning), and the Gauteng City Region Observatory invite proposals for a two-day hybrid workshop exploring methodologies that study gender in urban environments. The workshop will be an immersive experience, allowing participants to experience the diverse methods used to engage with the intersections of gender and urban research.
The study of gender in urban environments is a key and rising concern for policymakers, practitioners and academics alike; finding new ways to engage with questions lying at the intersection of these issues is imperative to discover new ways to address existing challenges, develop new conceptual tools to understand and explain contemporary phenomenon and train new generations of researchers keen to engage with these questions. The workshop welcomes attendance from researchers across the Global North and Global South to further build on an existing network of people who are interested in, and working on, these issues.
As such, we welcome two kinds of proposal: one for attendees and one for presenters:
i) Attendee: please submit a 200-300 word abstract demonstrating your research interests and the commitment to produce something for the event either a poster or a short piece of writing for comment or feedback;
ii) Presenter: please provide a 400 word abstract detailing your research, and outlining how you would conduct a session to introduce people to your method. We are looking for creative practices and innovative methods but are open to digital research, ethnographic work, or any other method that you have used or are currently engaged with.
Please note that even though the event is hybrid, the number of people attending both online and in person will be restricted to ensure that we can maximise engagement and learning.
The event has no registration fee and lunch and teas are provided, but attendees will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation.
There is also a strong possibility of developing a special issue on the topic and a few journals have already expressed their interest.
All abstracts need to be submitted to RubinM@Cardiff.ac.uk by the 5th May 2023, for any queries, please use the same email address.
Faces of the City Seminar | A society in fear? Socioeconomic, demographic, and spatial correlates of feeling (un)safe in Gauteng, South Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'A society in fear? Socioeconomic, demographic, and spatial correlates of feeling (un)safe in Gauteng, South Africa' presented by Dr Pedzisai Ndagurwa & Ms Shamsunisaa Miles-Timotheus
Online event details:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Fear is an unpleasant emotion from the perceived threat of danger, pain, or harm. It has been a constant feature in the history of human populations. In some cases, it is caused by oppressive governments as in the case of South Africa’s apartheid era. In other cases, a general lack of social integration (mechanical solidarity) of individuals in a society. The fall of apartheid, which in all appearance signified a break from the vices of state-induced terror, ought to have heralded a new era free from fear. To most of the population, freed from the shackles of the pass laws’ dompas, restrictions on access to the productive and reproductive social, economic, political, and cultural spaces, opportunities, and rights among other state-induced vices, 1994 presented the best prospects of a fear-free future. However, fear persists in the population of South Africa more than 25 years into democracy as many citizens feel unsafe. The objective of this study was to investigate the correlates of feeling (un)safe in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The study employed descriptive and multivariable random-effects linear regression techniques to analyse data from 15 502 respondents from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s (GCRO) Quality of Life (QoL) survey 6 (2020/21). The results of the study showed that living in a low-income neighbourhood, being female, having no education, being in a nonmarital relationship, being single, living in City of Johannesburg, Merafong, Mogale City and Rand West municipalities, and living in an area with at least one defined major socioeconomic problem were associated with significantly lower levels of feeling safe. The study recommends that addressing the main sources of fear is essential to achieving feelings of safety in Gauteng and South Africa at large.
Speaker biographies:
Dr. Pedzisai Ndagurwa, Ph.D., MA, BSS, is a demographer and currently senior
researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). Ndagurwa leads the Understanding
Quality of Life research theme at GCRO. His research interests are in fertility, family and household demography, reproductive rights and outcomes, public health, gender (in)equalities in education, and quality of life. Ndagurwa’s current research is focused on applying quantitative statistical techniques to understanding the socio-demographic, economic and spatial determinants of quality of life in the Gauteng province of South Africa.
Shamsunisaa Miles-Timotheus is a research intern at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). Shamsunisaa obtained her Master of Health Demography from the Department of Demography and Population Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2021. She also holds an Honours in Psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her main research interests are sexual health and quality of life within the South African context.
Faces of the City Seminar | Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies as a route to theorising smart urbanism and planning
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies as a route to theorising smart urbanism and planning' presented by Prof Nancy Odendaal,
Online event details:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
The planning theory literature has been largely silent about the interface between smart urbanism and planning. The focus has overwhelmingly been on technology as a means to achieve smoother planning processes and in many cases, broaden opportunities for collaboration and consultation. Little work has been done on theorising the substance of smart cities and their implications for planning practice. This paper is based on research that explores the interface between urban livelihoods and disruptive technologies in African cities. The findings are encapsulated in five propositions informed by postcolonial science and technology studies. This presentation will focus on these propositions and reflect on their implications for planning.
Speaker biography:
Nancy Odendaal is an urban planner and urban studies researcher that focuses on the interface between cities, infrastructure, and space. She is a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Cape Town, and is currently the director of the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics.
16
Faces of the City Seminar | Heaven on Earth? The peri-urban landscape as a residential alternative for low-income migrants in Kumasi, Ghana
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Heaven on Earth? The peri-urban landscape as a residential alternative for low-income migrants in Kumasi, Ghana' presented by Dr Dan Inkoom
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Within the context of rapid urbanization and acute housing deficit in many urban settlements in the “Global South,” the choice of residence of low-income migrants to the city has been a subject of general agreement. Lacking the gravitas as new arrivals, a plethora of studies have shown that slum settlements are the commonest choice of residence for low income migrants in cities. However, little is known about the peri-urban landscape as host settlements for low-income migrants. This paper explores the context, motivation and outcomes of migrant settlements in peri-urban areas in Ghana. Using a qualitative approach through in-depth interviews, the findings suggest that low-income migrants opt for a rent-free stay in uncompleted houses in peri-urban areas. Major reasons for this include affordability, space for dwelling and storage, as well as employment prospects especially in the construction sector. These reasons appear to offset major challenges low-income migrants face in such accommodation such as scanty supply of utilities including potable water and electricity.
Speaker biography:
Daniel K. B. Inkoom is a Professor of Planning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, and Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Institute of Planners (FGIP), a Commissioner on the National Development Planning Commission, (NDPC) of Ghana. He serves on the Board of Directors of Action Aid Ghana, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), and the Kumasi Institute of Energy and Environment (KITE). He teaches on the International Gestalt Organization and Leadership (iGOLD) Professional Programme based in the United States of America and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Southern Urbanism Masters Programme at the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His professional and research interests include urban environmental governance, sustainability, natural resources (land) management and spatial planning.
09
Faces of the City Seminar | Confronting Sound and Silence in Johannesburg’s Inner City
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Confronting Sound and Silence in Johannesburg’s Inner City' presented by Dr Brian Murahwa
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
This paper is developing in a context where there is an expanding geography of Pentecostal religion in the urban spaces of many of the cities of the Global South. With the growing geographies of Pentecostal religion, this paper argues that Pentecostalism’s materialisation in the urban breeds contestations over space with other actors who are actively involved in co-producing the urban. Employing a qualitative research design and seeing through the theoretical lenses of relationality, this paper uses Hillbrow, an old inner-city neighbourhood in Johannesburg as its reference point to illustrate how Pentecostal religion’s violent appropriation of the neighbourhood’s soundscape creates contestations over urban space. Sound remains one of the overlooked elements of reading into the imprints of city life and the general urban fabric. Approaching the city through a perspective that connects the religious and the aural, I move beyond seeing the city through the lenses of size, heterogeneity, and density. By carefully exploring the contestations associated with Pentecostal religion’s sonic sacralisation of the urban space, I propose a multi-perspective and interdisciplinary approach to understanding the contemporary realities of cities of the Global South, to envision the continent’s uncertain urban future and contribute towards new geographies of theories that draw upon urban experiences and everyday realities. This is critically important in contexts where there has been a perpetual neglect of the religious in analysing African urbanism(s). The study draws evidence from an immigrant-run Pentecostal church in Hillbrow to illustrate how its violent appropriation of the neighbourhood’s soundscape breeds contestations over urban space.
Speaker biography:
Dr Brian Murahwa is a postdoctoral researcher at the GCRO, an affiliate of the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies at the University of Johannesburg. He holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Witwatersrand, and his research explored the intersection of Pentecostal religion and urban space in the making of everyday city life in Johannesburg. An interdisciplinary urban researcher, his interests lie at the intersection of theory and practice in the fields of urban planning and management; migration; religious urbanism; urban sustainability and just transition(s).
02
Faces of the City Seminar | Spatial economic activity in the City of Johannesburg between 2011 and 2021
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Spatial economic activity in the City of Johannesburg between 2011 and 2021' presented by Ms Yashena Naidoo
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Remotely sensed imagery can be used in a number of ways, such as monitoring and detecting the changes in urban areas; being able to map and visualise urban areas at different scales is important in discerning how urban expansion is changing and affecting its surroundings. As it is not limited to geographical units or boundaries, it can be used to provide consistent coverage of the Earth's surface. This can provide an alternate source of information not only for the physical environment but also for socio-economic factors. For the developing world, using remote sensing and satellite imagery can help policy makers overcome data limitations that may hamper their ability to monitor development and natural resource use. In recent years, there has been increasing use of night time lights data to understand and quantify economic activity in urban centres. This is especially the case in the lack of consistent availability and generation of economic data needed to calculate variables such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added Product (GVA). It is not always reliable or accessible in countries that do not have effective systems and infrastructure to collect and disseminate such data. Given the South African urban context a significant proportion of economic activity is informal, unaccounted for in official economic measurements and therefore absent in national statistics. This project used night lights imagery over a 10 year period with available data on GVA to develop a machine learning model to predict economic activity at a fine spatial scale for Gauteng. This presentation will focus on the detailed level analysis of the data for the City of Johannesburg to understand patterns of economic activity over a 10-year period. The modelling and analysis that was done could help policy-makers better fill the gap when no data is available and visualise what changes are taking place, where and at what pace – and, in many cases help explain the ‘why’, in a way that informs better policies.
Speaker biography:
Yashena Naidoo is a junior researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory where her work focuses on data science and the use of data to understand urban issues. Her current research focuses on the use of spatial analysis and remote sensing techniques to broaden the understanding of the socio-economic realities in urban environments. GIS is an incredibly varied discipline and Yashena is interested in the use of data driven research that can inform policy. She also has a keen interest in the use of machine learning and analytics to leverage open data to produce quality predictions that can assist in better decision making. She obtained her Masters in Geoinformatics with distinction from the University of Pretoria
25
Faces of the City Seminar | Quality of Life in the Gauteng province of South Africa: Is the sex of the household head important?
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
'Quality of Life in the Gauteng province of South Africa: Is the sex of the household head important?' presented by Dr Pedzisai Ndagurwa, Tuesday 25 April 2023, 16:00PM - 17:30PM (CAT).
Abstract:
South Africa has made concerted efforts to eliminate inequalities in its population since the adoption of multiparty democracy in the year 1994. Several, deliberate social policies targeted at access to education, healthcare, employment, and state social grants have been adopted to drive the country towards equity and improve the quality of life of the previously marginalised segments of the population. The South African government has deliberately sought to fight gender inequalities and address disproportionate health, social, economic, and wellbeing outcomes that accrue from male-female asymmetries in the labour market as well as access to productive assets. However, inequality has remained a major problem in South Africa, including between males and females. The objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which the sex of the head impacts the quality of life of a household. The study analysed the 2020/21 Quality of Life (QoL) Survey VI conducted by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Multilevel linear regression with random effects at the ward and municipal levels, with interactions between the sex of household head and control variables (race, home language, number of adults in household and grant status), were applied to data obtained from 13 616 household proxy respondents. The results show that households headed by males had significantly higher QoL indices and that this was more pronounced in Afrikaans and English-speaking households. The study concludes that the sex of the household head is significantly associated with the QoL of households.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Pedzisai Ndagurwa, Ph.D., MA, BSS, is a demographer and currently senior researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). Ndagurwa leads the Understanding Quality of Life research theme at GCRO. His research interests are in fertility, family and household demography, reproductive rights and outcomes, public health, gender (in)equalities in education, and quality of life. Ndagurwa’s current research is focused on applying quantitative statistical techniques to understanding the socio-demographic, economic and spatial determinants of quality of life in the Gauteng province of South Africa.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
18
Faces of the City Seminar | An analysis of micro-scale social mixing in Gauteng
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'An analysis of micro-scale social mixing in Gauteng' presented by Mr Christian Hamann
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
South Africa has a long history of race and class segregation. All the while segregation and inequality are intricately linked and the effects of both processes result in spatial outcomes that are mutually reinforcing and which complicate spatial transformation. Local-level representations of social mixing is an important lens through which to view progress toward spatial transformation. Micro-scale investigations into the distribution of groups in Gauteng reveal how factors, like the property market and the character of neighbourhoods, influence the separation of different groups. This research asks and answers three questions with respect to social mixing in Gauteng. First, what is the nature of local boundaries between areas with little mixing? The local-level, data-driven analysis reveals that boundaries between areas with little mixing are significantly shaped by the character (including quality, quantity, and affordability) of the available housing stock. Second, does urban growth contribute to desegregation or does it perpetuate segregation? Areas of urban expansion tend to reproduce the racial diversity of the areas from which they expanded. However, public housing programmes and inclusionary housing policies hold significant potential for integration. Third, to what extent does racial mixing equate to socio-economic mixing? In racially mixed wards, the mean household income of the white residents is significantly higher than the mean household income of black African residents, signalling the relevance of class segregation. Patterns of segregation are significantly influenced by the nature of housing development and are continually reproduced by urban growth patterns, despite desegregation taking place in many former whites-only neighbourhoods in the province. Segregation in post-apartheid Gauteng remains intricately tied to the dynamics of inequality, and it is inequality that complicates integration and “true” spatial transformation. Even though opportunity might never be distributed equally, the exclusion of any particular group through segregation negatively impacts their access to opportunity.
Speaker biography:
Mr Christian Hamanna has a background in urban planning and human geography, Hamann does research on a variety of urban geography topics, including segregation and spatial transformation in the Gauteng City-Region as well as processes that enable social mobility. His applied geography research aims to inform urban policy development.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
04
Faces of the City Seminar | Envisioning a holistic approach and the integration of sustainable development goals into Land Use and Physical Planning in Lagos, Nigeria
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Envisioning a holistic approach and the integration of sustainable development goals into Land Use and Physical Planning in Lagos, Nigeria' presented by Dr Olubunmi Afinowi.
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
In general, land use and physical planning in Nigeria and Lagos, in particular, is characterised by the prescriptive and regulatory standards aimed at physical ordering and regulation of infrastructural and building development. The legal framework on physical planning in Lagos falls short of social, economic and environmental considerations, therefore has not been a viable tool to drive the sustainable development goals (SDGs) within the State. Further, the planning process neither integrates land use governance nor is it in line with collaborative governance principles, which would promote interrelationship between the levels of government. Based on both empirical and doctrinal data, the planning system is examined against the backdrop of SDGs 11 and 13, the need for climate action and general environmental wellbeing. It is found that planning law in Lagos is majorly procedural and is limited to physical planning and ordering of the built environment. It is also ineffective in engendering SDGs or climate action. Further, contrary to the acclaimed Lagos megacity status, the research shows that the unintegrated nature of physical planning hampers social, economic and infrastructural development within the State. In arguing for a holistic approach to planning, this research also posits that the decisions in certain landmark cases were missed opportunities for effective and collaborative action in physical planning within the State. Notwithstanding, a broader interpretation of the law would prove viable in climate action and an opportunity to engender the SDGs.
Speaker biography:
Dr Olubunmi A. Afinowi is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Private and Property Law, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos. Her areas of research include international environmental law, planning law and land governance, climate change law, and sustainable development. She holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town and her research was on the role of planning legislation in climate change adaptation in Nigeria and South Africa. Other areas of research interest include the conservation of natural resources in Africa and coastal governance in Nigeria. She teaches several courses, including International Environmental Law, Housing Law and Planning Law at both undergraduate and post graduate levels.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
28
Faces of the City Seminar | Urban policy in Brazil following the Temer-Bolsonaro disaster
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Urban policy in Brazil following the Temer-Bolsonaro disaster: possibilities and constraints' presented by Dr Edesio Fernandes
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679...
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Beginning in the early 1980s, for some three decades Brazil's "Urban Reform Movement" led to significant changes in the country's legal-urban order, thus allowing for the implementation of a range of progressive experiences of urban planning and management in several municipalities. The enactment of the celebrated 2001 City Statute was especially important, and some 1.500 Municipal Master Plans have been approved since then. However, 20 years on, while a comprehensive analysis of this process shows that the new legal principles have only been partly adopted by such municipal plans, at the federal level during the governments of both President Temer and President Bolsonaro (2016-2022) there was an aggressive and concerted effort to dismantle the progressive legal-urban order so as to facilitate the expansion of an unabashed neoliberal one. It remains to be seen if the recent election of President Lula will entail the revival of the Urban Reform Movement: the signals so far have been mixed.
Speaker biography:
Dr Edesio Fernandes, LL.M., Ph.D, RSA, is a London-based Brazilian legal scholar and urban planner. He works as a lecturer, writer and activist, and he is a member of DPU Associates and of the Teaching Faculty of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. In 2003, he was Director of Land Affairs at the then newly created Ministry of Cities in Brazil, and in that capacity he coordinated the formulation of the first National Programme to Support the Sustainable Regularizacion of Consolidated Informal Settlements in the country.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
Data Science Strategic Group| The value of urban data science
Dr Laven Naidoo and Graeme Gotz from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) present at the Data Science Strategic Group talk of 2023. Presentation titled 'The value of urban data science: current GCRO projects and future opportunities?'
You can join at the IBM Research Laboratory, 45 Juta Street, Braamfontein, or online
14
Faces of the City Seminar | The role of urban structure and geographic scaling in descriptions of imageability: the case of a South African township
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'The role of urban structure and geographic scaling in descriptions of imageability: the case of a South African township' presented by Dr Mawabo Msingaphantsi
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Literature on describing imageability distinguishes between two types of urban elements. Structural elements are more abundant and they frame the user’s experience of space, often by channelling movement and constraining what the pedestrian is able to see. Visual elements tend to be distinct and memorable but also tend to be fewer. If urban elements are different (structural or visual; concentrated or ubiquitous), their contribution to imageability may also be different. Our ability to describe the imageability of a place may therefore vary based on what elements we focus on. This paper applies two descriptions of imageability to the neighbourhood of Diepkloof Zone 5, part of a formerly black township in Johannesburg, South Africa. By comparing these descriptions, the paper examines (a) the extent to which structural and visual elements feature as factors of imageability; and (b) the impact of geographical scaling (dispersal and concentration of elements) on levels of imageability. The results show that street scenes contain more small elements than large elements. Furthermore, there are fewer places with concentrations of “meaningful” visual elements that act as cognitive landmarks. Instead, most places are characterised by a repetition of elements. Finally, the impact of structural elements increases when an environment has low legibility.
Speaker biography:
Dr Mawabo Msingaphantsi is a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), Johannesburg, where he teaches urban planning and run three design studios. He previously worked for the Gauteng Provincial Treasury, where he advised municipalities and departments on bid specification, evaluation and adjudication processes for infrastructure and human settlements related procurements.
He recently completed a PhD decertation on developing quantitative models for describing walkability and pedestrian behaviour. His other qualifications include a Masters in Urban Design and a Bachelor’s degree (Hons) in Urban and Regional planning. He worked in projects such as the Soweto Theatre Precinct and the non-motorised transport (NMT) component of the Tshwane BRT. Most recently, He was part of a cross-disciplinary team to put together an online course (MOOC) that introduces students to roles of the different professions in the built environment. The course is currently live on:
https://www.edx.org/course/what-do-architects-and-urban-planners-do
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
07 March FoC seminar presentation deck and zoom recording link
Presentation:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11nP6_PTuXmTlLILkW6tsPTQ6UMIlrFuD
Zoom recording link:
https://wits-za.zoom.us/rec/share/Zb1sBYAqonhrizUHfDEw7loMsKi3_fcXArNhFMSXJkDCvRJOgnT5o1KlNU7qMPsH.GvLuqp8hMiZLbLZ9
Passcode:%fzv@7z%
07
Faces of the City Seminar | The Government Employees Pension Fund and real estate, the latent state in our cities?
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'The Government Employees Pension Fund and real estate, the latent state in our cities?' presented by Dr. Sarita Pillay Gonzalez
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Based on insights from PhD research conducted between Bangalore and Johannesburg, the state is shown to intertwine with real estate in less obvious ways than as regulator. Among these less obvious ways is investment via pension funds – such as South Africa’s Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF). The role of the latter, which counts among the globe’s largest pension funds, in high-end commercial real estate can expand understanding of the state, property development, and pathways to pursue spatial justice. While providing an additional dimension to growing scholarship on the state’s relationship to real estate financialization, insights from Johannesburg and Bangalore also illustrate that the state’s relationship to real estate is multifaceted – developing an argument to conceptualise a polymorphic state in real estate.
Speaker biography:
Dr. Sarita Pillay Gonzalez is a lecturer in Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand. She recently completed her PhD through the School of Architecture & Planning at WITS. Her PhD thesis is titled The Polymorphic State & Real Estate: Rethinking the relationship between the state and real estate through Johannesburg & Bangalore. Sarita previously worked in spatial justice advocacy and popular education in Cape Town.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Please join us in person if you can. Should there be disruption on campus on the day of the seminar, we will send out a notification and offer the seminar fully online. Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed-in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network. We’re happy to report that we resolved the technical difficulties we faced with the first seminar in this quarter.
28 February FoC seminar presentation deck and zoom recording link
Presentation:https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1STslX-QuOkI54GfYsRXTgY17coM1kL48
Zoom recording link:
https://wits-za.zoom.us/rec/share/rC2F18slScMEAEAGV5CnUuS8fxIl2vaFYtrhoUdI7xM74w-pfl_v1dvpMwk8LCG2.PHUpq8yNpGCncDXG
Passcode: 49g%X1+M
28
Faces of the City Seminar | Equity, Evaluation, and South-South Cooperation: Water and sanitation in Maputo
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Equity, Evaluation, and South-South Cooperation: water and sanitation in Maputo', presented by Assoc Prof Gabriella Carolini
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
Is South-South Cooperation (SSC) any different from other international partnerships in practice? While straightforward, this question often gets lost in conventional scholarship on SSC and international cooperation, which privileges macro-level narratives of how cooperation mechanisms fit within geopolitical concerns and shape the outcomes of foreign aid. In this presentation, I offer an answer from the ground up based on research from my book, Equity, Evaluation, and International Cooperation: In Pursuit of Proximate Peers in an African City. The presentation will highlight two main lessons from the close examination of the ecosystem of international cooperation projects in the urban water-and-sanitation sector in Maputo, Mozambique.
Speaker biography:
Gabriella Y. Carolini is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and International Development in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also leads the City Infrastructure Equity Lab. Her teaching and research focus on equity in the governance of infrastructure development across cities in the Americas and Africa.
Hybrid event details:
Venue: Postgraduate Seminar Room, basement, John Moffat Building
Due to construction, the basement can only be accessed through the John Moffat Foyer, via the fishpond area. Once in the foyer, take the round stairs to the basement and turn right through the red double doors. The PG Seminar Room is the glassed in space right ahead. The PG Seminar Room has a facility that allows us to blend in an online audience and when necessary online speakers but giving those in the room the opportunity to meet and network.
21 February FoC seminar presentation deck and zoom recording link
Presentation: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1SERVV4RPaRlLLb2NL1HyiWkoWpRJGm0Y
Zoom recording link:
https://wits-za.zoom.us/rec/share/lPlvOfZ99LccsWScP0FjOCeiB7qhn9sR1ONwZw3RIOM79LkPzMFaFjDUNKcqxG_h.yacVKUqOif8ugc-H
Passcode: me?ay2?#
21
Faces of the City Seminar | People’s perspective of participation in local infrastructure and housing provision in Bram Fischerville
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'People’s perspective of participation in local infrastructure and housing provision in Bram Fischerville' presented by Katrin Hofer
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/97943785679?pwd=TkF3M0ZjU0tJSzhwam54Q203NUx4Zz09
Meeting ID: 979 4378 5679
Passcode: 255365
Abstract:
This presentation is based on a research project, which explores people’s perspective of public participation in local infrastructure and housing provision, by combining insights from a factorial survey experiment (n=502) and group interviews with residents of Bram Fischerville, a low-income residential area in Soweto.
Preliminary results indicate that people show overall strong support for (state-led) participation in local infrastructure and housing provision. Yet, findings also show that residents of Bram Fischerville largely feel disillusioned and neglected by the state, as they face many economic, social and infrastructural challenges. Rather than being involved in planning, people express a preference for contributing to local development through physical – and paid – labour. Thereby opportunities for local employment and skills development are also portrayed as a way of feeling ‘seen’ by the state, and as a way of making an active contribution to the improvement of their areas. Unpacking the link between local (infrastructural) development, economic opportunities and the citizen-state relationship further, this research argues that in a context of high levels of unemployment and economic deprivation, opportunities for paid labour and skills development should be considered as a link between public participation and local infrastructure and housing provision and recognised as a key element in shaping people’s relationship with the state on the ground.
Speaker biography:
Katrin Hofer is a PhD Candidate at the Spatial Development and Urban Policy Research group, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Currently, she is based at CUBES at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research explores the theoretical and practical applications of public participation in planning, with a particular focus on public participation in local infrastructure and housing provision in urban South Africa.
QSSR Seminar Series | Collecting Social Data on Sex, Gender and Sexualities: Experiences in Fields
Online registration link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtdu2gqj0sH9WX00JSq2XULs4cYAEGcxwH
The online four-part seminar series, put together by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, in collaboration with Social Impact Insights Africa and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender brings together researchers from various disciplines, official statistics units, government, civil society, activists and LGBTIQ+ organisations to unpack the value and challenges of using queer lenses in social survey development.
The first two editions unpacked the importance of collecting sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data, the dangers of ignoring the SOGI variables and the challenges and best practices of capturing complex identity phenomena in social surveys. The third edition, happening on 03 November 2022, covers the practical side of the conversation, and our Speakers will share their experiences on designing and implementing a survey that includes SOGI variables, methodological approaches around sampling, data collection and weighting, ethical considerations in response to SOGI and some analysis of survey data.
Speakers:
- Dr Benjamin Roberts, Research Director and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey at Human Sciences Research Council.
- Mpho Buntse, Executive Director at the South African Higher Education Queer Alliance.
- Sthembiso Pollen Mkhize, Junior Researcher and Co-Investigator of the Quality of Life Survey at Gauteng City-Region Observatory.
25
Faces of the City Seminar|Everyday Resistance: theorising how the 'weak' change the world
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Everyday Resistance: theorising how the 'weak' change the world' presented by Dr Richard Ballard
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Abstract:
This presentation is based on a chapter written for the Routledge Handbook of Social Change. The text of the article is available here. The concept of everyday resistance became a major model of social change in the final two decades of the twentieth century. Its originator, James Scott, offered this theory as a corrective to the notion that subordinate people were passive. He asserted that oppressed people do have agency, that their agency can be individual rather than collective, that change is realised autonomously rather than through the state, and that the category of resistance is defined by the intentions of actors. Critical reactions to the concept argued that the effort to correct for the theoretical passivity of the poor had resulted in an overcorrection. It constituted a kind of wishful thinking, projecting a fantasy of resistance onto research subjects. Furthermore, the model of everyday resistance did not satisfy those seeking a more collective and institutionalised responses to injustice. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, academic interest in the everyday has been widespread, although is less invested in whether or not it qualifies as resistance. In aggregate, this field draws our attention to debates about the origins of consciousness and intention, the relationship between intentions and actions taken, and their intended and unintended consequences.
Speaker biography:
Dr Richard Ballard is a Principal Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (a partnership between the provincial government of Gauteng, the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand) and a visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He is a geographer with a focus on social and spatial transformation in South Africa.
QSSR Seminar Series | Capturing the Complexities of the Entire Population: LGBTIQ+ Specificities
Online registration link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtdu2gqj0sH9WX00JSq2XULs4cYAEGcxwH
Description: The online four-part seminar series, put together by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, in collaboration with Social Impact Insights Africa and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender brings together researchers from various disciplines, official statistics units, government, civil society, activists and LGBTIQ+ organisations to unpack the value and challenges of using queer lenses in social survey development.
Considering the challenges of capturing complex identity phenomena in many population-level surveys that have been conducted in Africa, including South Africa, the second edition of the seminar series covers topics on how to ask about sex, gender and sexuality using relevant language, ethical issues around asking about sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in social surveys, the relationship between legal status and self-identity, the role of local naming systems in framing the world as binary, the relationship between inclusion in population studies and specific targeted studies, and local specificity of SOGI labels.
Main question: How do we capture complex identity phenomena in social surveys?
Speakers:
- Carla Sutherland, Director at Justice Work based in the United States of America and was the Principal Investigator of Progressive Prudes commissioned by the Other Foundation in South Africa.
- Sakhile Msweli, Clinical Psychologist at KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health.
- Niel Roux, Director of Service Delivery Statistics at Statistics South Africa.
- Eric Ndawula, Executive Director at Lifeline Empowerment Center based in Uganda.
18
Faces of the City Seminar| Landscapes of peripheral and displaced urbanisms
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Landscapes of peripheral and displaced urbanisms' presented by Dr Ngaka Mosiane
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Abstract:
This seminar provides an opportunity for a comprehensive presentation of the GCRO research report on the landscapes of peripheral and displaced urbanisms. The report examines how the ordinary people of the northern Gauteng city-region are reshaping their lives and remaking their places. It employed multidimensional research methods; using qualitative interviews, secondary materials as well as archival records and oral histories. While cautious of the if-then syntax these methods entail, the research also used survey and spatial data to explain ordinary people’s resourcefulness as they adapt to, rework, or even overcome their marginalisation. It argues that while the Gauteng city-region (produced by the body) structures everyday practices and social identities; ordinary people’s sensual qualities, their rationality, and memories of their past constitute for them the resources to continually explore and reproduce their landscapes.
Speaker biography:
Dr Ngaka Mosiane is a Senior Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory. He uses livelihoods as a vantage point in reflecting on the ongoing changes in the Gauteng city-region. A theme related to this research is informal housing – how its research intellectual history, theory, and methodology have changed over time; and its future directions. Ngaka’s new research interests relate to the Gauteng city region mining-industrial nexus – their downscaling, closures, and remediation.
11
Faces of the City Seminar | Beyond informality: A case for revisiting urban economies in Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Beyond informality: A case for revisiting urban economies in Africa' presented by Nadine Appelhans
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Abstract:
Urban and regional economics has described towns as concentrations of economic activity. It has been criticized for relying on theories based largely on urban development trajectories from Europe and North America and placing cities in competitive hierarchies. The resulting shift towards seeing cities as ‚ordinary‘ has produced a wider body of empirical work on the contingencies of African cities. Therein, urban economies are often studied through informality frameworks. However, these frameworks have limitations in describing the economic underpinnings to urbanisation and do not deliver on providing sustainable economic frameworks for urban development. Meanwhile, before a backdrop of ecological and socio-economic crises, urban development based on extractivism and resource exploitation has come under increased scrutiny and is countered in discourses on ‚the care economy‘, the ‚donut-economy' and ‚post-growth planning‘, or more specific to Africa in the discourse on ‚commoning‘. The presentation raises the question, how to academically engage with these emerging sets of knowledge in the light of economic pluralism in African cities. It marks the start of a research endeavour to conduct empirical research on diverse urban economies in the African context.
Speaker biography:
Dr Nadine Appelhans is a Senior Researcher at the Habitat Unit, TU Berlin and Scientific Coordinator of the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab. She received her PhD from HafenCity University in Hamburg in 2016. She has been a researcher at the Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) (2014-15), and a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund (2015-2021). Her research interests are urbanisation, informal urban development, and urban mobility studies. She has conducted empirical work in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Germany.
QSSR Seminar Series | Mind the Data Gap: LGBTIQ+ Inclusion in Social Surveys and the Impact on Policy
Online registration link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtdu2gqj0sH9WX00JSq2XULs4cYAEGcxwH
Description: The online four-part seminar series, put together by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, in collaboration with Social Impact Insights Africa and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender brings together researchers from various disciplines, official statistics units, government, civil society, activists and LGBTIQ+ organisations to unpack the value and challenges of using queer lenses in social survey development.
Considering the gaps and limitations of using a dichotomous ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ variable in many population-level surveys that have been conducted in Africa, including South Africa, the first edition of the seminar series unpacks issues ranging from the importance of collecting sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data, the dangers of ignoring the SOGI variables in social surveys, understanding the disciplinary lenses in relation to queer-spectrum data and the views regarding data gaps on the LGBTIQ+ population and the impact it has on policy.
Main question: Why is LGBTIQ+ inclusive data collection important and what are the risks and implications of not having such data?
Speakers:
- Rochè Kester, Director of LGBTQIA+ Desk at Gauteng Provincial Government Office of the Premier.
- Anthony Brown, Professor of Inclusive Education and Life Orientation at the University of Johannesburg.
- Cassandra Roxburgh, Transfeminine Journalist and Associate Editor at Minority Africa.
- Neo Nghenavo, Director of Gender and Marginalised Groups at Statistics South Africa.
20
Inaugural lecture of Prof. Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane
'Ubuntuising Planning in the Age of Urban Anxiety' presented by Prof. Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane
Online registration: https://wits-za.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xQaNdnJESDuIKnFcetodHQ
Description:
The dawn of democracy for South Africa in the 1990s carried the promise of a revitalisation and restoration of African thought systems. A deluge of African concepts/ expressions/metaphors such as simunye, masakhane, indaba, lekgotla, tswele pele, etc emerged marking a shift from apartheid towards post-apartheid planning systems. The concept of ubuntu entered this euphoria of political change with a resounding echo signifying a well-branded phenomenon geared towards reconstruction and provision of African solutions. Indeed, some disciplines such as education, governance, management, politics, philosophy have explored the implication of ubuntu to their social practices. However, planning is aloof towards this concept. It remains deeply invested with colonial meanings and significations at odds with the African context and its subjectivities. This paper seeks to discuss the concept of ubuntu and its multiple dimensions and potential impact on urban planning in South Africa.
13
Faces of the City Seminar: Public transport and urban mobility
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series - 'Public transport and urban mobility' presented by Geoff Bickford and Richard Worthington
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Abstract:
Public spending on public transport in Gauteng has not greatly improved use of or access to busses and trains, or facilitated formalisation of the combi-taxi industry.
Last year FES commissioned an overview study of available information, complemented by stakeholder interviews, as part of our Just Cities programme - an initiative that responds to ‘Smart City’ narratives that foreground hi-tech and market-driven visions of urban development, without confronting widespread inequality or advancing social justice. Drawing on studies such as the latest Quality of Life Survey by the Gauteng City Region Observatory and the National Household Travel Survey by StatsSA, the research finds that the highly fragmented funding and oversight of public transport interventions have yielded little improvement in mobility for the poor majority.
The FES advocates that public transport should be available as a public good, and the report argues that universally accessible, quality and safe public transport is not a ‘nice to have’, but has implications on the productive and reproductive spheres of our economy and lives. The recently announced Transport Authority of Gauteng should seek to advance just transport outcomes, informed by the detail of material realities, for example: Households with higher income, while spending more on transport, use only half as much of their monthly income on transport as low-income households, and spend far less time in transit. The report seeks to inform and stimulate engagement by and with stakeholders to advance just transport outcomes.
Speaker biographies:
Geoff Bickford is the founding director and lead consultant at Lively, a human-centred research, facilitation and design consultancy. Before founding Lively, he worked for seven years at the South African Cities Network where he led transport, municipal finance and built environment programmes. He holds over 10 years’ experience in the South African and African transport research and policy space and has worked across a broad spectrum of transport areas and contexts. He has extensive experience working with government and establishing policy relevant knowledge support. The focus of his work has been the promotion of spatial transformation. Holding a Masters Degree in Transport Studies, and a BSc (hons) in Urban and Regional Planning, Geoff has extensive research experience in the areas of transit oriented development, sustainable modal shifts and the institutional and stakeholder dynamics that inform transport decision making.
Richard Worthington is Programme Manager, Climate and Energy, at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung South Africa office. He has worked in the South African NGO sector on issues of social and environmental justice since 1996, having left South Africa after getting a BA degree at Wits in 1984. As a member of Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, Richard led the Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign in the late ’90s and from 2000 he led the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Partnership for eight years; in this capacity served for 5 years on the board of the international Climate Action Network (CAN). In 2008 he joined WWF-SA to manage the Climate Change Programme, until mid-2013. This was followed by a period of working freelance, before joining FES in 2018.
06
Faces of the City Seminar: Small-scale affordable rental housing
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City - 'Small-scale affordable rental housing: Moving from the low to the high road, Andreas Scheba and Ivan Turok (HSRC)'
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Small-scale affordable rental housing offers wide-ranging public benefits and opportunities to spur a post-Covid economic recovery. At the same time, its informal and unregulated character poses health and safety risks, impacts public service delivery, and inhibits sustainable densification of well-located neighbourhoods. Allowing business as usual risks pushing places onto a ‘low road’ of overcrowding, insecurity and instability. Experts, practitioners and city officials agree that a fundamental change in approach is required.
Recent civil-society and private sector initiatives have begun to improve the capacity of the sector, but urgent government action is needed to put small-scale rental housing onto a ‘high road’ scenario. This presentation offers new insights into the key barriers as well as the regulatory reforms, financial incentives and public support measures required to grow and formalise these investments. Drawing on rich empirical evidence from Cape Town, the paper highlights the diversity of small-scale developers, their differentiated needs and capabilities to grow and formalise, and the important role of the state in shaping urban development. We distinguish between incremental homeowners, debt-financed homeowners and micro-developers to demonstrate variations in the way township property developers operate.
Speaker biographies:
Dr Andreas Scheba is a Senior Researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council and a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Development Support, University of the Free State. He is also a Research Fellow at the UKRI funded Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods. After completing his PhD in Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester in 2014, he joined the HSRC in August 2015, where most of his research has focused on urban housing, spatial transformation and inclusive economies in South Africa and cities of the global South.
Professor Ivan Turok holds the South African DSI/NRF research chair in City-Region Economies at the University of the Free State. He is also Distinguished Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the international journal ‘Regional Studies’, and currently Editor of the journal ‘Area Development and Policy’ and ‘Development Southern Africa’. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow, UK. He was recently Chairman of the City Planning Commission for Durban. Ivan is an urban and regional economist/planner with over 30 years’ experience.
23
Faces of the City seminar: State of Cities Report 2021
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City - 'State of the Cities Report 2021' presented by Sithole Mbanga from the South African Cities Network
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Abstract:
Almost a generation since the 1998 White Paper on Local Government was adopted, discontentment with municipalities continues to grow, despite interventions from various quarters, including other spheres of government. The White Paper was an unwavering call to action at the local level, for municipalities to deliver basic services in an inclusive way, while contributing to economic growth, and preserving the country’s ecological inheritance.
For South Africa to attain the vision of developmental local government, so well-articulated in the 1998 White Paper, something must change. This fifth iteration of the State of Cities Report highlights how city governments are expected to deliver under difficult circumstances while operating in a mode of emergency governance. They are affected by successes and failures in other spheres of government and influenced by global phenomena, such as climate change, increasing urbanisation, economic downturns and corruption. The COVID-19 health emergency has added to the levels of complexity facing cities.
Yet, at the same time, the challenges facing cities offer an opportunity for improved collaboration and cooperation, and for finding a different way of doing things. Such an opportunity requires everyone to coalesce around a common progressive agenda that prioritises inclusive economic growth, a closer relationship between nature and humanity, and accountable governance, where no one is left behind. The insights contained in this report encourages a broad-based dialogue and influence the political agenda within local government while leveraging government’s robust policy frameworks to build and sustain cooperation within our cities for the improved wellbeing of all.
Speaker biography:
Sithole has been with the South African Cities Network (SACN) since 2002. He is arguably one of the most knowledgeable people in the country about the journey that our current system of local government has travelled, and particularly the evolution of our municipalities.
He has been a consistent advocate and informant of the urban development agenda for over a decade and has helped steadily grow the influence and contributions of the SACN to improving urban governance practice and analysis.
Sithole was previously the Local Government Coordinator at the National Business Initiative (NBI), was involved with conducting capacity building training in Municipal Service Partnership (MSP), and participated in the development of the then National Department of Local Government’s (DPLG) national policy on Integrated Development Planning (IDP). Sithole’s contributions are well recognized in political and technical circles in South Africa. Reputed for a “no holds barred”; creative and dynamic approach to tackling issues; he has been continually sought after to advise municipal and party leadership; contribute to various Boards e.g., Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) and South African National Parks (SANPARKS) and speak at various engagements. He has contributed to strategic processes in various sectors (cooperative governance, human settlements, The Presidency) and is a clear thought leader in the urban sector. He was also part of the South African Local Government Transformation Programme (LGTP) that pioneered the new system of local government in democratic South Africa and has served as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Pan African body of local governments, the United Cities, and Local Governments (UCLG) Africa.
Symposium on Spatial transformation and the Gauteng Spatial Development Framework Review
The GCRO, in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Urban Planning (Gauteng COGTA & Urban Planning), is hosting a one-day symposium on spatial transformation and Gauteng Spatial Development Framework (18 August 2022).
The symposium seeks to stimulate a wider discussion that may be mutually beneficial for both the final GSDF and for orienting future applied research on spatial transformation. The discussions will be led by officials driving the revision of the GSDF framework and by GCRO researchers who have recently published reports that provide insights or make arguments relevant to spatial transformation in Gauteng.
Draft Review of Gauteng Spatial Development Framework available here.
Venue: Ubuntu Council Chamber, Madibeng Building, UJ Kingsway Campus, Auckland Park (UJ main campus)
Please RSVP to info@gcro.ac.za by 12h00 on Monday, 15 August 2022
16
Faces of the City seminar - Understanding African Real Estate Markets
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City - 'Understanding African Real Estate Markets' presented by Aly Karam and François Viruly
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Sub-Saharan Africa is a large and diverse sub-continent comprising countries at different stages of property market development. These markets are characterized by complex formal as well as informal institutional arrangements. These informal markets are often juxtaposed against a sophisticated real estate market which attracts foreign and domestic institutional arrangements. In the past two decades, African real estate markets are rapidly maturing and creating the conditions for new investment opportunities. The growing investor interest in these markets has also increased the demand for a deeper understanding of the commercial and residential markets across the African continent. While several reports have dealt with aspects of property markets in Africa, there is no single publication that provides a comprehensive insight into these markets. This book attempts to fill this gap in the literature. The contributions in this book can be classified under several themes. The first theme deals with the broad and often unique characteristics of African property markets. The second deals with legal considerations, placing a focus on the legal frameworks that drive property markets in Africa. The third looks at the dynamics of both residential and commercial property markets. The fourth considers the adoption of technologies in Africa, and the final theme looks at real estate education across the African continent.
Speaker biographies:
Aly Karam is a visiting Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He earned the Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His research interests and publications extend to both the planning and the architecture disciplines. In architecture he publishes on marketing and on the use of IT in practice and its effect on the management of the architecture offices. His planning research and publications revolve around informality, land and real estate, housing policy and the housing process.
Francois Viruly is a property economist with over twenty years of experience in advising public as well as private entities. His research interests are in the fields of Urban Land Economics, Property Finance and Portfolio Management. He held the position of Chief Economist at the Chamber of Mines, Acting Head of Department in the Department of Construction Economics and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand and in 2011 was appointed as Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town. He is a regular industry speaker, and delivers courses for the South African Property Owner’s Association (SAPOA). He is a past president of the African Real Estate Society and is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyor’s (RICS). He has recently been appointed onto the RICS Sub-Saharan Africa Market Advisory Panel.
The transcalar politics of urban master planning: the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Africa presented by Sylvia Croese, Yohei Migauchi and Scarlett Cornelissen
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
This seminar sheds light on the growing, but understudied role of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in supporting the local production of master plans across the African continent as a tool for guiding long-term investments in urban development. To explore the multiple logics, actors and interests driving the conception, preparation and implementation of these plans, we approach JICA’s operations as a transcalar process, through which diverse investment, planning and governance arrangements involving different local and transnational actors are produced and mobilized. We illuminate these dynamics by building on an analysis of the history of Japanese development cooperation and drawing on case studies of JICA master planning in Malawi, Ghana and Tanzania. Taken together, these cases illustrate the significance of JICA’s role in shaping African cityscapes, albeit in highly context-dependent ways. In doing so, we provide an important entry point into the study of the deeply political nature and interests that underpin urban master planning in Africa, and the possibilities as well as limitations for urban transformation that urban knowledge transfer and development cooperation may engender.
Speaker biographies:
Sylvia Croese is an urban sociologist and a senior researcher at the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning at the School of Architecture and Planning of the University of the Witwatersrand and Research Associate with the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She has conducted extensive research on urban planning, politics and governance through the lens of housing, land, urban infrastructure and mobility. Currently, her research examines the transcalar workings of developmental policy circuits as part of the ERC funded comparative research project Making Africa Urban: the transcalar politics of large-scale urban development.
Yohei Miyauchi is a geographer and researcher at the Centre for Asian Area Studies, Rikkyo University, Tokyo. He received his PhD from Rikkyo University through his study on the urban rejuvenation project in the inner city of Johannesburg. He studied at Department of Anthropology, Rhodes University and stayed at the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies, Wits, as a visiting researcher in 2014. He also served as a special researcher at the Embassy of Japan in South Africa, Pretoria (2008-2011). He is currently studying urban environmental politics in South Africa and the construction of monuments in public space in the post-apartheid South Africa.
Scarlett Cornelissen is professor in the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University and director of the Stellenbosch University Japan Centre. Her research focuses on Japan’s diplomacy and economic relations with the African continent. She held visiting professorships with Kyoto University, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and the Institute of Developing Economies in Japan, and a fellowship with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is currently co-editor of Geopolitics and a former co-editor of the Review of International Studies.
Racial desegregation in Johannesburg, 1996-2011 presented by Emeritus Owen Crankshaw
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Racial desegregation in Johannesburg, 1996-2011 presented by Emeritus Owen Crankshaw
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
This presentation is based on Prof Owen Crankshaw’s recently published book Urban Inequality: Evidence, theory and method in Johannesburg. London: Bloomsbury Publishing (2022). Urban Inequality: Theory, Evidence and Method in Johannesburg: Politics and Society in Urban Africa Owen Crankshaw Zed Books (bloomsbury.com)
Instead of an abstract, we’d like to share a link to the following short article
https://theconversation.com/how-black-upward-mobility-fast-tracked-racial-desegregation-in-johannesburg-175177
Speaker biography:
Owen Crankshaw’s research addresses the urban studies debate on social polarization and professionalization in de-industrializing cities. Along with his postgraduate students, he has researched long-term trends in the patterns of employment and the changing geography of class and racial inequality in cities. This also entails studying the changing geography of housing inequality and its relationship to racial residential segregation. He has just completed a book entitled Urban Inequality: Theory, evidence and method in Johannesburg, which is to be published by Zed Press.
His recent publications on the topic of de-industrialization includes articles in Urban Affairs Review, Environment & Planning A (with Jacqueline Borel-Saladin), Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning (with Mighael Lombard) and Regional Studies. Crankshaw, O. (2012) ‘Deindustrialization, Professionalisation and Racial Inequality in Cape Town’, Urban Affairs Review 48(6), pp.836-862.
Crankshaw, O. and Borel-Saladin, J. (2014) ‘Does De-Industrialisation Cause Social Polarisation in Global Cities?’, Environment & Planning A 46(9), pp.1852–1872.
Crankshaw, O. (2017) ‘Social Polarisation in Global Cities: Measuring changes in earnings and occupational inequality’, Regional Studies 51(11), pp.1612-1621.
Lombard, M. and Crankshaw, O. (2017) ‘Deindustrialization and Racial Inequality: Social Polarisation in eThekwini?’, Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning 60, pp.221-233.
Practices of the state in urban governance. A view from post-apartheid South African cities presented by Mamokete Modiba & Darlington Mushongera, with Claire Bénit-Gbaffou
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
This seminar presents reflections on a forthcoming book : “Practices of the state in urban governance. A view from post-apartheid South African cities”, by two of its contributors, Mamokete Modiba and Darlington Mushongera, with the book editor, Claire Bénit-Gbaffou.
The book stems from an NRF research programme (Wits 2014-2018) which interrogated how cities are governed : what City officials do when they attempt to render cities more equitable and more just – what constraints they face, how they navigate the politics, institutional and socio-spatial constraints of the city. The post-apartheid moment in South African cities offered such a window from which to observe and analyse what is generally a « black box » in urban governance.
Rather than a presentation of each chapter, the seminar will take the form of a cross-cutting discussion, after a brief presentation of the book project and summary of the two contributors’ chapter: Mamokete Modiba’s on the daily urban management « work » performed by street trader organisations in relation to City officials in Gauteng, Darlington Mushongera’s on Johannesburg City officials’ practices in water policy framing, as framed by institutional, policy and bureaucratic apparatus. Each contributor will reflect on their theoretical approach, their methodological choices, and what their chapter contributed to illuminate on practices of the state in urban governance, in Johannesburg and elsewhere.
Brief presentation of the forthcoming book, edited by Claire Bénit-Gbaffou: Practices of the state in urban governance. A view from post-apartheid South African cities
The edited book explores state practices through the lens of city-making. It aims at opening what is a ‘black box’ in our understanding of urban governance, policy making and projects implementation – what City officials do and think when they aim at driving change in cities; how they shape policies and policy instruments to do so, navigating both internal (state apparatus, institutional, legal, political) constraints, and external (lobbies, movements, contestation or support) politics; how we understand and analyse state practices in a time where multiple rationalities clash and feelings of state arbitrariness, state capture or ungovernability prevail. Post-apartheid South African cities arguably offer an ephemeral lens through which this ‘black box’ can be opened, as social redress and urban change, “the will to improve” (Murray Li 2007), were part of the dominant public rhetoric, and a porosity between state and society (in particular universities) was encouraged. The book uses three approaches which structure its three sections: ethnography of the state (with former officials, embedded or engaged researchers writing about local state practices); analysis of policy instruments and their genealogy, apprehended from the margins of the state (Das and Poole 2004); and a multi-pronged analysis of the construction of municipal knowledge in its relation to state rationalities, interrogating its capacity to govern cities.
Speaker biographies:
Claire Bénit-Gbaffou is an Associate Professor in Planning, School of Geography, Planning and the Environment, Aix Marseille University, a researcher at MESOPOLHIS and a visiting scholar at CUBES. She has been based for a decade in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits, where she coordinated the NRF funded research programme “Practices of the state in urban governance”. She is interested in issues of local activism and urban change, has been working on urban politics, clientelism, community participation, and the governance of public space (street trading & public parks in Johannesburg), and more recently, how local officials deal with “wicked problems” in cities - with a particular interest for “activists in the state”.
Mamokete Modiba is a Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory. She holds a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, obtained in 2021, on the role of street trader leaders in urban governance using Gauteng metros as case studies with reflections from Ahmedabad (India). With a background in urban studies, her research interests include inclusive economies, urban governance, poverty, inequality and social change and spatial transformation. Her chapter in the book (part of section 2), based on her PHD, is entitled “Acting Like the State: Leaders’ Participation in Street Trade Management in the Gauteng City Region”, and explores, through the practicalities of trader leaders’ involvement in street trading management, informalisations and outreach of the state in the government of cities.
Darlington Mushongera is a Senior Researcher and theme leader for Poverty and Inequality at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). He joined the GCRO in August 2011 and defended his PHD on water governance in Johannesburg in 2022, using an Actor-Network theory approach. With a background in economics and urban planning, Darlington’s research interests include poverty and inequality, governance, policy planning, and methods of measuring development. His chapter in the book (included in section 3), based on his PHD, is entitled “Who is who in the Zoo?” An anatomy of water services governance in the City of Johannesburg, and explores how objectives of social justice seem lost in translation in the sedimented and overlapping instances and instruments of water governance.
Understanding voting patterns in the 2021 local government elections in Gauteng by Thembani Mkhize
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Understanding voting patterns in the 2021 local government elections in Gauteng
In the media, there have been numerous headlines portraying post-apartheid South Africa’s sixth municipal elections as the most disastrous elections - lowest voter turnout, highest loss of votes by main political parties - in post-democratic history. Indeed, the 2021 elections, especially on the surface, represent a dramatic shift in political sentiment, affiliations and identities in South Africa. A closer, more detailed look at voting patterns in South Africa (for instance, spatial analyses of voter distribution across space and a study of electoral trends over time) reveals more nuances to the issue than meets the eye. Using the case of Gauteng city-region - the smallest yet most populous and most diverse province in South Africa - the presentation is concerned with exploring the shift in political sentiments within Gauteng in the 2021 local government elections. It does so by analysing Proportional Representation (PR) votes won by each of the top political parties in Gauteng since 2011 as well as mapping the distribution of the PR votes in the 2016 and 2021 municipal polls using detailed dot density maps. I also focus on the spatial distribution of Gauteng’s registered voters who did not vote in the 2021 elections (registered non-voters) and attempt to provide an account of the low voter turnout in Gauteng. I do this by drawing on two recent surveys. The first is a telephonic survey aimed at unpacking the reasons for 2021’s low voter turnout in five of South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities. The second is the Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s (GCRO) Quality of Life Survey (QoL), which has been conducted every two years since 2009 and gives a unique perspective on changing political attitudes and perceptions in Gauteng. This data suggests that:
- The 2021 elections can be better understood in the context of a longer trajectory of declining public trust in, and plummeting levels of satisfaction in, all three spheres of government;
- In 2021, all dominant political parties saw no major gains at the expense of each other; rather, minority parties gained notably; and
- The biggest electoral success story in 2021 was ActionSA, a new political party that achieved substantial votes in suburban, township, informal and inner city areas.
By way of conclusion, the presentation considers the future implications of the political shifts seen in the 2021 local elections. It briefly discusses the possible impact of the results on the future South African polity, particularly the prospects for social cohesion.
Speaker Biographies:
Thembani Mkhize holds three qualifications from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg - a BSc in Urban and Regional Planning, a BSc (with Honours) in Urban and Regional Planning and a(n) MSc in Town and Regional Planning (in the field of Urban Studies). With wide research interests such as urban branding, municipal re-demarcation, urban regeneration, community participation and social cohesion (as a buzzword, concept and a policy objective), Mkhize’s interests revolve around processes at work in cities as well as their implications for governance and urbanity. A researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), Mkhize is currently leading a project on the politics and dynamics of street renaming in post-apartheid South Africa, with a focus on two Gauteng metropolitan municipalities (Pretoria/Tshwane and Johannesburg). The research touches on renaming motivations, processes, merits, shortcomings (including associated challenges), and implications for the urban and South African social fabric.
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Covid-19 as a window into the governance of the Province of Gauteng by Graeme Gotz and Philip Harrison
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/93584078767?pwd=VThtaGxWODZpSUI0Ukg0enh5eFZzdz09
Meeting ID: 935 8407 8767
Passcode: 797408
Covid-19 as a window into the governance of the Province of Gauteng
With the Covid-19 pandemic, critical questions have surfaced around the capacity of the state to respond with agility to the crisis, and to use the crisis in a transformational way over the longer term. We have explored these questions are addressed in a comparative study of the State of Kerala in India and the Province of Gauteng in South Africa, together with Dr. Rob Moore, and colleagues from India, Professors Tathagata Chatterji and Souvanic Roy. In this presentation we focus on the Gauteng story, although with limited reference to Kerala. While both territories showed significant agility in response to the crisis, Kerala strengthened its capacities in a way that Gauteng did not, and this had significant implications for the abilities of these government to both manage the pandemic and leverage the pandemic for longer term benefit.
Speaker Biographies:
Graeme Gotz is Director of Research Strategy at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, where he works with a team of researchers to define and drive the research agenda of the GCRO. He previously worked at the Central Strategy Unit, Office of the Executive Mayor, at the City of Johannesburg; as a research consultant specialising in local government and urban development; as a member of staff at the Graduate School of Public & Development Management (P&DM) (now the Wits School of Governance), at the University of the Witwatersrand; and as a researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS). Graeme’s academic work focuses on city development and urban renewal, urban economic development, local government, government strategy, intergovernmental relations and state theory.
Philip Harrison is the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning funded by the National Research Foundation and hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand. From 2006 to 2010 he was Executive Director in Development Planning and Urban Management at the City of Johannesburg. Prior to that, he held academic positions at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Natal. He also served as a He served as a member of the National Planning Commission in the Office of the President from 2010 to 2015, participating in the formulation of the National Development Plan. He has published widely in the fields of city planning and regional and urban development. His most recent book publication is the jointly edited Densifying the City: Global Cases and Johannesburg
Rebuild SA webinar: Rebuilding communities
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) have partnered to host a series of seminars under the theme ‘Rebuild SA’. This comes in the wake of the recent turmoil in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng; the devastating impact of COVID-19 on lives, livelihoods, and the functioning of government; the low economic growth that South Africa was experiencing before the pandemic, significantly exacerbated in 2020 and 2021; and the challenges the state has been facing generally in the aftermath of state capture.
Rebuilding Communities is the first of three webinars in the series. It explores some of the immediate causes and effects of the July 2021 events, in turn located in the frame of broader challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment, which have been cited as being at the root of a lack of social cohesion in South Africa. The discussion will be foregrounded by an understanding of what happened on the ground at the flashpoints themselves, in the run-up to, and during, the July turmoil, and what measures are in place to stem the violence.
Register here.
Please watch this web page for further details.
For more information, please also feel free to contact us on rebuildseries@gmail.com
Launch of the results from our Quality of Life Survey 6 (2020/21)
The GCRO invites you to the virtual launch of our 6th Quality of Life Survey 2020/21.
Youtube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSmVNRBRSjc
These results provide new insight into the overall wellbeing and quality of life of residents of Gauteng in late 2020 and early 2021. The findings cover a range of components shaping the overall quality of life, including the direct impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic and psychosocial conditions, socio-political attitudes and beliefs, and satisfaction with government.
The GCRO has run the Quality of Life Survey every two years since 2009, generating rich data that has informed policy, decision-making, and contributed to numerous academic publications. With a focus on quality of life and well-being, the survey has always been a profoundly human project.
The theme of our launch is the Human side of the Data. Our respondents generously shared their time, their thoughts, beliefs and insights, during a profoundly traumatic time. They have entrusted us with deeply personal information, to support efforts to improve the lives of people throughout the province. We invite you to join us as we share what we have heard.
The results of the 2020/21 survey will be launched by the Premier of Gauteng the Honourable David Makhura.
Responding to the Indifference of Infrastructure: Comparative Research in Johannesburg and Maputo
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Responding to the Indifference of Infrastructure: Comparative Research in Johannesburg and Maputo
Prof Sarah Charlton, Dr Margot Rubin & Dr Alex Parker
Tuesday, 7 September
16:00-17:30
Zoom link: https://wits-za.zoom.us/j/99054108867
Abstract: Governments in South Africa and Mozambique have made significant investments in transport infrastructure over the last decade but this has not always resulted in changes to transit patterns in the metropolitan areas of Johannesburg and Maputo. To understand how transport infrastructure is used by residents in these cities, this research examines the nuances of household mobility, access and decision-making in selected sites in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) and the Maputo Metropolitan Area (MMA), and locates these everyday and lived experiences relative to government transport plans and policies in each location. The study examines micro-dynamics of mobility at the household level in three neighbourhoods from each city-region and their relationship to the state invested macro infrastructure. At the household level, the mobility patterns of approximately 60 participants (10 in each neighbourhood) were tracked using a smartphone application. Participants were also interviewed and engaged through WhatsApp, a communication platform that allowed participants to share messages, audio recordings, photos and videos. The research contrasts these findings with an analysis of macro-processes, based on transport and planning policy reviews as well as interviews with key officials in transport and urban planning. Drawing on Lemanski’s (2019) concept of infrastructural citizenship, which focuses on the intersection of public infrastructure and human relations, the research shows how transportation planning comes into conflict with the ordinary spatial practices of people as they go about the routine activities of their everyday lives. By juxtaposing the differences between the micro-dynamics and macro-processes of transport, the study contributes to further understanding the paradox of infrastructure (Howe et al. 2016) by elaborating on an infrastructure of indifference and the mobility and immobilities it shapes.
Biographies:
Prof Sarah Charlton is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits University and has led its research centre CUBES. She has worked extensively in low-income housing including in local government and the non-profit sector. Her research focuses on housing policy and practice, state interventions in development, and people’s lived experiences of cities. She has a doctorate from the University of Sheffield, is a Research Associate of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits and co-editor of the book Politics and Community-Based Research. She serves on the boards of the journals African Studies, International Development Planning Review, and the International Journal on Homelessness.
Dr Margot Rubin, is an associate professor in the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, in the School of Architecture and Planning and a Research Associate with the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. Since 2002 she has worked as a researcher and policy and development consultant, focusing on housing and urban development issues, and has contributed to a number of research reports, book chapters and journal articles. Recently, she co-edited the volume, Densifying the City? Global cases and Johannesburg. In her work as the Research Chair, Margot has been writing about inner-city regeneration and housing policy and is currently engaged in work around mega housing projects and issues of gender and the city.
Dr Alexandra Parker is a senior researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, grounded in the disciplines of architecture and urban studies but with published scholarship in geography, media and cultural studies, feminist methodologies, identity studies, and visual representation and methods. Alexandra has an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on multiple research disciplines and theories and was awarded a Y-rating (awarded to promising young researchers) by the South African National Research Foundation in 2019.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
GCRO Provocation virtual launch: The greater Paris debate
Please join the GCRO for a virtual launch, where Alan Mabin will discuss his Provocation. The event will be held on 25 November 2020 at 13:00-14:00.
One of the core interests of the Gauteng City-Region Observatory is to interrogate the means through which a functionally integrated urban area can be governed as a city-region even though it straddles multiple jurisdictions. This is a consideration in many conurbations around the world, where fast growing urban areas are no longer aligned with territories of governance. Comparative studies are particularly instructive, in that they show us how other city-regions have grappled with the scale of governance.
This GCRO Provocation describes the context of the Paris region and the search, over several decades, for ways of institutionalising the region with its multi-layered forms of government. Throughout this period, different public, private and non-governmental actors widened and deepened public discussion. The Provocation considers how the Paris-region experience might inform the expansion of public discussion in the Gauteng City-Region, and suggests roles within this discussion for all stakeholders, including the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (which has already sponsored and produced relevant materials), businesses, not-for-profit organisations and government actors.
Click here to download the Provocation.
To receive online meeting details please RSVP to Ngaka Mosiane.
The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic: Webinar 4
This virtual webinar series is brought to you by the Gautrain Management Agency in partnership with the GCRO. The theme for this year's seminar is 'The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic'.
19 NOVEMBER WEBINAR 04
Public transport operations post-covid-19: Adaptability, coping capacity and finding the new normal.
14h00-15h30 SAST
The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic: Webinar 3
This virtual webinar series is brought to you by the Gautrain Management Agency in partnership with the GCRO. The theme for this year's seminar is 'The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic'.
11 NOVEMBER WEBINAR 03
Climate change and sustainability - the role of public transport in realising a greener future.
14h00-15h30 SAST
The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic: Webinar 2
This virtual webinar series is brought to you by the Gautrain Management Agency in partnership with the GCRO. The theme for this year's seminar is 'The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic'.
03 NOVEMBER WEBINAR 02
Financing public transport when government budgets ore severely constrained , looking at innovative alternative ways of funding.
14h00-15h30 SAST
The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic: Webinar 1
This virtual webinar series is brought to you by the Gautrain Management Agency in partnership with the GCRO. The theme for this year's seminar is 'The recovery of the Public Transport Sector post the COVID-19 pandemic'.
27 OCTOBER WEBINAR 01
Public transport governance during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
14h00-15h30 SAST
Governing the Pandemic in Large Cities: from the BRICS and Beyond
Governing the Pandemic in Large Cities: from the BRICS and Beyond
Online event
22 & 23 October 2020
13:00-16:00 (South Africa time: GMT+2)
Please RSVP for the link - Thammy Jezile.
Children as Urban Citizens in Crisis and Beyond
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Children as Urban Citizens in Crisis and Beyond
Monday, 12 October
10:00-16:00
Email thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
We invite you to this child-focused web event prompted by COVID-19 and drawing from the knowledge, experience and innovation practice of local and international universities, grassroots organisations, NGOs and local and national government.
Abstract: While Children are not the obvious faces of COVID-19, they are amongst the hardest hit victims, with impacts persisting long after the crisis has passed. The lessons we learn today must be useful in addressing child-hood inequalities, family and education disruptions, violence in the home, social isolation, emotional and mental health impacts and multiple other disruptions, both as a result of this crisis and in the future.
This event interrogates the impact of inequality of children as they are exposed to the consequences of the pandemic, to the status and rights of children as urban citizens and to the agency of children shaping the urban world. It contemplates post-traumatic growth and learning as we look towards a future and how best to entrench the rights of children to be safe, nurtured, educated, validated through policy, budgets and implementation strategies across government, with a particular focus on city administration.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Collecting social data: Approaches to collecting monitoring and evaluation data (seminar 6)
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the next session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we will focus on issues of research ethics related to collecting data during the pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Thursday, 8 October 2020
10am-12pm
We will have presentations from Genesis Analytics on online focus group discussions and automated voice message interviews, and JET on a bootcamp methodology for educational research in a time of crisis.
Joining details:
You can access the Zoom meeting through this link.
Alternatively, the meeting ID is 982 3686 2647, and the password is 039451.
Please ensure that your video is turned off throughout, and that you are muted unless invited to speak.
Please email julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to be added to the mailing list for information on subsequent seminars.
Updating the Johannesburg Spatial Development Framework: Engaging Academia
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Updating the Johannesburg Spatial Development Framework: Engaging Academia
Dylan Weakley, City of Johannesburg (CoJ), South Africa
Tuesday, 29 September
16:00-17:30
Email lene.leroux1@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: The Johannesburg Spatial Development Framework 2040 (SDF) is the main spatial planning policy for the City. SPLUMA gives significant authority to the SDF, indicating for example that those making land use decisions “may not make a decision which is inconsistent with the Spatial Development Framework” (22.(1)). Along with guiding land use decisions, the other major role of the SDF is to direct municipal capital investment in the City.
The SDF was approved in 2016 and as it has been 5 years, we (the CoJ) will be reviewing it this financial year, 2020/21. As we have made significant additions and amendments to the SDF during the past 5 years (including the Inclusionary Housing Policy approved in 2019 and the Nodal Review approved this year) it will not be a full overhaul of the SDF, just an update. Provisionally, we plan to:
- Incorporate new policies approved since 2016,
- Update information on the status quo of the City,
- Report on the progress made in the past 5 years, and
- Address any limitations of the 2016 document.
To kick the process off, the CoJ are holding a preliminary round of public discussions under various themes and interest groups. This FoTC seminar is an entry point to engage with academia. The CoJ hopes to gain feedback and suggestions on what it should consider in reviewing the SDF. It will then produce a draft that will be taken out for public participation.
The SDF 2040, Nodal Review and Inclusionary Housing Policy are available to view at: https://bit.ly/cojcitywide
Biography: Dylan Weakley has been a strategic urban planner in the City of Johannesburg’s City Transformation and Spatial Planning Directorate for the past five years. Along with the metro team, he is responsible for city-wide spatial policies including the SDF, Inclusionary Housing Policy and the Nodal Review. Before working at the City, Dylan was a researcher at Wits’ School of Architecture and Planning under the Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning. He studied urban and regional planning at Wits.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Collecting social data: Technological platforms and solutions (seminar 5)
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the next session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we will focus on issues of research ethics related to collecting data during the pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Thursday, 10 September 2020
10am-12pm
Speakers will include Thomas Chapman from biNu (Moya Messenger), Irma Mare who manages REDCap for Wits University, and Nale Mudau from the South African National Space Agency.
Joining details:
You can access the Zoom meeting through this link.
Alternatively, the meeting ID is 982 3686 2647, and the password is 039451.
Please ensure that your video is turned off throughout, and that you are muted unless invited to speak.
Please email julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to be added to the mailing list for information on subsequent seminars.
Southern Africa City Studies Conference
We are pleased to present the programme for the 2020 Southern Africa City Studies Conference to be held from 31 August to 4 September. This is a free online conference and we would welcome your attendance at sessions that interest you.
The 2020 conference is the fifth event in this series, following earlier conferences in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2016. These conferences are interdisciplinary forums for urban scholars and are hosted by a network of South African urban research units.
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory is a co-host of the 2020 conference, along with the Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the NRF Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, both at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. A key motivation for the GCRO’s involvement was to mark the ten year anniversary since our establishment, and we wanted to do so by contributing to a wide ranging forum of this nature.
As all of us are well aware, the world in which we began planning this conference in 2019 is no longer the world that we inhabit. Until March we were intending for this conference to be a two day event hosted at Wits. When this became an impossible prospect, we were enormously gratified that a large number of researchers were willing to join us in creating an online conference. In addition to the impressive variety of perennial urban subjects under discussion, we were also appreciative that some researchers have been willing to offer initial contributions on the implications of COVID-19 for cities, a topic that will surely echo through our discipline for many years to come.
We encourage you to scan the topics below, have a look through the abstract book, and if there are sessions that you would like to attend, please do complete the short registration form whereupon you will be provided with the meeting links.
Southern Africa City Studies Conference Programme
Monday 31 August
09h00 – 11h00
OPENING PLENARY. Urban Research Agendas 2020 and Beyond
11h30 – 13h30
PANEL. Building an Academic Career in Times of Crisis: Responding to Pressures and Needs of Early Career Researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa
PANEL. Covid-19: Reshaping Gauteng and its Governance?
PAPER SESSION. Civic Engagement: Acting In and On Public Space
14h00 – 16h00
PAPER SESSION. Economic Growth & Decline
THEMED SESSION. Living the Urban Periphery: South Africa & Ethiopia
PAPER SESSION. Civic Engagement: Co-Production and Participation
16h30 - 17h30
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION DISCUSSION. Edge City (Mark Lewis)
Tuesday 1 September
09h00 – 11h00
PAPER SESSION. Large Scale Spatial Interventions
PANEL. The Lockdown Diaries: Cape Town and the Impact of COVID-19
PANEL. ‘Cities of Power’: Challenges and Contemporary Planning in National Capital Cities
11h30 – 13h30
CREATIVE WORKSHOP. dARTa I
PAPER SESSION. Land: Markets, Justice, Contestation I
14h00 – 16h00
PANEL. Culture, Heritage, Justice and Belonging I
PAPER SESSION. Land: Markets, Justice, Contestation II
PAPER SESSION. COVID-19: Resident and Community Responses
16h30 - 18h30
FILM & DISCUSSION. Solidarity? Revealing the Everyday Lived Reality of Covid-19 in Kliptown, Soweto
Wednesday 2 September
09h00 – 11h00
PANEL. Culture, Heritage, Justice and Belonging II
PANEL. City Level Data Scarcity and Responses
PAPER SESSION. Housing: Interrogating Need and Provision
11h30 – 13h30
PAPER SESSION. Climate & Environment: Urban Resources
PAPER SESSION. Innovative Urban Research Methods
PAPER SESSION. Housing: Afterlives of State Housing
14h00 – 16h00
PAPER SESSION. Climate & Environment: City Planning and Design
THEMED SESSION. ‘Homelessness', Social Justice and the City
PAPER SESSION. Challenges to Informal Settlement Upgrading
16h30 - 17h30
BOOK PRE-LAUNCH. The Agonistic City? State-Society Strife in Post-Democratic Johannesburg
Thursday 3 September
09h00 – 11h00
PAPER SESSION. Climate & Environment: Urban Metabolism
THEMED SESSION. Measuring Quality of Life in Gauteng, South Africa: The GCRO's QOL Survey I
PANEL. Narratives of Home and Neighbourhood in State-Delivered Housing
11h30 – 13h30
PANEL. Global Circuits in Making Large-Scale Developments: Contradictions and Potential
THEMED SESSION. Measuring Quality of Life in Gauteng, South Africa: The GCRO's QOL Survey II
ROUNDTABLE. Just and Sustainable Government Housing
14h00 – 16h00
CREATIVE WORKSHOP. dARTa II
THEMED SESSION. Property & Real Estate Processes and Projects in Southern Africa
16h30 - 17h30
BOOK PRE-LAUNCH. Densifying the City? Global Cases and Johannesburg
Friday 4 September
09h00 – 11h00
PAPER SESSION. Migrant Urbanism: Arrival Cities and Departure Cities
PANEL. Situated Engagements in Making Large-Scale Developments: Contradictions and Potential in African Urban Futures
PAPER SESSION. Governance: Politics, Power and Finance I
11h30 – 13h30
PAPER SESSION. Street Trading
PAPER SESSION. Sharing Space I
PAPER SESSION. Governance: Politics, Power and Finance II
14h00 – 16h00
THEMED SESSION. Navigating African Cities: Gender, Identity and Mobility
PAPER SESSION. Sharing Space II
CREATIVE WORKSHOP. dARTa III
16h30 - 18h00
ROUNDTABLE. The Quest for Integrity in South African Cities: The Temptations of Planning and Land Development
Collecting social data: Community level research (seminar 4)
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the next session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we will focus on issues of research ethics related to collecting data during the pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Thursday, 27 August 2020
10am-12pm
Speakers will include Katherine Brown from Foundation for Human Rights, Candice Groenwald from the HSRC, and colleagues from Community Action Networks nationally.
Joining details:
You can access the Zoom meeting through this link.
Alternatively, the meeting ID is 982 3686 2647, and the password is 039451.
Please ensure that your video is turned off throughout, and that you are muted unless invited to speak.
Please email julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to be added to the mailing list for information on subsequent seminars.
Platform urbanism and hybrid places in African cities
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Platform urbanism and hybrid places in African cities
A/Prof. Nancy Odendaal, University of Cape Town
Tuesday, 18 August
16:00-17:30
Email lene.leroux1@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: The promotion of smart cities incorporate, as well as some of the academic literature, focuses on technology as a solution to many of the intractable problems facing urban areas today. Underpinning many of these claims is a steady belief in the power of technology to solve the seemingly insurmountable problems that accompany rapid urbanisation. However, technology appropriation is intrinsically linked to livelihood strategies and lifestyles, where disruption contributes to the ongoing unfolding of activities in urban spaces. The impact of the digital age on African city streets, for example, displays a mix of old and new, far removed from the glossy visions depicted for master-planned smart cities. More recently, the growing literature on ‘platform urbanism’ has placed the emphasis on the role of digital platforms (such as Airbnb, Uber etc.) in impacting socio-technical relations in urban centres. This presentation explores the notion of ‘platform urbanism’ as a co-generator of place. The first part of the presentation focuses on the platform urbanism literature and by extension, how the start-up and gig economy ‘land’ in African cities. Three themes on the relationship between platform urbanism and place, are extracted from the literature review. Each of these is discussed using empirical vignettes to explore their implications for the shaping of space.
Biography: Nancy Odendaal is an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of Cape Town. Her research and teaching interests explore how socio-technical processes shape space, and includes work on smart cities, spatial planning and infrastructure. Currently she is work on a comparative project on smart cities in India and South Africa with colleagues from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and University College, London, She is also the current chair of the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS), a network of 56 university departments that teach planning, across the continent, and was on the founding international advisory board of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) and a former chair of the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN).
Recent Publications:
Aurigi, A., & Odendaal, N. (2020). From “Smart in the Box” to “Smart in the City”: Rethinking the Socially Sustainable Smart City in Context. Journal of Urban Technology, 1-16.
Odendaal, N. (2019) ‘Appropriating ‘big data’: exploring the emancipatory potential of the data strategies of civil society organisations in Cape Town, South Africa’, in Cardullo, P., di Feliciantonio, C. and Kitchin, R. (eds) The Right to the Smart City. Emerald.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Collecting social data: Trackers and panels (seminar 3)
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the second session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we will focus on issues of trackers and panels during the pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Thursday, 13 August 2020
10am-12pm
Presenters:
- Mariette Croukamp, from AskAfrika will be speaking about their COVID tracker
- Shirley Jeoffreys-Leach, Petronella Tizora and Bobby Berkowitz, from FinMark Trust will be speaking about implementing and interpreting multi-country longitudinal studies through the COVID-19 pandemic
- Kim Ingle and Timothy Brophy, from the NIDS/CRAM team at UCT will be speaking about their experiences in implementing the CRAM survey
Joining details:
You can access the Zoom meeting through this link.
Alternatively, the meeting ID is 982 3686 2647, and the password is 039451.
Please ensure that your video is turned off throughout, and that you are muted unless invited to speak.
Please email julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to be added to the mailing list for information on subsequent seminars.
Taking forward the City Reform Agenda within the current social and economic climate
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Taking forward the City Reform Agenda within the current social and economic climate
Sibongile Mazibuko as the CSP Programme Manager and the CSP Team City Support Program (CSP) National Treasury, South Africa
Tuesday, 11 August
16:00-17:30
Email lene.leroux1@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: In response to both legacy and emerging urbanisation challenges within South Africa, and in recognition of the critical role South African metros perform in driving the national economy, the South African government established the Cities Support Programme (CSP). The CSP is a multi-year demand-driven umbrella program, that aims to contribute to the creation of productive, well-governed, inclusive and sustainable cities and is reinforcing its constitutional commitment to supporting decentralization through on-going policy reforms. The CSP operates within the eight metros according to the following thematic components: Governance and Fiscal, Climate Resilience, Economic Development, Human Settlements and Public Transport. Acting as a change agent, a vehicle for collaboration and integration, the CSP aims to improve the capacity of cities and create an enabling intergovernmental fiscal system and policy environment to support city-led transformation. Within this framing, the talk will more poignantly address ways of taking forward the City Reform Agenda within the current social and economic climate of South Africa.
Please read the full description of the City Support Program (CSP) HERE
Biography: Sibongile Mazibuko is the Programme Manager of the City Support Program in the South African National Treasury. Mazibuko has thirty-two years of experience in local government, occupying the following positions during this time: Legal secretariat of the Johannesburg Transitional Negotiations Committee; senior legal adviser for the Soweto City Council; the Deputy CEO of the South Western Sub Council in the 7 Transitional Authorities of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council; Executive Officer of Property Management of the Western Metropolitan Council of the Joburg Metro; Regional Director of Region 11 for the City of Joburg (CoJ); Chief Operations Officer of the CoJ; Executive Director of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and City Manager of the Mangaung Metropolitan Council.
The CSP Team
Samantha Naidu: Finance and Governance
Yasmin Coovadia: Planning and Reporting
Malebo Matolong: Public Transport
Seth Maqetuka: Human Settlements
Anthea Stephens: Climate Resilience
Karen Harrison: Economic Development
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Governing in a time of COVID: Cases from four African cities
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Governing in a time of COVID: Cases from four African cities
Tafasse Matewos, Hawasse University; Anselmo Cano, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane; Willard Kombe, Ardhi University; George Owuso, University of Ghana
Tuesday, 4 August
16:00-17:30
Email lene.leroux1@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic arrived swiftly and largely unexpectedly on the doorstep of most of the world. Where with very little warning, most countries and cities, were sent into a lockdown or versions thereof, with very little information and few solid scientific facts, other than the experience of Wuhan as the epicenter of the virus. What was clear was that certain kinds of density and engagement seemed to encourage its path and as such cities were placed at the centre of the virus. Cities across the world chose how to deal and engage with the spread, some more swiftly and decisively than others, but all were put into a position where some response was needed. Governments were thrown into disarray as they attempted to understand, manage and control the virus and their populations. At times this led, to greater coherence and cohesion of spheres of government and between government departments. In other moments, cities rebelled against central governments and generally their unwillingness to take the virus and its impacts seriously. This panel has inputs from four African cities, Dar es Salaam, Hawassa/Addis Ababa, Maputo and Accra, and will discuss the situation in each of these cities; the response by the state and residents and the question of governing African cities in a the time of a Pandemic.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Densifying the City? Global Cases and Johannesburg
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Densifying the City? Global Cases and Johannesburg
Philip Harrison and Margot Rubin, South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning and Alison Todes, Wits School of Architecture and Planning
Tuesday, 28 July
16:00-17:30
Email lene.leroux1@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: This seminar offers a preview of an edited book that is forthcoming in 2020 by Edward Elgar publishers. The book provides an in-depth exploration of the complexities of densification policy and processes, this book brings the important experiences of densification in Johannesburg into conversation with a range of cities in Africa, the BRICS countries and the Global North. It moves beyond the divisive debate over whether densification is good or bad, adding nuance and complexity to the calls from multilateral organisations for densification as a key urban strategy. Using empirical work in a comparative frame, Densifying the City? examines how densification policies and processes have manifested often in unanticipated or contrary ways. It offers important insights into resident-led densification and the processes and motivations that drive these activities. During the seminar the editors will focus on the first two chapters which outline the findings and arguments in relation to both densification globally and the detailed processes in South Africa. The Covid-19 pandemic has resurfaced debates around density and the seminar will include a discussion on recent developments.
Biographies:
Professor Philip Harrison is the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning funded by the National Research Foundation and hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand. He served as a member of the National Planning Commission in the Office of the President from 2010 to 2015. Previously, Prof. Harrison was Executive Director in Development Planning and Urban Management at the City of Johannesburg for 4 years from 2006 to 2010. Prior to that, he held a number of academic positions at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Natal, including Professor and Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at Wits from 2001 to 2006. He has published widely in the fields of city planning and regional and urban development. His most recent book publication is the jointly edited Changing Space, Changing City: Johannesburg after Apartheid. Details on Professor Harrison’s publications and projects are available on ORCID - http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3038-858X
Alison Todes is Planning Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand. She was previously Research Director in the Urban Rural and Economic Development Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council, and a Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Housing at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. She has researched and published extensively in the field of urban and regional development, local government and planning.
Alison’s earlier research looked at regional development and South African settlements, with particular attention to the economies of marginal places. This is a theme she has returned to from time to time. Her recent research has focused on strategic spatial planning and its relationship to the complex socio-spatial and economic trends and dynamics in cities, in particular processes of densification and peripheral growth. She has also looked at a wider set of planning policies, their efficacy and actual impacts, and how they have dealt with concerns such as gender equity and sustainability.
Margot Rubin’s work has focused on questions of state and resident-led housing provision, including backyard housing and the inner city rental market; transit-oriented development and the Corridors of Freedom. Of late, Margot has been writing around mega housing projects and issues of gender and the city. She is interested in questions of governance at a variety of scales, and how urban agents engage, collaborate and contest each other’s visions and agendas.
Since 2015, Margot has worked in the NRF Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, where she is now an associate professor. In this position, she conducts and manages research projects based on her own and the Chair’s interests, supervises post-graduate students, and engages in current policy debates. She also co-convenes the Gender Urban Research Network and the National Inclusionary Housing Network.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Collecting social data: Understanding and responding to ethical challenges (seminar 2)
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the second session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this session, we will focus on issues of research ethics related to collecting data during the pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Tuesday, 28 July 2020
10am-12pm
Presenters:
- Dr Mokhantso Makoae, Human Sciences Research Council and HSRC Research Ethics Committee Member
The ethical challenges of conducting research during the Covid-19 pandemic: A research ethics committee perspective
- Dr Abigail Hatcher, Wits University School of Public Health and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Ethics and practice of asking about intimate partner violence in COVID-19 surveys
- Mr Mfundo Majola, University of Western Cape
The Lockdown Diaries Project: Exploring remote research in the time of COVID-19
Joining details:
You can access the Zoom meeting through this link.
Alternatively, the meeting ID is 982 3686 2647, and the password is 039451.
Please ensure that your video is turned off throughout, and that you are muted unless invited to speak.
Please email julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to be added to the mailing list for information on subsequent seminars.
Subjective Experiences and Practices of Sexual Performance Concerns among Young Men in Mwanza City, Tanzania
Please join us for next week's Faces of the City live Zoom seminar:
Subjective Experiences and Practices of Sexual Performance Concerns among Young Men in Mwanza City, Tanzania
Simon Mutebi, Department of Sociology and Anthroplogy, University of Dar es Salaam
Tuesday, 21 July
16:00-17:30
Email margot.rubin@wits.ac.za for the Zoom link
Abstract: Sexual performance concerns have become widespread among young men in many African countries, including Tanzania and have even become the subject of not only the national parliamentary debate but also in social media outlets in the country. However, despite being the subject of debate, it is surprising that there is no in-depth qualitative study which has been conducted on the meanings and experiences as well as practices of the phenomenon from young men’s themselves. My work fills this gap by exploring how young men in urban Tanzania subjectively experience, and act on, their sexual performance (concerns) in urban settings, and how their experiences and practices are shaped by particular cultural constructions of the body and the larger socio-economic contexts in which they live. Theoretically, the work builds on social-constructionist studies of the body and embodiment in order to show how young men’s experiences of their ‘failing’ bodies shape their everyday sexual and other social encounters and how they navigate the urban healing market in Tanzania in order to find remedies for their suffering. Based on 13 months of ethnographic research in Mwanza City, the work has explored the individual and collective experiences of young men’s sexual performance concerns in relation to wider changes in gender and family relations in the context of urbanization; the importance of the (social) media for young men’s identity constructions; and the pluralistic health care setting in Mwanza which promises relief for sexual performance concerns.
Biography: Simon Mutebi is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Mr. Mutebi also currently holds a fellowship in the DAAD Tanzania-Germany Postgraduate Training Programme at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin. He has longstanding interests in masculinities, sexuality, urbanisation and reproductive health studies. Mr. Mutebi has experience in research employing qualitative, and particularly ethnographic inquiry.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) and and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
COLLECTING SOCIAL DATA: ADAPTING TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory, Social Surveys Africa and Human Sciences Research Council invite you to join the first session in our virtual seminar series on social data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This seminar series brings together social researchers from a range of disciplines to explore different approaches to collecting social data during the COVID pandemic. It provides an opportunity for researchers to share learnings and innovations with a diverse audience, discuss challenges with colleagues with different backgrounds, and contribute to the collective strengthening of social research during this unique and challenging time.
Date: Tuesday, 14 July 2020
Time: 10am-12am
Presenters:
- Ms Lebogang Shilakoe, Social Surveys Africa
Constructing representative samples for telephone surveys: debating strategies and creative solutions
- Dr Benjamin Roberts, Human Sciences Research Council
Truth be in the field: experiences and lessons from the South African Social Attitudes Survey
- Mr Solly Molayi, Statistics South Africa
Some thoughts on the immediate and longer-term impact of COVID-19 on Stats SA's household survey program
Please RSVP to julia.dekadt@gcro.ac.za to receive joining details and calendar invite.
Integrating social equity in sustainable development practice: Institutional commitments and patient capital
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Integrating social equity in sustainable development practice: Institutional commitments and patient capital
Daniel Trudeau, Macalester College
28 April 2020
16:00-17:00
RSVP for the Zoom meeting link and password: alexandra.halligey@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Sustainable urban development is widely conceptualized as resulting from a balance of economic, environmental, and social equity concerns. Yet, critics argue that social equity is routinely left out in development practice. Aiming to help identify solutions that can address this problem, this paper examines sustainable development projects that have managed to incorporate social equity in substantive ways into development practice. Drawing on case study research of nine neighborhood-scale development projects distributed across three metropolitan areas in the United States – Austin, Denver, and Minneapolis-St. Paul – this presentation examines the contexts and processes that enable the incorporation of social equity into sustainable development practice. Using data from intensive interviews with actors that shaped the development of mixed-use and transit-oriented neighborhoods designed according to the New Urbanism planning movement, I investigate three storylines that illustrate different ways that social equity concerns are left out, marginalized, or integrated into development practice. Comparison of the processes driving each storyline shows that integrating social equity in sustainable development can succeed when there is an institutional effort to champion social equity and where that effort brings patient capital and provides conceptual resources that help link social equity to concerns of livability.
Biography: Dan Trudeau is a Professor in the Geography at Macalester College in the United States of America. His research interests include the political economy of public–private partnerships, the cultural politics of landscape production, and the social equity implications of urban design initiatives such as the New Urbanism. His scholarship has been published in journals including, Cultural Geographies, Environment and Planning A, GeoForum, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Political Geography, Urban Geography, and Urban Studies.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
GCRO's map of the month series turns 100
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
GCRO's map of the month series turns 100: Reflections on mapping Gauteng
Richard Ballard, Graeme Götz, Samkelisiwe Khanyile and Alexandra Parker from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)
21 April 2020
16:00-17:00
RSVP for the Zoom meeting link and password: alexandra.halligey@wits.ac.za
Abstract: In April 2020, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory will publish its 100th ‘map of the month’. The series began in 2009, the year after GCRO was established, as a natural expression of the GIS capacities and data at the GCRO. Today it is emailed to almost 6000 people who have signed up to GCRO’s mailing list, including various spheres and line functions of government, researchers, practitioners. Our maps of the month are our most popular outputs on our website by far, with 46 000 views since April 2014 and in this seminar we reflect on some of the successes and failures of this output. The series can be distinguished from other short format research outputs, such as data briefs, in that it provides a space to develop preliminary spatial analysis based on available data often based on just a few weeks of investigation. In this presentation, four GCRO staff members who work on the series reflect on the production and reception of this series over a decade.
Biography: Richard Ballard, Graeme Götz, Samkelisiwe Khanyile, Alexandra Parker for the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO). The GCRO was established in 2008 as a partnership between the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) and the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG), with local government in Gauteng also represented on the GCRO Board.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Challenges and potentials for rural‐urban transformation: an agro‐ecological perspective
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Challenges and potentials for rural‐urban transformation: an agro‐ecological perspective
Andreas Buerkert, University of Kassel
19 March 2020
Special lunchtime seminar
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: While in 1950 about 30% of the world´s population lived in cities, this share is 54% now and will reach 66% by 2050. The annual increase in urban population may peak with 1,8% in 2020 and decline to 1.4% by 2030. This triggers major transformation processes in agricultural land use and leads to land losses near cities of which in the next two decades 80% will likely occur in Asia (18 Mio ha, of which 7.6 Mio ha will be in China and 3.4 Mio ha in India) and Africa. An often overlooked driver for the intensification of land are changes in the dietary habits of the growing middle class. In particular the demand for processed agricultural produce and animal products (meat and milk) is rapidly growing, especially in urbanizing Asia and will be largely met by intensive management systems which increasingly outcompete more environmentally sustainable smallholder units. The presentation will use examples from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to visualize these transformation processes, quantify consequences on ecosystem services of selected landuse systems and elucidate interdisciplinary research needs. Particular emphasis will be on international collaborative efforts to foster informed policy action.
Biography: Andreas Buerkert is head of the Section of Organic Plant Production and Agroecosystems Research in the Tropics and Subtropics at the University of Kassel. His research focuses on carbon and plant nutrient cycling in agroecosystems to analyse management effects on system sustainability, the role of organic amendments and mineral fertilisers on plant nutrient availability and product quality, and on nutrient acquisition by plants in marginal and intensive environments. He also uses non-destructive methods such as GIS-based aerial photography for the quantification of plant growth in crop-livestock systems.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Architectures of asylum and everyday diversities. a discussion of new ‘arrival Infrastructures’ in the city of Berlin, Germany
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Architectures of asylum and everyday diversities. a discussion of new ‘arrival Infrastructures’ in the city of Berlin, Germany
Anna Steigeman, International Urbanism and Design, Habitat Unit, Technical University of Berlin
17 March 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Note: Due to Coronavirus precautions Anna Steigemann will be presenting via Skype from Berlin.
Abstract: This presentation provides an introduction to the study of urban migration and its everyday places for the field of urban planning and architecture with a focus on changes and debates triggered by the recent refugee migration in Berlin, Germany. The presentation explores both theoretical and practical dimensions as well as application contexts, drawing on findings and arguments from my previous research inside of Berlin refugee accommodations and on Sonnenallee, a highly diverse shopping street in Berlin-Neukölln, often referred to as “the Arab street.” For the study of Syrian refugees’ life in the temporary accommodations, I ask, what spatial knowledge is mobilized at the place of asylum? How does this knowledge hybridize practices of the place of origin, experiences made during the escape, as well as during and after the arriving and uncertain period of stay at an unfamiliar place of asylum? How do spatial appropriation processes collide with humanitarian logics and technocratic emergency management approaches? For the study of Sonnenallee, as the place that most interviewed refugees refer to as feeling more at home than in their accommodations, I also explore the local spatial and social appropriation processes. In contrast to the official arrival infrastructures, as top-down planned architectures of asylum, businesses on Sonnenallee gradually develop into important self-made “arrival infrastructures,” often with the support of longer standing migrants. The presentation’s main focus is thus on the ways in which Syrian refugees perceive, adapt to, appropriate, and alter their new urban environment physically and socially and on how they thereby draw on existing and evolving stocks of urban and spatial knowledge and experiences, but also spatial practices and social relationships.
Biography: Dr. Anna Steigemann has worked as an assistant professor at the Habitat Unit, the Chair of International Urbanism and Design at TU Berlin, since 2016. On top of teaching and researching there, she also coordinates the bilateral WITS-TUB Urban Lab (Post-) Graduate Programme with Witwatersrand University as well as the DFG funded SFB 1265 subproject Architectures of Asylum. Anna has worked in academia since 2009, with experience in research and teaching critical urban studies, urban planning, architecture, social sciences, urban design, and urban management. Before joining the Habitat Unit team, she was assistant professor in the urban disciplines at the CUNY Graduate Center, TU Dortmund, Bauhaus-University Weimar, TU Berlin’s Institutes for Sociology, Urban Planning, and the TUB Center for Metropolitan Studies as well as at Humboldt-University of Berlin. She finished her PhD in Urban Sociology with a summa cum laude in 2016 and holds a MA and BA degree in Social Sciences (minors: Geography, Ethnology and Gender Studies) from Humboldt-University of Berlin. Her current research and teaching focus is on urban and social theory, critical urban and migration studies, informal urbanism and governance from below, everyday urban practices, collaborative ethnographic methods, and on co-productive transformative urban planning and development. For more info see: habitat-unit.de/en/team/anna-steigemann/
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
10
From the city to the desert – shantytown resettlement in Casablanca, Morocco
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
From the city to the desert – shantytown resettlement in Casablanca, Morocco
Raffael Beier, Institute of Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr University Bochum and CUBES, Wits
10 March 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: In recent years, social housing and resettlement projects have experienced a renaissance in many developing countries and are increasingly shaping the new urban peripheries. Morocco’s Villes Sans Bidonville programme (cities without shantytowns, VSBP) is a good example. In my presentation, I will look at both process and outcome of resettlement from the perspective of affected people, analysing the specific resettlement project of a 90-year-old bidonville (shantytown) in Casablanca, Morocco. Methodologically, the paper compares in an analytical way current living situations in a non-affected bidonville and in a resettlement town. The empirical analysis is based on a household survey (n=871) as well as on qualitative interviews and in-situ observation.
The results show that satisfaction with the new housing situation depends on various factors beyond housing comfort. Thus, some residents stressed that they were pushed from the city to the desert, referring to the loss of social networks, urbanity, and centrality. Other residents were appreciative of the move into new houses, hoping that the government would further invest in the development of the new town, which is already marked by multiple forms of neglect. The presentation emphasises that the VSBP, although formally part of anti-poverty and urban inclusion policies, puts a primary focus on the clearance of the bidonville, overemphasises physical housing standards, and ignores aspects of socio-spatial integration. Moreover, various injustices, corruption, and opaque implementation practices have led to homelessness and psychological distress for a considerable number of people – even though affordability was not an issue.
Biography: Raffael Beier has studied urban geography in Bochum, Germany, and Grenoble, France. He obtained a joint PhD degree in international development studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and from Ruhr University Bochum. Since 2014, he has been working as a research fellow at the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr University Bochum. In his PhD, he analysed the effects of a shantytown resettlement programme in Casablanca, Morocco, focusing on livelihoods and daily life experiences of affected residents. Further research activities have addressed post-resettlement mobility in the context of slum clearance, street vending in Zimbabwe, transport inequalities in Morocco, and the interrelation of protests and urban development in North Africa. From to March to November 2020, Raffael Beier will be a visiting postdoctoral fellow at CUBES, Wits University.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
03
Shifting patterns of economic and racial segregation in Cape Town, 1980-2011
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Shifting patterns of economic and racial segregation in Cape Town, 1980-2011
Jean-Paul Solomon, School of Social Sciences, North-West University
3 March 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: While it has been nearly three decades since racial segregation legislation was repealed, racial (and socioeconomic) segregation remains an undeniable characteristic of South African society and this is particularly evident in our cities. The extent to which urban SA has desegregated has been debated in the media, civil society, academia and beyond, with varying degrees of consensus. In an attempt to ground this discussion in evidence, census data and ArcGIS have been used to map the changes, or lack thereof, in the racial and socioeconomic composition of subplaces across the City of Cape Town. This was followed up with analyses involving the use of two distinct segregation measures, with the aim of better understanding the nuanced changes in racial and socioeconomic segregation and to move beyond the occasionally simplistic, and even contradictory, ways this has been discussed over the past nearly three decades.
Biography: Jean-Paul Solomon is a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at North-West University, Potchefstroom campus. He completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Cape Town in 2019. His current research interests focus on changes in urban labour markets, including unemployment, as well as racial segregation.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
25
A U-turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
A U-turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850
Ruth Oldenziel, Eindhoven University of Technology and Cycling Cities: the Global Experience
25 February 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: IMobility—from local bike-sharing initiatives to overhauls of transport infrastructure—is one of the most important areas in which modern cities are trying to realize a more sustainable future. Yet even as politicians and planners look ahead and focus on the future, there remain critical insights to be gleaned from the history of urban mobility and the unsustainable practices that still impact our everyday lives. In exploring the notion of a “usable past,” the presentation “A U-turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850” examines the the ecological, social, and economic aspects of urban mobility in its relation to urban planning. It shows how historical inquiry can make both conceptual and practical contributions to the projects of sustainability and urban renewal.
Based on the just published book and the collective investigation, this presentation shows how our cities came to be as unsustainable in the recent past and uncovers hidden histories containing important clues for how to make cities more sustainable in the future.
Biography: Ruth Oldenziel (PhD Yale ’92) is professor of history and innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. She is editor in chief of Technology and Culture and directs a Research-Book-Web-Teaching project Cycling Cities: The Global Experience. Her publications include books and articles in the area of American, gender, mobility, and technology studies: Cycling Cities (2016-present), Cycling and Recycling with Helmuth Trischler (2015); Hacking Europe ed. with Gerard Alberts (2014) Consumers, Users, Rebels (2013) with Mikael Hard; Cold War Kitchen ed. with Karin Zachmann (2009); Gender and Technology ed. with Nina Lerman and Arwen Mohun (2003); Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges (Routledge 2000); Making Technology Masculine (1999). Her most recent book project she directed and edited with Martin Emanuel and Frank Schipper is entitled: U-Turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850 (Berghahn February 2020).
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Current Urban Policies and Practices in Egypt: between informal settlements (Ashwa'eyat) and new urban developments
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Current Urban Policies and Practices in Egypt: between informal settlements (Ashwa'eyat) and new urban developments
Hassan Abdelaziz Elmouelhi, Technical University of Berlin
18 February 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: In Cairo, like in many metropolises in the Global South, informal settlements or ‘ashwa’eyat (meaning haphazard) are the product of rapid uncontrolled urbanization in recent decades. Cairo’s ‘ashwa’eyat, largely ignored by the former neoliberal state regime, are frequently the only option for the rural migrants and the Cairo urban poor to fulfill their housing needs. Since informal urban processes are strongly influenced and shaped by the residents, it is paramount to study their culture in relation to informality and urban space. Culture is the complex set of values and controlling mechanisms that govern behaviors. Dismantling culture is a key for resolving its complexity. One of the main questions to discuss is: how do different cultural factors interact with the urban physical characteristics to influence Cairo’s ‘ashwa’eyat development to form “informality”? This seminar will briefly try to contextualize an ongoing process adopted by the Egyptian state to address development, and specifically urban development, within the framework of neoliberalism, as indispensable from politics, and power, based on the case of the Cairo New Administrative Capital (NAC).
Biography: Hassan Abdelaziz Elmouelhi is an architect and urban planner by training and works as a senior researcher and lecturer at Berlin Technical University. His academic interests within international urbanism include, culture and urban informality in relation to aspects of urban development and governance, focusing on the Arab region. In partnership with several universities, and international cooperation organizations, he coordinates and acts as a principle investigator for several projects in different interdisciplinary topics, mainly informal urbanism, urban management, urban mobility, new settlements, in addition to the localizing of SDGs. He holds a PhD from TU Berlin, entitled: “Culture and informal urban development: A case study of Cairo’s informal settlements”. He participated as an expert and consultant in activities related to the global south urbanism, including Germany, Tunisia, Tanzania, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and India.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning; the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO); and the Wits City Institute (WCI).
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
11
Do informal settlements exist as a labour reserve at capital’s disposal or a bulwark against the capitalist economy?
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Do informal settlements exist as a labour reserve at capital’s disposal or a bulwark against the capitalist economy?
Hannah Dawson, Society, Work & Politics Institute, Wits
11 February 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Do informal settlements exist as a labour reserve at capital’s disposal or a bulwark against the capitalist economy? My aim in asking the question in these terms is to contribute to contemporary discussions about how to theorise so-called ‘surplus populations’ and ‘urban slums’ that have long been presented as a dumping ground for those excluded from wage employment. The paper examines the ways in which the formal and informal sector articulate in uneven ways, reproducing and sharpening localised economic and social differences.
Biography: Hannah Dawson is an anthropologist with research interests in youth marginality and unemployment, inequality, the future of work, and new forms of social welfare in the Global South. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 2019, and is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Society, Work & Politics Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is working on a manuscript provisionally entitled “The productivity of unemployment: emerging forms of work and life in urban South Africa” which explores young people's everyday experiences of unemployment in South Africa, and the ways in which unemployment is actively shaping the form and texture of economic life, gender and family relations, and political expectations and demands in contemporary South Africa.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
04
Adapting to climate change challenges in low-income coastal communities in Nigeria
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Adapting to climate change challenges in low-income coastal communities in Nigeria
Muyiwa Adegun, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria
4 February 2020
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Climate risks are concentrated in coastal zones, especially in settlements inhabited by people in the low-income category. With urbanization and growing utilization of the coastal zones, climate change adaptation and resilience are imperative. This is the focus of an ongoing research project in Nigeria. This presentation discusses the project’s activities aimed at the (co)production of knowledge in three different coastal neighborhoods – in a rural setting, within a small town in Ondo state as well as within an informal settlement located on the coastline in Lagos. Climate change/environmental challenges that are commonplace; their impacts on human lives, livelihoods, natural ecosystem and the built environment and coping mechanisms are discussed. Proposals for sustainable and resilient housing/built environment are also shown. A tentative conclusion from these is that an economic dimension is crucial to accelerating climate adaptation in the low-income context.
Biography: Olumuyiwa Adegun is a lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. He completed his PhD at Wits University in 2016. His current research, within the Climate Research for Development Programme (CR4D) of African Academy of Sciences, focuses on climate adaptation in low-income informal settlements.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning; the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO); and the Wits City Institute (WCI).
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
22
Democracy disconnected: Participation and Governance in a City of the South
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Democracy disconnected: Participation and Governance in a City of the South
Laurence Piper and Fiona Anciona, University of the Western Cape
22 October 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Through in-depth empirical work in Hout Bay over seven years, Democracy Disconnected demonstrates that neither City Hall nor the state as a whole is in full command of governance in the city of Cape Town. Confronted by shortcomings in meetings key needs of city life such as livelihoods, housing, security, transport and environmental well-being, non-state actors including groups of residents step into the governance gap. This takes the forms of both conscious partnership to co-govern the city, but also the contest of city rule by disaffected groups. Furthermore, this proliferation of forms of governance follows logics in tension with democratic citizenship, such as market co-governance, developmental governance and informal governance. Illustrated through the example of security provision, the reality that multiple actors impact on urban rule in contending ways has parlous consequences for democratic rule and democratic citizenship. Rather than producing democratic citizens, city rule also turns both wealthy and poor residents into consumers, clients or those marginalized from formal rule altogether.
Biography: Laurence Piper is a Political Scientist at the University of the Western Cape interested in urban governance, democracy, and informality in the urban South. He is the previous President of the South African Association of Political Studies (SAAPS) 2016-8. His current work focuses on the governance of informality and how this intersects with the informalisation of governance. Fiona Anciano is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Studies, University of the Western Cape. Fiona does research in Democracy and Politics, Urban Politics and Comparative Democratization.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
15
Co-production: between service delivery strategy and urban governance transformation approach: experiences from Metro Manila
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Co-production: between service delivery strategy and urban governance transformation approach: experiences from Metro Manila
Jakub Galuszka, Habitat Unit, Technical University of Berlin
15 October 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building
RSVP: thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Social movement-initiated co-production has been increasingly described as an approach that enables urban poor communities in the South to gain wider access to urban governance. However, with a predominant focus on project-level interventions, the case studies in which movements truly affect governance matters on a metro scale are rare. One of the examples involving such an achievement is the activism of civil society organisations and urban poor groups in Metro Manila, Philippines, which have succeeded to have a major impact on the housing and resettlement programme; the Oplan LIKAS. This lecture discusses how the civil society was able to gain such a position and the way it utilised it. The documentation of the challenges experienced by the civil society reflects the nature of co-productive engagement in the South and shows that it may easily reach its limits in an exclusionary governance setting.
Biography: Jakub Galuszka is an urban planner and sociologist currently working as a researcher at the Habitat Unit, Technical University of Berlin. Before joining the Habitat Unit he worked and conducted research in Poland, the Philippines, Georgia and South Africa. This work has spanned monitoring and evaluation, project coordination, formulation of funding applications and policy recommendations in the fields of urban governance, upgrading of informal areas and community-based development.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
10
Urgency in the Anthropocene
The Global Change Institute and the Gauteng City Region Observatory are please to invite you to a seminar dealing with some of the wicked challenges we are currently facing.
Urgency in the Anthropocene
Professor Amanda H. Lynch, Lindemann Distinguished Professor of Society and Environment, Brown University, USA
10 October 2019
14.00 – 15:30
Venue: GCRO (6th Floor University Corner)
The need to respond to crisis and disaster caused by anthropogenic climate change is challenging human values. Systems of sovereignty and law are being stretched in an attempt to meet the onrushing challenges. This discourse of urgency emboldens impulsive policy and governance responses. The once unacceptable, such as geoengineering solutions or totalitarian governance, have become anticipated and even demanded. But the ages of humans in the world have unfolded as nuanced and multi-faceted journeys; the Anthropocene offers but one framing of the world among many, in which human agency prevents, prepares for, and responds to change. In this talk, I will examine the interplay between the unfolding state of urgency and the means by which this urgency is identified and addressed. My aim is to pose the questions that Anthropocene urgency is raising and propose a response. This proposition is that the commons is not a tragedy, but rather the opportunity for a -- difficult and uncomfortable -- coexistence. Through this approach to coexistence, we may map a path through the fragmentation that Anthropocene urgency invites, to invoke a sense of commonality in purpose.
RSVP: Please RSVP to Nadine Abrahams at nadine.abrahams@gcro.ac.za by no later than the 7th October 2019.
State of the Art: Gender and Urban Research colloquium
Friday, 30 August 2019
08:30-16:00
Humanities Graduate Centre, South West Engineering Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Gender and the City have been an important area of investigation through a number of disciplines over the last few decades. Feminist Geography, gendered planning approaches and some of the urban anthropologies to name a few sub-disciplines have dedicated substantive time, theoretical reckoning and imagination to the questions of urban space and gender. In South Africa, there is a sense that much work has been undertaken from a range of disciplines and perspectives. However, it has infrequently been brought together with most researchers, students and interested parties working within their academic silos. The Network for Gender and Urban Research, co-convened between the Gauteng City Region Observatory and the NRF Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning wants to invite abstracts (250 words) to reflect and discuss the research that has been and is being undertaken on questions of gender and the urban; look at the gamut of studies that are or have been undertaken and bring them into dialogue with each other.
Click here for the detailed programme with abstracts.
The art of resistance: Contesting gentrification and displacement in South Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
The art of resistance: Contesting gentrification and displacement in South Africa
Delia Ah Goo, Geography and Environmental Studies, North-West University
Tuesday, 27 August 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Water security in Gauteng
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Water security in Gauteng
Gillian Maree, Gauteng City-Region Observatory
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Gauteng can never take its water security for granted. Recent water crises in Cape Town and other parts of South Africa has given focus to water and the need for water to be a regular item on urban planning agendas.
The geography of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR), architecture of a hidden water infrastructure and governance structures set the context for urban water security. As Gauteng’s population expands and the economy grows, we must continually review the security of water if it is to continue to sustain society and economic growth. Cape Town has demonstrated how quickly a large city can enter a crisis if it is not prepared.
The GCRO has an ongoing area of work that looks to unravel water security challenges and has developed a Water Security Perspective for the GCR. The presentation will aim to engage a discussion on the importance of water in planning and decision-making and will touch on a range of water challenges that exist in Gauteng, how they affect the city-region and likely future impacts.
Bio: Gillian Maree is a Senior Researcher with the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO). She is an Urban Environmental Planner with 19 years’ experience in sustainability, urban environmental planning and water governance. Gillian has worked extensively in both the public and private sector in South Africa and contributed to numerous policy documents, national and regional environmental assessments and research reports. Her current research work includes water security and water governance in the Gauteng City Region, Green Infrastructure and the governance of environmental issues.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Accounting for the C/city: Analyzing fiscal configurations in Kisumu, Kenya
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Accounting for the C/city: Analyzing fiscal configurations in Kisumu, Kenya
Liza Rose Cirolia, African Centre for Cities, UCT
Tuesday, 13 August 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Book launch: Race for education: Gender, white tone, and schooling in South Africa, Cambridge University Press
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Book launch: Race for education: Gender, white tone, and schooling in South Africa, Cambridge University Press
Mark Hunter, Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
16:30 for 17:00
WISER, 6th Floor, Richard Ward Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Mark Hunter will discuss the book (published by Cambridge University Press) with Sarah Nuttall and Hlonipha Mokoena.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Shifting in the city: Transgender refugee experiences of being and longing in Cape Town
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Shifting in the city: Transgender refugee experiences of being and longing in Cape Town
B Camminga, African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
South Africa is unique on the African continent in relation to refugee regimes in that it is the only country that recognises and constitutionally protects transgender refugees and asylum seekers. For many of those who come to So h Africa seeking refuge from other countries within Africa, it is the city of Cape Town – as the ‘Pink Capital’ – that has arguably come to stand for a kind of queer utopia. Drawing on research carried out between 2012 and 2015 this paper unpacks the narratives of several transgender-identified refugees and asylum seekers or ‘gender refugees’ as they move to and through the city. Gender refugees are those who can make claims to refugee status, fleeing their countries of origin based on the persecution of their gender identity. ‘Gender refugees’ are different from sexual refugees in that their issues pertain to a perceived incongruity between their gender identity and birth-assigned sex. For people who are transgender identified and asylum seekers, navigating the city is inherently precarious, is often met with violence and frequently requires furtiveness as a tactic of survival. Through mapping their lived experiences, this paper troubles the assumption that the city is accessible in its ‘Pinkness’ for all kinds of bodies and that it will evince a sense of belonging. Instead for gender refugees, their navigation of the city, their shifts, suggest hitherto unexplored complexities to gender and belonging concerning space, place and marginality as they animate both the dream and the reality of Cape Town.
Bio
B Camminga is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits University, SA. Their research interests include: transgender rights particularly in relation to migration and asylum; the bureaucratisation of sex/gender; and transgender history in South Africa. Their first monograph Transgender Refugees & the Imagined South Africa: Bodies over Borders & Borders over Bodies was published by Palgrave in 2018. Their current book project, Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in Africa’s ‘Gay Capital’ (Unisa 2019) with Dr Zethu Matebeni, explores the conflicting iterations of race, sex, gender and sexuality that mark the city of Cape Town.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
JDA’s Jozi Walks initiative, showcasing Hillbrow Youth Tours, the Maboneng Township Arts Experience (Alex) and Noordgesig ‘Historical’ Arts Alive
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
JDA’s Jozi Walks initiative, showcasing Hillbrow Youth Tours, the Maboneng Township Arts Experience (Alex) and Noordgesig ‘Historical’ Arts Alive
Douglas Cohen; Lesley Mosweu; Siphiwe Ngwenya; Nadia Naudee (JDA; Hillbrow Youth Tours; Maboneng Township Arts Experience in Alex; Noordgesig ‘Historical’ Arts Alive)
Tuesday, 23 July 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
04
Faces of the City: Development in the Gauteng City Region: macro-trends and implications for policy and governance
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Development in the Gauteng City Region: macro-trends and implications for policy and governance
Michael Sachs, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, Wits
Tuesday, 4 June 2019 (Postponed from 7 May)
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: The Gauteng City Region is one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Extreme inequality and mass unemployment are entrenched and remain a fetter on development. Despite this, multitudes are drawn to the city region in their quest for a better life and as South Africa urbanises, Gauteng is home to a rising share of the nation’s population.
The presentation summarises key macro trends in the society and economy of the Gauteng City-Region since the dawn of democracy, drawing extensively on the work of Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO). It reflects a synthesis report prepared for policy-makers, which is organised around the following themes:
People, economy and resourcesPublic services, society and inequalitySpatial development and settlement patterns
From this synthesis, broad conclusions are drawn in respect of the sustainability of development, the character of new urban forms and the governance challenges facing the Gauteng City-Region.
Biography: Michael Sachs is Adjunct Professor at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits University. He has worked for over twenty-five years in public policy, politics and government in South Africa. He is former head of National Treasury’s budget office. He spent nine years at the national headquarters of the ANC, working on research and economic policy. During 2018 he worked in the office of the Premier of Gauteng, where he was responsible for monitoring and evaluation.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
28
Faces of the City: Curating knowledge of, and policies for, smart cities and climate change
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Curating knowledge of, and policies for, smart cities and climate change
Richard Tomlinson, University of Witwatersrand and University of Melbourne
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
12:30-14:00 (special lunchtime seminar)
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: City-to-city learning in urban strategic planning in southern Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
City-to-city learning in urban strategic planning in southern Africa: insights from the UCLG mentorship program between Durban, Mzuzu City and Otjiwarongo Councils
Sogendren Moodley, Urban Futures Centre, DUT
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Development in the Gauteng City Region: macro-trends and implications for policy and governance
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Development in the Gauteng City Region: macro-trends and implications for policy and governance
Michael Sachs, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, Wits
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Managing security in the residential neighbourhoods of Johannesburg
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Managing security in the residential neighbourhoods of Johannesburg: neoliberalism, neo-Communitarianism, or something else?
Martin Murray, Taubman College, University of Michigan
Tuesday, 30 April 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Participatory public art and the city: from JDA commissions to on the ground realisation
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Participatory public art and the city: from JDA commissions to on the ground realisation
Yasmeen Dinath, Johannesburg Development Agency; Myer Taub, Wits School of the Arts; Tamara Guhrs, Flying House; Stephen Hobbs, Trinity Session
Tuesday, 23 April 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: In 2018 Myer Taub and Tamara Guhrs collaborated on "Birds of the Grove", a participatory public art and theatre intervention as part of the Johannesburg Development Agency’s #ArtMyJozi place-making through art initiative. The work fell within the Trinity Session’s commission by the JDA for #ArtMyJozi in Orange Grove. Taub and Guhrs found their participatory performance and Applied Theatre methods valuable in generating critical reflection on the power dynamics at play in engaging with place-making in any give context. This panel discussion uses their findings through “Birds of the Grove” as a case study for considering the hopes for participatory public art engagement at a city level (JDA); the structures, intentions and experiences of the arts project managers receiving City commissions (Trinity Session) and the on-the-ground realisation of participatory public art works (Guhrs and Taub). How do these three levels interact? Where are their intentions shared, where do they differ and what are their relative satisfactions/dissatisfactions with a public art project’s realisation? How might a robust dialogue between all three levels of public art work commissions further a nuanced, complex approach to place-making in Johannesburg?
Biographies:
Pauline Borton is a fourth year Bachelor of Visual Arts Student (HONS) at UNISA. Her research is founded in concepts that explore the construction of social space, including the role of the imagination in defining and affirming a sense of belonging and identity. Pauline is the senior project manager for The Trinity Session and manages the curation and coordination of The Trinity Session public art/place-making projects in South Africa.
Tamara Guhrs is a freelance consultant who has used participatory performance practices in a variety of contexts, from high schools in Joburg's inner city to conservation in rural Zambia. She is a facilitator on the core team of ASSITEJ's Kickstarter programme, working to embed creative arts into the primary school curriculum, as well as a founding member of Flying House, an organisation aimed at connecting artists with business opportunities, and business with creative and cultural capital. She has worked as a theatre designer, writer and educator.
Stephen Hobbs co-directs the artist collaborative and public art consultancy, The Trinity Session, and since 2004 has co-produced a range of multi-medium urban and network-focused projects with Marcus Neustetter, under the collaborative name Hobbs/Neustetter. In 2017 Hobbs joined the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, as Unit Leader and resident critic. Hobbs’ near 10 year relationship with David Krut Projects has broadened his artistic repertoire through print making, book making and publishing.
Dr Myer Taub teaches in the theatre and performance division (TAP) at the Wits School of Arts. He is an academic, performer, director, dramatist and theatre maker. His most recent works include: "Florence", (as playwright) at The Market Theatre, August 2018, "Birds of the Grove" as theatre-maker for The Trinity Session and Johannesburg Development Agency, " Time Flies and the Spruit of BraamsFountain" for JoziWalks (May 2018) and "Tracing the Spruit" for Watershed, (September 2018). He is a working group member of the Performance as Research working group affiliated to the International Federation for Theatre Research.
Liana Strydom is Assistant Director in City Transformation, Dept. of Development Planning with decades of experience in urban planning CoJ. Liana has been the force behind securing city funding for sustaining commitment to the ArtMyJozi art programme through the JDA. She has passionately defended the funding of functional public art and placemaking initiatives and has personally guided the methods and outcomes of the programme.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) in the School of Architecture and Planning; the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO); and the Wits City Institute (WCI).
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Modes, mechanisms and modalities of middle class suburban governance
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Modes, mechanisms and modalities of middle class suburban governance
Margot Rubin and Alexandra Appelbaum, SARchi Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, Wits School of Architecture and Planning
Tuesday, 16 April 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: The middle-class communities of Johannesburg have been and remain key role-players in shaping the urban landscape of the City. Through a wide variety of modes of engagement, and utilising a plethora of tactics, these communities have been instrumental in influencing how the city looks. Litigation; the use of built-environment professionals; aggressive engagement; as well as moments of co-operation, characterise the engagement of these communities with the state. The paper argues for an expanded notion of “NIMBY-ism” whereby the desired outcomes are a set of urban visions regarding what the “City” and their small portions thereof should look like. These are highly differentiated and include: historical nostalgia about an idealised past, as can be seen in the older middle-class southern suburbs; tropes of international cosmopolitan lifestyles promoted in Norwood and Orange Grove; and a new form of democratic community that is based on notions of new media and a “green community” in Parkhurst. Thus, drawing on a wide variety of cases, from across the city, the paper traces the tactics of resistance to many state supported projects. It offers empirical accounts of the underlying visions that motivate and mobilise collective action within these communities and, in turn, which shape their urban environments, as well as a clear sense of the ability of these actions to affect spatial change. We argue that although the cases are localised to Johannesburg, the middle class is growing across African cities, and understanding the governance dynamics of the South African middle classes arguably, the most established on the continent, is important in gaining insights for other contexts.
Biography: Margot Rubin is a senior researcher in the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning at Wits. She has worked as a researcher, and policy and development consultant focusing on housing, urban development issues, inner city regeneration, and is currently engaged in work around mega housing projects and issues of gender and the city.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Shifting in the city: transgender refugee experiences of being and longing in Cape Town
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Shifting in the city: transgender refugee experiences of being and longing in Cape Town
B. Camminga, African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: South Africa is unique on the African continent in relation to refugee regimes in that it is the only country that recognises and constitutionally protects transgender refugees and asylum seekers. For many of those who come to So h Africa seeking refuge from other countries within Africa, it is the city of Cape Town – as the ‘Pink Capital’ – that has arguably come to stand for a kind of queer utopia. Drawing on research carried out between 2012 and 2015 this paper unpacks the narratives of several transgender-identified refugees and asylum seekers or ‘gender refugees’ as they move to and through the city. Gender refugees are those who can make claims to refugee status, fleeing their countries of origin based on the persecution of their gender identity. ‘Gender refugees’ are different from sexual refugees in that their issues pertain to a perceived incongruity between their gender identity and birth-assigned sex. For people who are transgender identified and asylum seekers, navigating the city is inherently precarious, is often met with violence and frequently requires furtiveness as a tactic of survival. Through mapping their lived experiences, this paper troubles the assumption that the city is accessible in its ‘Pinkness’ for all kinds of bodies and that it will evince a sense of belonging. Instead for gender refugees, their navigation of the city, their shifts, suggest hitherto unexplored complexities to gender and belonging concerning space, place and marginality as they animate both the dream and the reality of Cape Town.
B Camminga is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits University, SA. Their research interests include: transgender rights particularly in relation to migration and asylum; the bureaucratisation of sex/gender; and transgender history in South Africa. Their first monograph Transgender Refugees & the Imagined South Africa: Bodies over Borders & Borders over Bodies was published by Palgrave in 2018. Their current book project, Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in Africa’s ‘Gay Capital’ (Unisa 2019) with Dr Zethu Matebeni, explores the conflicting iterations of race, sex, gender and sexuality that mark the city of Cape Town.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Clash of meanings and unfulfilled ideals in Johannesburg post-apartheid public spaces
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Clash of meanings and unfulfilled ideals in Johannesburg post-apartheid public spaces
Ilaria Boniburini, independent scholar
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
8:00-9:30 (Special breakfast seminar)
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: The presentation explores the role built forms have in mediating social transformations in post-colonial cities, through the production of public spaces in Johannesburg’s city centre since 1994. Johannesburg inherited parks and squares, important places for the reproduction of the colonial regimes. In post-apartheid, urban planning has attempted to challenge the socio-spatial structure of segregation, supporting ideals of integration and social justice. The objective of favoring propinquity among people of different classes and ethnicity clashes with a complexity of issues, which in the making of public spaces appear paradoxical. The physical segregation inherited from Apartheid is accompanied by the retreat into private spaces by affluent classes, who desire to separate themselves, either from crime, fear of crime or from avoiding contact with poverty. In urban spaces, colonial and neoliberal capitalist powers are celebrated, the former in the name of cultural heritage and the latter legitimized by economic regeneration and securitization imperatives. Public spaces are where decolonization is urgently needed, but also where it tends to be ignored by design practices, often biased towards a repetition of theoretical debates and models based on the archetypes of the European public space and embedded in Western cultural practices. The result is an atomisation of public life carved by divisions on the basis of class and race, creating a landscape of public borders.
Biography: Ilaria is a registered architect working on community design and public spaces, a scholar in urban studies, with research interests in African urbanism, the right to the city and the politics of architecture, and an educator.
She gained twenty years of experience as an architect, while completing a Masters and a PhD in urban planning, both with case studies in Sub-Saharan Africa. She was a senior lecturer in urban design at the University of Rwanda, a postdoc fellow at the University of Witwatersrand and an adjunct professor at the La Sapienza University of Rome, teaching urban and regional policy. Ilaria is the co-founder of two Italian not-for-profit organizations, Zone Onlus and Associazione Eddyburg and the coordinator of the environmental and planning committee of a new Italian political party. Her voluntary work includes advocacy planning, the direction of the award winning Italian website eddyburg.it, writing articles, teaching, and giving talks on environmental justice, the right to the city and urban planning.
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Faces of the City: 1 Billion litres of water per year: putting communities at the centre of development
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
1 Billion litres of water per year: putting communities at the centre of development
Jennifer van den Bussche, Sticky Situations
Tuesday, 2 April 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Since its founding in 2009, WASSUP (Water, Amenities, Sanitation Services, Upgrading Program) Diepsloot, a community-based organization, in collaboration with Sticky Situations, a Johannesburg based organisation, has worked against extraordinary odds to improve water and sanitation services in Extension 1, Diepsloot. For over ten years, WASSUP has been repairing and maintaining communal toilet facilities in Extension 1. Working with limited resources, the co-operative has not only developed a sustainable and accountable repair and maintenance model, it has also developed a water tracking system that has helped to generate important data around water use and huge potential cost savings for the City of Johannesburg. WASSUP’s processes and practices provide scope for innovative best practice. The methodology developed is an easily adoptable model that can be applied at scale to existing City infrastructure. On the 28th March a report about the work and research undertaken by WASSUP will be launched in Diepsloot, wrapping up 10 years of community development, 5 years of data capturing, and a final push to local/national government to embed this type of program into existing systems – the findings are clear: it cost R20 million to maintain the status quo, or R1.3 million to fix it and stop the water loss. This session will present the work undertaken by WASSUP, highlighting and reinforcing the important findings and the pressing need for both governmental and private support so as to continue expanding the essential programme both within Diepsloot and to other parts of Johannesburg more broadly.
Biography: Jennifer van den Bussche is the founder and director of Sticky Situations, a Johannesburg-based collaborative organisation with a special focus on participatory and community development. A project manager with more than twenty-five years’ experience, she has strong facilitation skills complemented by a background in construction and architecture and extensive experience in community development, and uses these skills to create successful outcomes to a range of projects, including public art, public space and sanitation upgrades and multimedia exhibitions. van den Bussche studied architecture and completed a master’s degree in international and community development at Deakin University, Melbourne, and is also a research affiliate of the Earth Institute at Columbia University’s Centre for Sustainable Urban Design (CSUD), New York.
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Faces of the City: The World Urban Forum and Summitry as a Lens on Modes of Grassroots Representation at the Global Level
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
The World Urban Forum and Summitry as a Lens on Modes of Grassroots Representation at the Global Level
Marie Huchzermeyer, School of Architecture and Planning, Wits
Tuesday, 19 March 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Analyses and debates on global summitry (or inter-regional political gathering) have focussed almost exclusively on sustainable development summits. These analyses help explain the trajectory of human settlements summitry and within this the positioning and strategising of international ‘grassroots’ NGOs. Summitry in the human settlements sector began with Habitat I in 1976. In subsequent decades, the nature of human settlements summits changed significantly, and with it the role of NGOs within them. At the turn of the millennium, a new urgency in the urban and socio-environmental agenda brought about apex level campaigns, targets and dedicated agencies, as well as a new rhythm of bi-annual human settlement summits. This context propelled one particular international ‘grassroots’ NGO into global prominence. Its role came to be defined by new trends in global summitry: civil society participation, theatricality, the construction of responsible subjects, alongside professionalization and a new role for data. This paper gives a brief trajectory of this international NGO, its approaches to grassroots or more specifically ‘slum/shack’ dweller representation and its pathway to the global stage. It then identifies and discusses four recent modes of representation which the NGO has adopted for the global stage: gathering and display of standardised ‘slum’ or informal settlement data; state of the art rebranding; framing of responsible subjects through a website-fundraising campaign; and fashioning of the grassroots global expert. In using summitry as a lens on grassroots representation, the paper explains (but does not justify) considerable distance between the messaging in these four modes of representation and reality at the ‘grassroots’ level. It therefore raises questions of international NGO legitimacy, which in turn present a challenge to scholars working in this terrain.
Biography: Marie Huchzermeyer teaches in the School of Architecture and Planning, where she also convenes the Master of Urban Studies with its five fields of study including Housing and Human Settlements, and Urban Management (the latter being launched with a panel discussion on Thursday 14 March at 18:00 as announced in the Faces of the City Seminar postings). She is a Principal Investigator, alongside Prof Fana Sihlongonyane, for the Wits TUB Urban Lab Programme, an intensive and onerous five year postgraduate studies collaboration with Technical University of Berlin. This programme falls under the German funder DAAD’s SDG-Schools initiative, and its overall theme is to build capacity for SDG and New Urban Agenda implementation. The programme has involved participation in SDG-related global forums such as Habitat III and the World Urban Forum. Marie currently combines her longstanding research interest and experience in informal settlements, policy directed at informal settlements, and their treatment in wider urban agendas, with dynamics at the global level. In 2018, she conducted interviews during and after the 9th World Urban Forum on questions of ‘slum’ dweller representation at the global level. She has used this in attempts to understand in particular the global dimension of the international NGO Slum Dwellers International (SDI or more recently sdi.), a dominant player in global policy forums and at national and local level in several African countries.The seminar series is an interdisciplinary forum focusing on all areas of urban interest. We welcome presentations from fields such as urban planning, architecture, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. If you would like to motivate for a particular speaker or topic, email us on the rsvp email address below for consideration by the committee.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Trickle out urbanism: are gated communities in Johannesburg good for poor neighbours?
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Trickle out urbanism: are gated communities in Johannesburg good for poor neighbours?
Richard Ballard, Gauteng City-Region Observatory; co-authors: Gareth Jones (LSE), Makhale Ngwenya (Cape Town municipality)
Tuesday, 12 March 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: In 2015, the insurance billionaire Douw Steyn launched a major new urban project 30 km north of downtown Johannesburg. Steyn City, as it is called, is planned for 10 000 high end units along with private hospitals, schools, golf courses and a 3 meter perimeter wall. The launch attracted some critique in the media for the exclusive environment it sought to create, an ambition that seemed particularly incongruous given the development’s close proximity to the poor township of Diepsloot. In response, the developer argued that the project had created more than 11 000 jobs and that the doorstep of Diepsloot was exactly the right place for wealthy people to be investing their money. This paper is based on interviews with 20 workers who live in Diepsloot and travel each day into Steyn City to work for subcontractors building various elements of the development. Following Barchiesi’s injunction to consider how workers understand ‘their own precariousness’ as workers in relation to their own ‘life strategies’ (Barchiesi, 2011, p. 12) we unpack the way in which these labourers navigate the social and economic gradient between their home and their place of work.
Biography: Richard Ballard is a principal researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory. Prior to this he trained in the field of Geography and taught in Development Studies at UKZN. His research interests include race and urban desegregation, social cohesion, urban politics and housing policy.
The seminar series is an interdisciplinary forum focusing on all areas of urban interest. We welcome presentations from fields such as urban planning, architecture, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. If you would like to motivate for a particular speaker or topic, email us on the rsvp email address below for consideration by the committee.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Narratives of the City: Decolonising Architectural Education
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Narratives of the City: Decolonising Architectural Education
Sechaba Maape; Ariane Janse Van Rensburg; Anita Szentesi; Mike Dawson, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 5 March 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: The narrative of the city can be read in the dialogue between formal spatial design and (often) less formal repurposing by the users of spaces. The architectural profession has long been in the service of those with capital to invest, and architectural education has tended to entrench elitism and individualism, widening the disconnect between designers and users of spaces. Transforming cities = transforming designers = transforming how they are taught to think at university. This team, teaching first year Design in the Bachelor of Architectural Studies degree, took on the challenge of shifting gear from a competitive individual focus to collaborative learning, from physical form to social structure to start the design process, and from technical drawings to enacted narratives to communicate design ideas to a wider audience. In the process, a diverse class transformed into a learning collective, gaining awareness and understanding of different ways of living and meaning-making. The pedagogy drew on principles of sustainable adaption, embodied learning and the collective as an empowering space, derived from indigenous knowledge systems. The teaching team modelled this in their own design and learning process as they developed the course for which they won the 2018 Vice Chancellor’s team teaching award, and they will be sharing some of their explorations in the unchartered field of decolonising architectural education.
Biographies:
Dr Sechaba Maape is a lecturer at the WITS School of Architecture and Planning. He convenes the first year architecture design course, teaches and convenes first year theories and history of architecture as well as supervising in the Masters in Sustainable and Energy Efficient Cities MArch (SEEC) programme as well as the Masters in Architecture Professional MArch (Prof). Sechaba’s research interests are in architecture and archaeology, deep history, sustainable architecture and resilience.
Mike Dawson is the youngest in the team teaching first year design. Eight years ago he was enrolled as student in the same course. Mike completed his undergraduate programme at WITS and completed his Honours and Masters at UCT. This developed an interest in responsive architectural design that was informed by broad urban research. Mike is currently practicing as an architect in Johannesburg.
Ass Prof Ariane Janse van Rensburg qualified at UCT, practiced countrywide as an architect, glass artist and teacher before moving to an academic career in Johannesburg. Her focus is architectural education, bridging between academia and the profession to facilitate epistemological access, via a Wits PhD. She is currently the Wits Architecture programme director, founder of the Architectural Education Forum, a teaching mentor and learning from the team.
Anita Szentesi qualified at Wits University and the Bartlett, UCL, and practiced in Johannesburg and London as an architect, before moving to an academic career at Wits University. Her focus is interdisciplinary teaching considering the relationship between architecture and film. Rich narratives and the human-place connection are developed in the design process to manifest a meaningful architecture. Visual communication and presentation is another aspect of her teaching methodology, where the accessible medium of film and its techniques produces character-driven spatial experiences of architecture.
The seminar series is an interdisciplinary forum focusing on all areas of urban interest. We welcome presentations from fields such as urban planning, architecture, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. If you would like to motivate for a particular speaker or topic, email us on the rsvp email address below for consideration by the committee.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Urban Autonomy in South African Intergovernmental Relations Jurisprudence
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Urban Autonomy in South African Intergovernmental Relations Jurisprudence - Are Cities Making the Most of their Legal Powers?
Marius Pieterse, School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 26 February 2019
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: As cities around the world increasingly assert themselves against national or regional governments, and as it becomes clear that effective urban governance is essential for achievement of goals expressed, for instance, by SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda, the scope of the formal powers of urban local government is increasingly contentious. This is so especially in resource strapped and politically divided contexts, where turf wars over control of the urban form and function are increasingly commonplace. While urban autonomy and independence depends on various factors, they are importantly shaped by the law. This paper analyses the judgments of South African courts in intergovernmental disputes involving local government, in an effort to ascertain the legal parameters of urban autonomy, and the scope for independent urban governance, in South African constitutional law. It shows that courts have been prone to siding with cities in disputes with "higher-level" governments over controlling the urban form and asserting their own developmental vision, and argues that South African cities have inadequately grasped the opportunities presented by this.
Biography: Marius Pieterse is a professor in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he mostly teaches constitutional and human rights law. His research focuses on urban governance, local government law and the realisation of socio-economic rights, specifically in an urban context. Marius holds a B2 rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. He is the author of Rights-based Litigation, Urban Governance and Social Justice in South Africa: The Right to Joburg (Routledge, 2017); Can Rights Cure? The Impact of Human Rights Litigation on South Africa's Health System (PULP, 2014) as well as a large number of peer reviewed academic journal articles on different aspects of rights-based litigation, socio-economic rights, urban governance, the right to health, the right to equality and the relationship between law and urban space. He is joint global coordinator of the International Research Group of Law and Urban Space (IRGLUS).
The seminar series is an interdisciplinary forum focusing on all areas of urban interest. We welcome presentations from fields such as urban planning, architecture, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. If you would like to motivate for a particular speaker or topic, email us on the rsvp email address below for consideration by the committee.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Pentecostal Capital? On the Pentecostal Worlding of Lagos
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Pentecostal Capital? On the Pentecostal Worlding of Lagos
Obvious Katsaura, Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
16:00-17:30
Postgraduate Seminar Room, Basement, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: This paper mobilizes the designation and concept of ‘Pentecostal capital’ to characterize Lagos as a worlding city, owing to its prominence as a global hub of Pentecostalisms. ‘Pentecostal capital’, understood as a religious currency, refers to the value assigned to Pentecostal spaces, signages, objects, organizations, anointings, prophecies, prayers, practices, miracles, healings, faiths and doctrines; amongst other ‘Pentecostal treasures’. As a city designation a ‘Pentecostal capital’ is an urban space that is loaded with Pentecostal treasures, more than other urban spaces. Lagos in this case is analysed as a concentration of Pentecostal capital and as a global site of Pentecostal seductions and fluidities – a city of global Pentecostal productions, invitations and circulations. This paper charts a new sociology of transnational Pentecostal urbanism by drawing on ethnography conducted in Lagos and through reworking the Bourdieusian concept of ‘capital’.
Biography: Obvious Katsaura is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand and a senior fellow in the Volkswagen Foundation’s funding initiative: Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities in Sub-Saharan and North Africa – Knowledge for Tomorrow. He is an urban sociologist whose current research interests are in, and at the intersections of, the fields of transnational urbanism, transnational religiosity, religious urbanism, urban politics and urban violence. Some of his works have been published in the following journals: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Culture and Religion, Urban Forum, African Identities, and Social Dynamics.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 1st Quarter seminar series as arranged by the the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies.
The seminar series is an interdisciplinary forum focusing on all areas of urban interest. We welcome presentations from fields such as urban planning, architecture, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies. If you would like to motivate for a particular speaker or topic, email us on the rsvp email address below for consideration by the committee.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
GCRO's 5th Quality of Life survey 2017/18 launch
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) will be launching the 5th Quality of Life Survey (2017/18) on 13 November 2018.
The GCRO’s Quality of Life survey, run every two years, provides up to date insights into the quality of life of Gauteng residents, covering their levels of access to a wide range of public services, socio-economic circumstances, levels of satisfaction with services and with government, socio-political attitudes and values, and other characteristics.
The results of the 2017/18 survey will be launched by GCRO Executive Director Dr Rob Moore, and responded to by the Premier of Gauteng, the Honourable David Makhura.
Please note that the launch event will be followed by a media briefing.
Date
Tuesday 13 November 2018
Time
09:30 for 10:00 - 12:30
Registration and tea from 09:30
A finger lunch will follow the launch.
Venue
UJ Arts Centre Theatre
Kingsway Campus (Main Kingsway Entrance)
Auckland Park, Johannesburg.
RSVP
Wednesday 7 November 2018
RSVP is essential. Please confirm your attendance with Sandiswa Sondzaba at sandiswa.sondzaba@gcro.ac.za.
Faces of the City: 'Dobadobas’ as actors in the production of the postcolonial city of Lilongwe, Malawi
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
'Dobadobas’ as actors in the production of the postcolonial city of Lilongwe, Malawi
Evance Mwathunga, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Malawi’s Chancellor College
Tuesday, 30 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: This paper seeks to understand the production of urban space in Malawi’s postcolonial city of Lilongwe, focusing on exploring urban residents’ perceptions of space and their attendant practices of claiming and defending urban spaces. In the paper an analysis of perceptions and spatial practices of residents of Area 49 in Lilongwe, Malawi, is based on one of the three elements of Lefebvre’s (1991) spatial triad, namely, spatial practice. A survey conducted among 115 residents investigated the perceptions regarding the role of the state in land control and which spatial strategies and tactics the residents of the area employed to claim and defend their spaces. It can be noted that invading groups of residents are not ignorant of the state’s potential strategies to repossess the land, but the majority believe that the state would not repossess the land they have invaded. Five specific themes of spatial practices and tactics employed by the invaders were identified: (1) spatial strategies (2) temporary farming (3) use of temporary shelter (4) mimicking the state (5) deliberation setting. The study has shown that the land invaders probably have more respect for traditional leaders as owners of the land as opposed to the state. By willingly disregarding the law, land invaders acted based on their perceptions as opposed to their knowledge, in this case that of urban planning. The knowledge of planning does not seem to serve the people being planned for. The apparent trust in chiefs as legitimate owners (but not legal owners) and custodians of the land effectively means chiefs and the so-called encroachers are on one side while the state as an institution is on the other side.
Biography: Evance Mwathunga is a lecturer in geography and planning and former Head of the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi. He holds a PhD from Stellenbosch University and a Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from Heriot-Watt University (Scotland). His research interests are in the production of urban spaces, urban informality and urban governance. Outside teaching and research, he also serves as a planning commissioner in the high-level national planning commission for Malawi - an independent institution mandated to identify the national socio-economic development vision, policies, plans, strategies and priorities.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Missing Urban Data - Documenting everyday lives in urban Tanzania
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Missing Urban Data - Documenting everyday lives in urban Tanzania
Millicent Akaateba, Technical University Berlin
Thursday, 25 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: Very often and for far too long, discourses on land governance in sub-Saharan Africa have focused on debates for the replacement of customary land tenure systems vs debates for their continuity. Contemporary land policy trends are however shifting towards an ‘adaptation paradigm’ where statutory and customary tenure systems are merged. Using a case study of neo-customary land delivery practices in two secondary cities in Ghana, the presentation will analyze state and non-state actor interactions in peri-urban land delivery and examine the extent to which such practices contribute to urban justice - particularly in terms of customary land rights and access to land for the poor. In reflecting on the wider implications of the findings to the call for more situated and bottom up planning practices from the global south; Millicent asks the question: who wins and who loses from integration?
Biography: Dr. Millicent Awialie Akaateba is an Affiliate Researcher of the Habitat Unit of the Technical University of Berlin, Germany and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Planning and Land Management of the University for Development Studies, Ghana. Prior to joining the University for Development Studies as a lecturer, she worked in private planning consultancy on a range of projects on urban governance, transportation, land management and pro-poor development. She is interested in co-production practices between state and non-state actors in urban governance processes and how formal and informal systems can synthesize in African cities. Dr Akaateba is hosted in the School of Architecture and Planning through the Wits-TUB Urban Lab programme, see: https://www.wits.ac.za/wits-tub-urban-lab/_
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Missing Urban Data - Documenting everyday lives in urban Tanzania
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Missing Urban Data - Documenting everyday lives in urban Tanzania
Nathalie Jean-Baptiste, Institute of Human Settlement Studies, Ardhi University, Tanzania
Tuesday, 23 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: From the perspective of the user, urban services are much more than a service. Water provision and access to sanitation are part of people's daily lives and have multiple dimensions. To better understand these dimensions, we explore livelihoods strategies, opportunities and risks and everyday responses to existing and non existing infrastructure in three Tanzanian cities: Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Mwanza. Based on the assumption that opportunities to overcome urban service deficiencies reflect both individual and household behaviour, our work focused on collective organization and survival as well as trade-offs through which community residents receive and act on available urban services. We found that shared facilities are not residents's choice, women play an important role in the provision of improved sanitation, utility providers with pro-poor attitude are more willing to explore alternative technological options and participatory infrastructure planning (involving utilities, community, local government authorities) is crucial for enabling a viable environment for investments in urban Tanzania.
Biography: Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste is a Marie Curie Global Fellow and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Human Settlements Studies (IHSS) at Ardhi University in Tanzania. She is also associated with the Technical University of Darmstadt where she currently teaches and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. She is an architect and urban expert on development and infrastructure at risk in low-income countries. Her international experience includes vulnerability assessments in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Tanzania as well as environmental education in Mexico and Australia. She is the Team Leader of the Climate Change and Environmental Risk Cluster at IHSS, Board member and Coordinator of the Housing Network of the International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS) and Lead Coordinating Author of the chapter on Housing and Informal Settlements of the Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities: ARC3-2 (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: On the peripheries of citizenship: protest and public goods in Africa
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
On the peripheries of citizenship: protest and public goods in Africa
Marcus Walton, Political Affairs Research Institute
Tuesday, 16 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Protests over public goods (i.e. basic goods provided or subsidized by the state) have been an integral part of African politics in recent decades. While several studies have identified this trend, there has been little consensus on the reasons for these protests. In this article, I use interviews and archival research from three prominent cases to identify protestors’ motives for mobilization over public goods. Using the cases of bread in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, fuel in the 2012 Occupy Nigeria Movement, and housing in the recent service delivery protests in South Africa, I ask: why do people protest over public goods? Against the rational choice, social contract, and moral economy literature, I argue for an understanding of protest motivated by citizenship, or the ‘right to have rights.’
Biography
Marcus Walton is a post-doctoral fellow at the Political Affairs Research Institute (PARI). He recently defended his PhD dissertation in Political Science entitled, "Resources and Recourses: The Origins of Entitlement in Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa" from Brown University. Marcus' research focuses on the history and norms of claims-making in several African countries, particularly in regards to public goods and social protection. He will be presenting a paper developed from part of his dissertation, on protests, resources, and popular conceptions of rights.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Building the nation: architecture and planning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after 1960
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Building the nation: architecture and planning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after 1960
Johan Lagae, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University
Tuesday, 9 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
On June 30th, 1960, Congo gained its independence, making an end to Belgian colonial rule that had started with King Leopold II’s venture of taking possession of Central-Africa in 1885. Colonialism left an important physical legacy of infrastructures, buildings and urban landscapes that still make up a large part of Congo’s image today. Yet, significant developments in terms of architecture and urban planning did take place in the post-independence years, especially from 1966 onwards when the then president Mobutu launched a project of “nation building” under the label of a “Recours à l’authenticité”, and until 1973 when he installed the regime of “zaïrianisation” in order to make an end to all foreign interest in Congo’s economy. While some construction work and urban planning did continue throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, among others in the context of development aid, it would take until the early 2000s before the building industry again gained momentum, resulting in the rapid transformation of the urban landscapes of Congo’s cities that we witness today. In this lecture, I will sketch out this evolution and present a series of projects that illustrate how both foreign and Congolese architects and planners made and shaped the new nation of the DRC over time.
Biography
Johan Lagae is Full Professor at Ghent University, where he teaches 20th Century Architectural History with a focus on the non-European context. He holds a PhD on colonial architecture in the former Belgian Congo and has published widely on the topic (full bibliography: https://biblio.ugent.be/person/801000945809), and co-curated several Congo-related exhibitions, such as Le mémoire du Congo. Le temps colonial (2005), Congo. Paysages urbains. Regards croisés (2007), Congo belge en images (2010), Congo Far West. Arts, Sciences & Collections (Tervuren, 2011 – Lubumbashi, 2013), and, most recently, A chacun sa maison. Housing in the Belgian Congo 1945-1960 (Brussels, 2018). He has also collaborated with several artists from DR Congo, in particular with photographer Sammy Baloji and curator/writer Patrick Mudekereza, both of whom are based in Lubumbashi. From 2010 till 2014 he co-chaired a European research group devoted to the theme “European Architecture beyond Europe” (COST-action IS0904). He is co-founder and editorial member of ABE-Journal (https://journals.openedition.org/abe/ ). Currently he acts as external advisor for the multidisciplinary research project of the CCA, Montréal, entitled “Centring Africa: Postcolonial Perspectives on Architecture”.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Operating Model of the new Human Settlements Development Bank (HSDB)
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Operating Model of the new Human Settlements Development Bank (HSDB)
Vuyisani Moss, Strategy and Planning, National Department of Human Settlements
Tuesday, 2 October 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
The Human Settlements Development Bank (HSDB) will be established through the consolidation of the NHFC, RHLF and NURCHA. The core rationale for the establishment of the HSDB resides in the need to provide effective government financing and other support to the human settlements development value chain in the face of market failure and significant need. These challenges require a housing finance strategy that responds on a number of levels if the overall human settlements needs are to be met. In particular:
I. A need to substantially mobilise increased private secured credit for housing to households;
II. The provision of increased unsecured housing finance and the mobilisation of household savings and contributions;
III. The facilitation and support of credit extension and finance innovation; and
IV. The need to maximise leverage of government housing finance assets.
In order to meet these human settlements finance needs in a sustainable manner, a coordinated and integrated financial institutional structure is required that is able to effectively leverage government grants, wholesale and investment funding so as to maximise private sector funding, as well as household contributions.
Biography
Vuyisani Moss is an experienced and trained development economist with a Master’s Degree in Policy and Development (cum laude) from Fort Hare University, by dissertation, “The Role of Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs) towards Promoting a Broader Regional Economic Cooperation in Southern Africa: A Case of the Maputo Development Corridor”. He obtained his Diploma in Housing Finance in 2008 at the Wharton School and his PhD in Town and Development Planning at Wits in 2012, thesis entitled, ‘The Relationship between Borrower Education and the Risk of Default among Low Income Homeowners: a Case Study of Protea Glen, Soweto’. He worked at the NHFC for 15 years as a Research Analyst and Market Analyst. He had a brief stint at UN Habitat as a Consultant. He was part of the NDHS FSC negotiating team with BASA, tasked to lead the Consumer/Borrower Education Workstream in 2005. He has published extensively and joined the NDHS in 2015 as a Director of Human Settlements Strategy. Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Down by the river: park dwellers, public space and the politics of invisibility
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Down by the river: park dwellers, public space and the politics of invisibility in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs
Sarah Charlton, CUBES, School of Architecture and Planning, with the Homeless Writer’s Project
Tuesday, 25 September 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Household poverty in Johannesburg continues to be identified with particular localities, such as informal settlements, former townships and the inner city. In the same vein Johannesburg’s northern suburbs are associated with considerable affluence. But in these neighbourhoods, shifting the gaze beyond property ownership to public space opens up a different view, of largely unrecognised poverty that has penetrated the suburbs. Parks and public open spaces are intermittently or permanently being used as shelter and sometimes working space by a much poorer cohort. This paper builds on fieldwork undertaken at points along the Braamfontein Spruit, a linear public space traversing multiple neighbourhoods. Qualitative interviews by members of the Homeless Writer’s Project explored the situations and motivations of people living in the open along the river. Findings show diverse circumstances, which include both people eking out an existence in the margins of suburban life as well as those more directly connected to the formal economy. The paper contests notions of this as a population of vagrants largely dislocated from society as is often assumed, depicting instead multi-faceted lives and forms of agency. The paper considers the ‘politics of invisibility’ evident in the situation: in the way park dwellers manage their lives and in the way they are viewed by property owners and the state.
The Homeless Story Project began in 2009. The group consists of David Majoka, Tshabalira Lebakeng, Anthony Mafela and Madoda Ntuli, who have all known and experienced homelessness. The group, run and co-ordinated by Harriet Perlman, meets once a week and provides a space for people to share and tell stories. The project aims to give a voice to the voiceless by creating opportunities for stories to be developed into films or published media. Together with director Akin Omotoso, script writer Craig Freimond and co-writer and producer Robbie Thorpe, the project recently developed Vaya – a feature film about coming to Johannesburg. Vaya was inspired by the lives of David, Madoda, Tshaba and Anthony and took 6 years to develop. The Homeless Writer’s Project together with photographer Mark Lewis, and Sarah Charlton also produced an accompanying book called – Vaya: Untold Stories of Johannesburg. The Homeless Writer’s Project have most recently worked with Sarah on the research project: Down by the river: park dwellers, public space and the politics of invisibility in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: "The pig eats but doesn't know what makes it fat“
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
"The pig eats but doesn't know what makes it fat“: absence, anthromorphism and applied theatre in the adaptation of Aristophones "The Birds", an urban arts project in place making commissioned by The Trinity Session and The Johannesburg Development Agency
Tamara Guhrs, Flying House, and Myer Taub, Theatre and Performance Department, Wits School of Arts
Tuesday, 18 September 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract: When worlds collide: reflections on power, performance and participation in "Birds of the Grove", a place-making through public art and theatre intervention. Using participatory performance and Applied Theatre methods necessitates a critical reflection on the power dynamics at play in any given context. This brief reflection collates ideas drawn from Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and bell hook's Engaged Pedagogy to examine the relationship between trust, control, creative process and power. The presentation focuses on the role of the artist-facilitator in a project where visual and performing arts were used to generate and synthesise ideas and prototypes for public space artworks.
Dr Myer Taub teaches in the theatre and performance division (TAP) at the Wits School of Arts. he is an academic, performer, director, dramatist and theatre maker. His most recent works include: "Florence", (as playwright) at The Market Theatre, August 2018, "Birds of the Grove" as theatre-maker for The Trinity Session and Johannesburg Development Agency, " Time Flies and the Spruit of BraamsFountain" for JoziWalks (May 2018) and "Tracing the Spruit" for Watershed, (September 2018). He is a working group member of the Performance as Research working group affiliated to the International Federation for Theatre Research.
Tamara Schulz (Guhrs) is a freelance consultant who has used participatory performance practices in a variety of contexts, from high schools in Joburg's inner city to conservation in rural Zambia. She is a facilitator on the core team of ASSITEJ's Kickstarter programme, working to embed creative arts into the primary school curriculum. In March 2018 she collaborated with Alex Halligey and the Kwasha! Drama Company to create Ngale KweNdlu, a site-specific theatre activation on history and memory at the Windybrow Arts Centre in Hillbrow. In July she was commissioned by Frankfurt Zoological Society to create a participatory theatre programme to create awareness about the illegal bushmeat trade. Tamara is a founding member of Flying House, an organisation aimed at connecting artists with business opportunities, and business with creative and cultural capital. She has worked as a theatre designer, writer and educator.
Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Inclusive cultural governance: integrating artistic and cultural practices into national urban frameworks
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Inclusive cultural governance: integrating artistic and cultural practices into national urban frameworks
Avril Joffe, Cultural Policy and Management, Wits School of Arts
Tuesday, 11 September 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This paper develops an argument for a collaborative multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary research agenda on inclusive, urban cultural governance to incorporate culture and cultural expressions into existing urban development frameworks in South Africa. It takes as its starting point the SDGs, particularly goal 11 ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’, the 2005 Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the AU Agenda 2063. It offers four propositions to locate the argument and build the research agenda: first, that the integration of culture and cultural expressions at the urban level are necessary to both underpin and to animate processes of democracy, active citizenship, equitable access across a range of services, infrastructure and inclusion strategies and therefore critical to fully understand how a country approaches development overall; second, that collaborations among and contributions from public officials, artists, cultural practitioners and citizens can strengthen both municipalities and communities and generate significant economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes; third, that the intersection of culture, creativity and economy at the level of the urban provides for the important fusion between the symbolic and the expressive, between cutting edge cultural expressions and the culture of everyday life (inclusive of tradition, indigenous and contemporary culture); and fourth, that we need to move with speed to build on the separate initiatives coalescing around the urban environments. The purpose of this research agenda then is to provide a set of framing devices to surface questions about the critical components of local cultural policy and urban cultural practice both to support the development of a culturally sensitive urban development framework and to explore the tensions that are likely to emerge in so doing.
Avril Joffe is an economic sociologist with experience in the field of cultural policy, culture and development and the cultural economy. She is the head of the Cultural Policy and Management Department at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Avril is an active member of UNESCO’s Panel of Experts for Cultural Policy and Governance undertaking missions to support African governments in developing cultural policies, cultural industry strategies, reporting on their implementation of the UNESCO Convention, writing and editing training manuals and recently contributed to the Global Monitoring Report 2018 on the ‘Integration of Culture in Sustainable Development’. Avril is a member of the South African Ministerial Review Panel to draft a revised cultural policy for South Africa. She is also on the board of the National Arts Council and chairs the Audit and Risk Committee for the NAC.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Security at the Margins
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
SeaM Workshop Closing Panel
with
Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock, Jo Vearey and the SeaM Team
Tuesday, 28 August 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Security at the Margins (SeaM) is a three-year partnership between the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Edinburgh, drawing in partners from policy and practice. The partnership is based on the premise that we can design better urban interventions if we develop more methodologically innovative and conceptually nuanced research on security at the urban margins. This Faces of the City Seminar draws together members of the SeaM collective to critically explore the premises of the project: Is ‘innovation’ in methods a buzzword or a reality? Does nuance help or obstruct the honing of urban interventions? Can research fundamentally shape urban policy? Or will research be reduced to rhetoric, leaving the substance of policies to be shaped by political expediency and economic constraints?
For more information on SeaM, go to:
WEBSITE: https://theseamproject.org/
TWITTER: @SeaM_project
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 3rd Quarter seminar series as arranged by the Gauteng City Region Observatory.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Metropolis Annual meeting
GCRO is proud to be participating in the Metropolis Annual Meeting taking place in Gauteng from 26-29 August 2018.
Please join us in the following spaces during the meeting:
- GCRO's stand at the exhibition (26-29 August 2018)
- Monday, 27 August, 13:00-15:00:
- Gillian Maree is presenting in Parallel Session 3 on Environmental Justice
- Dr Rob Moore is facilitating Parallel Session 6 Adaptive Approaches to Governance
Faces of the City: Of bodies and phones – merchant behaviours in sustaining market access to Chinese apparel in Johannesburg’s inner city
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Of bodies and phones – merchant behaviours in sustaining market access to Chinese apparel in Johannesburg’s inner city
Tanya Zack, City planner and author
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
What are the merchant behaviours and networks that fuel the fast-fashion hub that services sub-Saharan Africa from thousands of small shops in Johannesburg’s inner city? This research paper probes the intricate social, digital and physical networks that characterise the merchandising component of the global production network related to the cross border sale of Chinese apparel. It maps the behaviour of 400 cross border shoppers (who resell in their home countries) and 400 inner city shopkeepers (who retail and wholesale to cross border shoppers), who are enabling market access to emerging economies. It complements this with findings from case studies of cross border shoppers and retailers, with a particular emphasis on the local and transnational business networks that they exploit to be active agents in the customising of products and in influencing product lines. Their behaviours, both through social media and through their physical labour, product selection and transactions, deepen supplier capabilities, and sustain market reach by affecting and attending to an exquisitely precise choice offering to customers in distant locations. The reliance on a combination of first person movement across borders, on relationship trading and on social media is probed. The findings illuminate the efficiencies and inefficiencies of information flows, trade logistics, and transactions in a network of bodies and digital messaging. It also surfaces the diverse behaviours adopted by shoppers and retailers navigating an environment where competition is local, regional and global as new physical markets open elsewhere, and the immediacy of social media services a fickle and demanding consumer market.
Tanya Zack is an urban planner and writer who holds a PhD from University of Witwatersrand for her work on Critical Pragmatism in Planning. She is the author of a series of photobooks entitled, ‘Wake Up, This Is Joburg’ (with photographer Mark Lewis). Her core skills and work experience include writing, policy development, research, and project management. Her clients have included the City of Johannesburg, the Department of Housing (now Human Settlements) and South African Cities Network. She has operated as an independent consultant since 1991 and straddles academic research and practice. Tanya's recent consulting work, research, publication and creative writing centres on the inner city of Johannesburg. This includes work on migrant spaces and in particular on the spatial and economic shifts in an Ethiopian entrepreneurial location in the inner city. In 2014 she was awarded a writing residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center to work on a book she is writing about the Ethiopian quarter.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 3rd Quarter seminar series as arranged by the Gauteng City Region Observatory.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list, please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Where do we draw the line?: Graffiti in Maboneng, Johannesburg
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Where do we draw the line?: Graffiti in Maboneng, Johannesburg
Alexandra Parker and Samkelisiwe Khanyile, Gauteng City-Region Observatory
Tuesday, 14 August 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This paper uses photographs of graffiti to trace Maboneng’s development and locate graffiti within the precinct. The research shows the extent to which the Maboneng precinct is branded through urban aesthetics including graffiti. Through visual and spatial analysis, we show the ambiguities of defining both graffiti and place. The research demonstrates that graffiti has aesthetic value in the urban environment. This aesthetic value signifies the redevelopment of a neighbourhood, distinguishing the area at a local level but also signifying a global aesthetic and approach. Using the case study of Maboneng we also show that graffiti is leveraged in nurturing urban development, creative economies and tourism. Graffiti continues to contest the production and ownership of public space even as it becomes increasingly commodified in the urban environment.
Alexandra Parker’s research explores the intersections of people, their cultures and identities, and urban and suburban environments. Her current research is diverse and examines the roles of motherhood identity, graffiti, streets as public spaces and school feeder zones in shaping the Gauteng city-region. Exploring personal identities, cultural practices and social experiences offers alternative insights into the functions and dysfunctions of city spaces. Alexandra has a growing enthusiasm in the work of visually disseminating research findings through exhibitions, data visualisations, explainer videos and exploiting social media platforms.
Samkelisiwe ‘Sam’ Khanyile holds a MSc in GIS and Remote Sensing. Sam’s academic and research interests are positioned between investigating the impact of mining on surrounding communities (both human and natural) and access to mining-related information. Her current research is focused on looking at how green infrastructure can be incorporated into urban planning practices and investigating how legacies of past activities shape urban landscapes. Sam also has a particular interest in experimenting with different ways of mapping and visualising spatial data.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 3rd Quarter seminar series as arranged by the Gauteng City Region Observatory.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Network for gender & urban research workshop
Network for gender & urban research
Workshop
Wednesday 8 August
08:30-13:00
PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE CHANGE
Venue: Postgraduate seminar room, John Moffat basement, University of the Witwatersrand
There is increasing awareness in urban studies and geography disciplines that a feminist approach to research is required or should at the very least be considered.
The intention of this workshop is to establish a research network of scholars exploring gender in urban research or scholars who are using feminist methodologies in their work. The workshop is an opportunity to understand what work is being done in this domain and to explore ways that this work can be supported and taken forward.
We propose two areas of focus for the workshop: 1) Brief presentations and discussion on current urban research on gender or urban research with a feminist approach; 2) urban research employing feminist, gendered or queer methodologies.
Please get in touch by 30 July if you are currently working in this area and have insights to share (send us a 200-300 word description or expression of interest) but also if you are simply interested in attending and engaging.
Margot Rubin – margot.rubin@wits.ac.za
Alexandra Parker – alexandra.parker@gcro.ac.za
Joint workshop with SARChi in Spatial Analysis and City Planning and GCRO
Photo by Mark Lewis
Faces of the City: Social Surveys Community Tapestry: The importance of understanding the distinctiveness and dynamism of townships
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Social Surveys Community Tapestry: The importance of understanding the distinctiveness and dynamism of townships
Lebogang Shilakoe and Sandile Zwane, Social Surveys
Tuesday, 7 August 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This talk addresses three key issues in the South African planning environment, particularly relating to areas classified as townships/ peri-urban areas:
- • Are all townships the same?
- • How can planning be done in a way that generalises plans to ward and municipal level, but still maintains and addresses the specificity of each community’s distinct needs and priorities?
- • Are townships static? How can we track changes in the township landscape?
The Community Tapestry is a spatially represented segmentation of communities based on their socio-economic standing, level of infrastructure and the extent of their diversity. This provides a refined understanding of the types of communities found in South Africa and the varied needs of their assorted populations. With the right application, this can enable the appropriate allocation of financial resources for greater impact.
Sandile Zwane and Lebogang Shilakoe are representatives of Social Surveys Africa, a leading development and social research organization established in 1987. Over the years, Social Surveys’ research has focused on social justice advocacy that gives voice to marginalised and often ignored communities, across a range of sectors including education, housing, illegal evictions, education, mining, health and the civil society ecosystem among others. Social Surveys’ key mandate is to provide nuanced understanding of communities around the country and continent. To date, over 300 research studies in 10 African countries have been conducted by Social Surveys, reaching hundreds of thousands of respondents and impacting the lives of many more through the policy recommendations derived from the research findings.
Sandile is a seasoned Field Manager with over 10 years of experience travelling and negotiating access into different communities in South Africa. He has over nine years Field Management experience with SSA, two years with Ask Africa and three years as a Researcher for the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT) at the University of Johannesburg. Sandile has managed several projects including gender-based violence, national education study, evaluation of the Sesame street's Takalane sesame, PATH's Windows of Opportunity and Soul City's Kwanda TV programme, to name just a few. At UJ, he served as a Researcher for The Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), in the Education Policy Consortium where he led a 3-year Post-schooling research project commissioned by the Department of Higher Education and Training. Currently he travels into different towns, townships and villages documenting changes, improvements and uniqueness of South African communities.
Lebogang Shilakoe is an Assistant Researcher and holds a degree in Cognitive Psychology and Neuro Sciences. She has played a key role in the development of the Community Tapestry. She also has a strong interest in development planning and the co-creation of public data for enhancing co-governance and accountability.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
If you would like to subscribe to the mailing list please visit https://www.wits.ac.za/sacp/faces-of-the-city-/ or http://eepurl.com/dqIyj5
Faces of the City: Informal Transaction processes in RDP housing: An entanglement of customary and Western practices
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Informal Transaction processes in RDP housing: An entanglement of customary and Western practices
Sandile Mbatha, Academy for African Urban Diversity
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This paper is part of my PhD research project exploring the extent, nature and character of informal transactions in RDP housing in South Africa. The paper focuses on how RDP beneficiaries engage in informal transactions processes using both customary and western practices. There is a clear customary-western entanglement in how they transact their properties. In-turn, this entanglement highlights limitations in both forms of practice in the context of the post-apartheid city. It challenges how property relations are understood by both urban governance institutions and practitioners. Further highlighted by these informal transactions processes are deep seated urban citizenship challenges experienced by RDP beneficiaries. Through navigating customary-western entanglements, RDP beneficiaries claim their right to the city and thereby challenge the status quo of post-apartheid urban citizenship. The paper advances the argument that post-apartheid urban governance has not adjusted to the changing socio-cultural and economic dynamics of its citizens. I make a further proposition that the manner in which the urban poor transact their RDP houses should be understood within a broader framework of their struggle to lay claim to the post-apartheid city.
Bio
Sandile Mbatha is the Director and founder of Ulwazi NS Research Consulting, an organisation focused on human-centric solutions to human settlements; informal land markets; urban planning; local economic development; water; food and energy issues in urban and peri-urban contexts. He holds a PhD in Architecture and Town Planning from the University of Stuttgart, with a focus on informal transactions in low income housing in South Africa. He has more than a decade of working with public and non-governmental sector through developing and implementing programmes for low income urban and peri-urban communities. He has also participated in various urban development programmes aimed at fostering development partnerships between the municipality and communities, particularly conducting research on urban renewal and driving stakeholder coordination and engagement. He has vast experience as consultant across various sectors. Key clients include: UN Habitat and UK FCO Future Cities Programme as well as the eThekwini Municipality. He is also a 2017/18 fellow for the Academy for African Urban Diversity, a joint project of the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of Witwatersrand, the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, and the Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 3rd Quarter seminar series as arranged by the Gauteng City Region Observatory.
Faces of the City: Federal Consolidation of Power at the Center Or Fragmentation from the Provinces/States
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Federal Consolidation of Power at the Center Or Fragmentation from the Provinces/States: A Paper Drawn from Excerpts From Architecture and Politics in Nigeria
Nnamdi Elleh, Wits School of Architecture and Planning
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
The premise of this presentation is the plan for the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Federal Capital City (FCC) which stemmed in part from British colonialism when the country’s external boundaries were established in 1900, and after two separate regions that were operating independently, Northern and Southern Nigeria, were amalgamated into one nation in 1914, and in part from the national reconstruction and modernization projects after the country’s Civil War that lasted from 1967 to1970. This premise has two corollaries: The first corollary is in 1975, the main architect who designed the Master Plan of Abuja, Thomas Todd, envisioned capital city building as a communicative, instructional, instrument on the principles of democracy in the public sphere in Nigeria (Architect of the Capitol and Todd et. al. 1981: 1). The second corollary is a capital city encompasses civic and public spaces where the principles of democracy can be put into practice and experienced in the “lifeworld.” On the surface, the intentions of the city envisioned by the Nigerian authorities and the problems caused by its realization appear unique to the crisis of the nation’s postcolonial aspirations. However, a careful study of the production of the city and the dissenting voices it has mobilized against the government of Nigeria suggest that civic and public spaces around and within the FCC have become a quagmire where access, uses, and meanings are under threat and are heavily contested. Keeping in mind that Nigeria and South Africa have different political histories, albeit with colonial foundations, what can we learn from the former’s center of national unity building experience in the discourse of contemporary “hot button” topics in South Africa?
Bio
Nnamdi Elleh is the new Head of the Wits School of Architecture and Planning. He was Professor of Architecture, History and Theory at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), University of Cincinnati, from 2002 to 2017. Prior to leaving the University of Cincinnati to join Wits, he served as the coordinator of the Master of Science in Architecture Program in the School of Architecture and Interior Design, and he established and headed the Doctor of Philosophy program from 2010 to 2016. He trained as an architect at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and received his Ph.D. in art history from Northwestern University. Elleh was a Fulbright Teaching-Research Scholar at the University of Cape Town; Architectural Historian at the same university in 2008; a recipient of the Samuel Kress, and Graham Architectural Foundation grants; a Samuel Littleson Pre-Doctoral Fellow (2000-2002) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art (CASVA), Washington, D.C.; and recipient of the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award at the University of Cincinnati in 2003. His publications include African Architecture, Evolution and Transformation (McGraw Hill, 1996); Architecture and Power in Africa (Praeger, 2001), and Reading the Architecture of the Underprivileged Classes (2014). Research interests include modern and contemporary architecture understood as diverse, multi-centered, regional and localized experiences in different parts of the world; art, architecture, public space, and politics as examined in his forthcoming book Architecture And Politics in Nigeria (2017). He also studies vernacular modernism(s), architecture, tourism, and environmental resources.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute. Attached is the schedule for the entire 3rd Quarter seminar series as arranged by the Gauteng City Region Observatory.
Faces of the City: Climate Change in Urban Ghana: The Spatial Planning Dimension
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Climate Change in Urban Ghana: The Spatial Planning Dimension
Paper by Daniel K. B. Inkoom and Patrick B. Cobbinah, Department of Planning, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana, presented by Dan Inkoom
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
The paper reviews the change in emphasis of local governments’ planning policies towards climate change adaptation in Ghana since 2010. The paper indicates that while climate change is becoming pronounced with evidences of flood risk, unpredictable rainfall patterns and gradual warming temperatures in Ghana, the broader implications for human survival, biodiversity and water resources are yet to be assimilated into spatial plans. The paper examines the difficulties in appreciating climate change adaptation at the local levels due to short-term perspectives of local plans, attitude of planners, and government action among others.
Key words: Climate change, spatial planning, adaptation, Ghana.
Bio
Daniel K.B. Inkoom is a Head of the Department of Planning, and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (KNUST). He holds a Bachelor's degree in Planning from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana after which he pursued further studies in Germany, Finland, Norway and the USA.
Daniel is currently external examiner to the Ardhi University in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the University of Zimbabwe. He has examined PhD thesis for the Chalmers University in Sweden, and the University of Pretoria. He was external moderator at the School of Architecture and Planning, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 2015-2017. He is a reviewer for several international journals including Urban Studies, Planning Theory, Land Use Policy and Regional Development Studies.
A Fellow of the Ghana Institute of Planners (FGIP), he is the Current Chair of the Steering Committee of the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS). He has consulted extensively in his areas of expertise for Action Aid, Cities Alliance, DanChurchAid, ECOWAS Commission, GIZ, IITA, KfW, Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd, TEARFUND (UK), UNDP, UNCDF, The World Bank Institute (WBI) and the World Bank.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Joint PARI - GCRO Seminar - Embedded Cohesion: Governing Public Goods in São Paulo, 1989-2016
Embedded Cohesion: Governing Public Goods in São Paulo, 1989-2016
Seminar presented by Benjamin Bradlow
Wednesday 4 July, 11:00-12:30
GCRO Boardroom
Abstract
Dominant theories of urban political economy predict convergence in material and institutional outcomes in large cities across the globe: growing inequalities of income, wealth, and standards of living, and the political dominance of business elites in real estate, construction, and finance. If there are limits to the convergence of urban inequalities and governance across cities, then we need tractable concepts for comparative analysis of this variation. I draw on nine months of fieldwork in São Paulo in 2016 and 2017, to construct a historical explanation of why relationships between state and society in São Paulo’s recent democratic era have made it possible to generate surprisingly effective redistribution of public goods across multiple policy spheres — housing and public transportation. Dominant explanations of the social bases of state action have focused on the autonomy of single bureaucratic agencies to achieve their goals, and degrees of “embeddedness” of the state in other social sectors, such as business elites and working class organizations. The distribution of public goods at the city scale is conditioned by unique conditions for which these explanations do not suffice. In particular, the city is a subsidiary institutional authority and institutional action at this scale therefore requires coordination across multiple scales of bureaucratic agencies. Furthermore, the distribution of public goods in cities often involves coordination across multiple line agencies at the municipal level. Finally, because public goods often rely on networks of infrastructure across space, coordination across the geography of the city is required. In order to capture these unique dynamics of institutional intervention in the case of São Paulo, I introduce a new pathway for how states achieve redistributive outcomes: “embedded cohesion”.
Bio
Benjamin H. Bradlow is a PhD candidate in sociology and an NSF-IGERT fellow in development and inequality at Brown University. His current research compares urban governance of public goods (housing, public transportation, and sanitation) in São Paulo and Johannesburg after transitions to democracy. This dissertation is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, and the Brazilian Studies Association. He has been a visiting researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of São Paulo and the Public Affairs Research Institute at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. His research interests are in political economy of globalization and development, comparative urban sociology, and state-society relations. He holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT and a BA in history from Swarthmore College.
Photo by Jonathan Olsson.
Faces of the City: The making and implications of the Global-African imaginary
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
The making and Implications of the Global-African Imaginary as a Discourse for African Urbanism
Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Faces of the City: Leveraging the housing asset through trade
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Leveraging the housing asset through trade
Kecia Rust
Tuesday, 8 May 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Faces of the City: Global perspectives on densification
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Global perspectives on densification
Alison Todes, Garth Klein & Philip Harrison
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Faces of the City: TBC
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Cities for Human Development: A capability perspective to city-makingDr Alexandre Apsan Frediani, Senior Lecturer, University College London
Tuesday, 17 April 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This presentation discusses the book project entitled: Cities for Human Development: A capability perspective to city-making. The book intends to establish links between literature on Human Development and Capability Approach with critical urban theory debates, exploring the interface between justice and urban development. An analytical framework drawing on Amartya Sen’s work is proposed in its introduction, and then each element of the framework is examined in the following chapters through the use of eight different case studies. The book focuses on civic-led practices of city-making, and explores their role in expanding the capabilities of marginalised urban dwellers. This seminar will introduce the book's objectives and structure, with a focus on the tensions and challenges the author is facing in addressing the book’s proposed objectives.
Bio
Alexandre Apsan Frediani is a Senior Lecturer at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) of University College London. He co-directs the MSc in Social Development Practice and he is DPU’s Director of Communications. His research interests include the application of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach in development practice; participatory planning and design; as well as housing and informal settlement upgrading. Alexandre has collaborated with academics and grassroots collectives in Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya and South Africa. Recently, Alexandre has been coordinating a project establishing the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) within Njala University and leading the work package on 'Translating Research into Practice' of the 4-year action research project called 'Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality'. Alexandre is in the board of Habitat International Coalition and an associate of Architecture Sans Frontières–UK.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Rogue Economies: Revelation and Revolution
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Rogue Economies: Revelation and Revolution
Thireshen Govender, Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg
Tuesday, 10 April 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Housed within two year-long modules at University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture’s Unit System, this combined first and second year Master’s level course supports original and critical thinking in the field of architecture and urbanism. It seeks to cultivate a high degree of professionalism, independent research and creative speculation. Unit 14 focuses its interests in Rogue Economies - those subversive economic practices, tactics and transactions that shape contemporary Johannesburg in bewilderingly dramatic ways. We look to understand these dynamics to build a relevant architectural literacy around emergent economic practices that are defining our African cities. As such, we investigate everyday-lived conditions such as billboards, trust, banking, immigrant economic enclaves, crime scenes, parking spaces, cross border busses, by-laws and bananas! We demonstrate its value and consequence in architecture and urbanism through rigorous analysis and experimental representation.
Bio
Thireshen Govender is an architect and urban designer practicing in Johannesburg, South Africa. His deep curiosity in emergent spatial patterns, particularly in new democracies, informs the nature of projects he undertakes through his practice and investigations in teaching. As a creative, he seeks to find alternative and relevant ways for space to meaningfully represent South African values whilst simultaneously speculating towards its democratic aspirations. A strong belief in the reciprocity between space and society drives his work. He founded UrbanWorks in 2008 in Johannesburg to critically engage with these themes through projects of varied scales, agencies and disciplines. He also teaches in at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg (Unit 14).
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Street level bureaucrats and the weapons of the weak
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series:
Street level bureaucrats and the weapons of the weak
Dr Margot Rubin, Senior Researcher at the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, Wits University
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
16:00-17:30
1st Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In 2014, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced the move away from small infill housing projects and the desire for a national new policy direction of mega projects of 10000 and more units located in new towns on the periphery. The new direction was welcomed politically at the provincial level but found resistance by provincial and local bureaucrats who did not agree or approve of the new direction. However, faced with towering national political and official support and the weight of provincial big political hitters, it seemed at first that there was little that could be done to resist and oppose this new programme. On closer inspection and through a deeper analysis it became apparent that officials within the state at the provincial and local spheres were finding ways to subvert and move against these forces. This paper looks at two elements: the political reasons and drivers of policy and locates them within national and provincial party politics, structures and processes; and second, the utilising the conceptual framing of De Certeau’s tactics, strategies and making do and Scott’s notion of the weapons of the weak to understand how officials in relative weaker positions are able to subvert and resist national and provincial interference into the built environment over which they are supposed to have sovereignty. The analysis continues and notes that these actions do not go unnoticed and is in turn checked, challenged and in some cases uncomfortably accommodated by those in power.
Bio
Margot Rubin, is a senior researcher in the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, in the School of Architecture and Planning and a Research Associate with the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP). Since 2002 she has worked as a researcher and policy and development consultant, focusing on housing and urban development issues, and has contributed to a number of research reports on behalf of the National Department of Housing, the Johannesburg Development Agency, SRK Engineering, World Bank, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, and Urban LandMark. Her PhD in Urban Planning and Politics interrogates the role of the legal system in urban governance in India and South Africa and its effect on the distribution of scarce resources and larger questions around democracy. She also holds a Masters degree in Urban Geography from the University of Pretoria, an Honours degree in Geography and Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Philosophy. In her work at the Research Chair, Margot has been writing about inner-city regeneration and housing policy and is currently engaged in work around mega housing projects and issues of gender and the city.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Cycling Cities: the Johannesburg experience
Please join us for the Faces of the City seminar:
Cycling Cities: the Johannesburg experience
Njogu Morgan
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Writing in 1935, a champion cycling racer turned automobile proponent argued that the transportation history of Johannesburg would be incomplete without examining the role of bicycles. He was of the view that bicycles once played the role that cars were increasingly assuming in Johannesburg and across the Witwatersrand reef. This presentation bridges the gap in Johannesburg’s transportation history by providing an overview of everyday cycling in Johannesburg from the late 1880s, to 2016. It provides a trajectory of utility cycling in Johannesburg through five interrelated lenses drawn from the cycling literature and transitions studies. Using this framework, it shows that while oft-cited transport determinants such as urban form, land use and allocations in traffic policy can shed light on the story of the bicycle in Johannesburg, alone they provide limited insights. To complete the narrative, more attention is paid to the changing social appraisal of bicycles and cars, activities of social movements, and nature of other transport alternatives within the changing social, economic and political context of South Africa.
Bio
Njogu Morgan is currently a post-doctoral researcher based at the South Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning through the support of the Life in the City project at the Wits School of Governance. His current research investigates how cycling experiences and spaces interact to influence the adoption of utility cycling in Johannesburg. Recently completed publications and in progress address formation and decay of cycling cultures in cities in South Africa and the US. His PhD thesis examined how contexts shape the embedding of everyday cycling from a historical comparative perspective.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Just sustainability: Juggling trade-offs in urban decision-making
Please join us for the Faces of the City seminar:
Just sustainability: Juggling trade-offs in urban decision-making
Christina Culwick
Tuesday, 13 March 2018
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Despite the theoretical alignment between environmental sustainability and social justice, marrying the two agendas has proved difficult in reality. The inability to achieve justice and sustainability imperatives has been partially attributed to an insufficient understanding of the complex interplay between social, economic and environmental factors. However, there is a paucity of research that explores the role of knowledge and how decisions are made at the boundary between these imperatives. In South Africa, the provision of social housing has been linked explicitly to the attainment of the social justice imperatives of access to shelter and basic services, as well as redressing inequality and unsustainability in cities. However, there is no consensus regarding how government should balance the immediate need for housing within the context of existing unsustainable and unjust urban form, resource constraints and high inequality. This presentation will explore potential for building a better understanding of these trade-offs, by using urban metabolism as an analytical framework.
Bio
Christina Culwick is a researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), focusing on urban sustainability and social justice. Her research extends across multiple disciplines, specifically focusing on research to inform policy and decision-making. Christina completed both undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Wits University, and is currently a PhD student at UCT. She is a qualified teacher and previously worked as a SABC broadcasting meteorologist.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Pathways out of homelessness: solidarity action research in the City of Tshwane
Please join us for the Faces of the City seminar:
Pathways out of homelessness: solidarity action research in the City of Tshwane
Stephan De Beer
Tuesday, 6 March 2018
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In this paper I attend to a specific research agenda, seeking to discern sustainable pathways out of street homelessness. I also discuss our attempt to engage street homelessness methodologically through solidarity action research. Considering the function of the activist scholar or liberation theologian – in liminal spaces between academy and the city, between different disciplines, and in our fractured and spatially segregated urban contexts – I / we seek to develop a clear agenda in partnership with, and shaped by, the voices and aspirations of the homeless poor, who become our primary interlocutors. I outline a process that started in 2014, but that really dates back to the early 1990s, to discern, discover, design, develop and document possible pathways out of homelessness. This is now expressing itself in research with a clearer advocacy agenda, seeking to influence policy, strategy and budgetary commitments that will impact street homelessness in South Africa. The joys, progressions, surprises, challenges, and frustrations of this process are reflected upon.
Bio
Stephan de Beer is the Director of the Centre for Contextual Ministry in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria. He is the co-convener of the Pathways out of Homelessness Research Project in the City of Tshwane. Stephan has worked for more than 25 years with issues related to inner city housing, street homelessness and vulnerable urban communities.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Writing about City politics – the making of How to Steal a City
Please join us for the Faces of the City seminar:
Writing about City politics – the making of How to Steal a City
Crispian Olver
Tuesday, 27 February 2018
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In March 2015, I was assigned to lead an intervention to root out corruption in theadministration of the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Cape. I minutely documented the intervention and wrote it up as an insider account which exposed how the metro administration was captured and bled dry by a criminal syndicate, abetted by factional politics within the ANC. In the process of conducting the intervention and ultimately writing the book I relied on an intelligence network to map out the web of corruption, as well as following paper trails, conducting aggressive interviews, and turning key witnesses. These methods are difficult to replicate within the bounds of ethical academic research. The seminar will explore different ways or perspectives for analysing city dynamics, and discuss some of the thorny ethical issues that confront researchers, including the role of the researcher as an actor within the city space. The book paints a world in which both heroes and villains share human frailties, questionable motives and endearing characteristics, and moral boundaries are not as clearly delineated as I initially expected.
Bio
Crispian Olver is a public policy expert and social activist with a particular interest in local government and urban governance. He spent a decade in Mandela and Thabo Mbeki’s government (1994 – 2005), ending up as Director General of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. He crafted most of the current local government legislation in South Africa, and was responsible for the process of setting up the post-‘94 local government system in South Africa. For the last few years he has been working on turning around distressed municipalities in South Africa. This has taken him right up to close to the mechanics by which municipalities get governed and the way that good governance can be eroded. His last big assignment was managing the process of building institutional capacity and rooting out corruption in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, about which he has recently published book titled ‘How to Steal a City’.
In the last decade he has also worked on a diverse range of other projects, including the World Bank’s Public Sector Capacity Building Programme in Ethiopia, the World Wildlife Fund’s global climate change programme and the UN’s Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) review of global carbon markets. He is a medical doctor by training and hold BSc (Med) (1983), Psychology Honours (1984) and MBChB (1988) degrees from UCT. He is currently registered for a PhD at WITS in the Politics Department, and is a research fellow at the Public Affairs Research Institute.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Reflecting from the pothole: South African exceptionalism and urban middle-class anxiety
Faces of the City seminar: Reflecting from the pothole: South African exceptionalism and urban middle-class anxiety
Alexandra Appelbaum
Tuesday, 20 February 2018
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
South Africa’s belief in its own exceptionalism within the African continent has a long history, and South African (white) middle-class identity has been, at least partially, constructed in relation to Africa as the ‘Other’. A large part of the binary construct between South Africa and the rest of Africa, in the eyes of the South African middle class, is the ‘modern’ infrastructure that typifies South Africa’s cities, as opposed to the perceived rural and chaotic Africa. This is most clearly articulated in the South African middle class outrage and panic about potholes.
Middle-class concerns about flaws in the South African road surface are so great as to shape the governance strategies for local municipalities. In catering to its predominantly middle-class constituents, the Democratic Alliance explicitly inculcates pothole repair into its campaigns and strategies – prominently so in Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba’s R80 million #waronpotholes. A pothole is an indicator of a structural failure in the road infrastructure; as a fixation of the urban middle-class imaginary, potholes are a tangible embodiment of precarity and perceived insecurity. This is fundamentally linked to the precarity of modernity and the perceived encroachment of the African ‘Other’. A key argument of the paper is that the predominantly white middle class hysteria about potholes is driven by fear that the white diasporic modern vision for South Africa, inculcated under apartheid, is crumbling.
Tracing the historical and contemporary discourse of potholes in South African media, this paper demonstrates how potholes have been understood and anxieties expressed, particularly in relation to the meaning of the urban. The paper uses potholes as a lens to explore the relationship between the middle class and the state, as well as the way in which the South African middle class construct their identity; express anxiety, and understand their position in South Africa.
Bio
Alli Appelbaum is a researcher at the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. She holds an MSc in Regional and Urban Planning Studies (with distinction) from the London School of Economics, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar, and a Bachelor of Arts and Honours (both in the first class) in History from the University of Cape Town. Much of her recent work at SA&CP has focused on middle-class suburban governance, and the socio-spatial relationships between this group and local government in Johannesburg.
Faces of the City - Taking Streets Seriously: the politics of public space in Johannesburg
Please join us for the Faces of the City seminar:
Taking Streets Seriously: the politics of public space in Johannesburg
Jesse Harber, Mamokete Matjomane, Alexandra Parker – Gauteng City-Region Observatory
13 February 2018
Tuesday
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
AbstractIn many parts of Gauteng, streets are congested with cars, trucks, minibus taxis, pedestrians, and informal traders. In other parts, streets are quiet, underutilised and frequently underserviced. In some parts of Gauteng, streets have become privatised or heavily securitised. In busy areas, informal traders sell their wares on the pavement or at traffic lights, adding to the congestion on narrow sidewalks. These presentations, based on the research report ‘Taking Streets Seriously’ interrogate how what is considered good urban design and liveability of streets may shift in different contexts. The studies unearthed a complex interplay of actors on Gauteng streets, with street users, property owners and the state each operating according to their own, diverse agendas, contingent on the particular street in question. The result is streets that are chaotic, contested, and changing over time. With this research, we hope to prompt a re-imagination of our streets, not least as streets rather than roads, but also as public spaces. Ultimately, we hope to correct an official urban discourse that overlooks the many uses to which streets are and could be put.BioJesse Harber has been a Researcher with the GCRO since September 2016 focusing on transport and urban governance. Previously, he worked with the Cities Support Programme and the Government Technical Advisory Centre, both of the National Treasury as well as a freelance urban and sustainable development consultant focusing on monitoring & evaluation, project and programme management, and organisational development. Before that he was a professional paella cook.Mamokete Matjomane is a junior researcher at GCRO and a PhD candidate in the school of Architecture and planning at Univ. of the Witwatersrand. She is affiliated to CUBES and PSUG programme. Mamokete’s research interests include street trading policy making and implementation in cities of the South, township economies and landscapes of peripheral urbanisation.Alexandra Parker joined the GCRO in late 2016 after a long and fruitful association with the University of the Witwatersrand as an undergraduate and postgraduate student and most recently, a postdoctoral research fellow. Her research explores the intersections of people, their cultures and identities, and urban and suburban environments.The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
GCRO at World Urban Forum: Multi-scalar governance for urban sustainability in resource constrained urban regions
Monday 12 February 2018, 09:00 - 11:00
Room 305
MODERATOR: Dr. Rob Moore (Gauteng City-Region Observatory)LEAD ORGANIZATION: Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO)PARTNERS: Gauteng Provincial Government (South Africa) - UCL’s City Leadership Laboratory/Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (UCL STEaPP) (United Kingdom)
Bold commitments to urban sustainability have been forged through recent international agreements (e.g. Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda, Paris Climate Agreement). A critical step in meeting these goals is translating them into locally relevant urban agendas. This 'localisation' process hinges on establishing the 'right' relationships between key actors – especially government actors - responsible for driving massive, complex and difficult urban transitions. This 'governance' work is not easy, especially in large fast-growing regions facing environmental resource crises, and where governance arrangements are intertwined with systems that lead to unsustainable outcomes.
This networking event focuses on the governance challenges and opportunities for localising global sustainability goals in large and complex urban regions. Various dimensions are explored including ideas for policies and plans, as well as the role of data, analysis and evidence in guiding decision making and action. This networking event focuses on the case of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) and also draws insights from urban regions across Africa and the global South. The event will showcase:
1) New applied research undertaken by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) on complex cost/benefit choices between social justice and environmental sustainability outcomes;
2) Recent policy-support analysis on the governance of pollution, urban water-security, and green infrastructure;
3) An international partnership of researchers and government practitioners working at the intersection between scientific and policy knowledges. This partnership includes GCRO, the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG), and UCL's City Leadership Laboratory/Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (UCL STEaPP);
4) New local policy initiatives (e.g. Green Infrastructure Strategy for Johannesburg);
5) Regional efforts by the GPG to localise the SDG's, led by the Premier of Gauteng as the co-Vice President of Metropolis; and
6) An ambitious long-term strategy to enhance knowledge at the policy-science interface through a 'Long-Range Ecological Study Site' for the GCR.
Colloquium on 'Building a Capable State" Service delivery in post-apartheid South Africa'
The GCRO invites you to attend a colloquium on the capability of the South African state, with an emphasis on local government and the institutional and financial framework within which local government functions. The event centres on the recently published book by Ian Palmer, Nishendra Moodley and Susan Parnell: Building a Capable State – Service Delivery in Post-Apartheid South Africa. The event will also include other specialists to stimulate debate on the capability of our state, past, present and future.
8th February 2018 - 14:30 to 18:30, Wits Club, West Campus, University of the Witwatersrand.
14:30 - Meet and tea
15:00 - Welcome by GCRO
15:15 - Main findings from the book: Ian Palmer
16:00 - Inputs by 'capable state' specialists, including Profs. Philip Harrison & Ivor Chipkin
17:00 - Open discussion
17:30 - Cocktail function
Please RSVP by no later than 1 February to: Nadine Abrahams, 011 717 7280, nadine.abrahams@gcro.ac.za. A map to the venue will be sent to those who confirm participation. There is ample parking at the venue.
More details on Building a Capable State – Service Delivery in Post-Apartheid South Africa can be found here.
Faces of the city: Of Ancestors, Mining Companies and Invasive Species. Environmental Changes, Urban Governance and Urbanity in Hwange (Zimbabwe)
Of Ancestors, Mining Companies and Invasive Species. Environmental Changes, Urban Governance and Urbanity in Hwange (Zimbabwe)
Dr Emilie Guitard – French Institute of Research in Africa, Nigeria
6 February 2018
Tuesday
16:00-17:30
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
The town of Hwange, located in Matabeleland North, North-Eastern Zimbabwe, has historical roots in coal mining. It is also located on the border of the country’s biggest protected area, the Hwange National Park. The 37, 500 inhabitants of Hwange thus live in a paradoxical ecological context, caught between coal mines, mango trees and other natural species introduced in the city under British rule, and the wildlife from the nearby park. This presentation is based on the first analyses conducted on ethnographic and ethno-scientific data collected during a two months fieldwork, in 2015, with city-dwellers and authorities of Hwange, within the frame of the ANR Programme PIAF (Interdisciplinary Program on Indigenous indicators of Fauna and Flora). PIAF researchers assume that, beside experts’ discourses, lay people also diagnose short and long term environmental changes, notably through the observation of biodiversity, even in urban settings.
The ethnographic research conducted in Hwange reveals that the city-dwellers pay indeed close attention to their natural environment and to the changes affecting it, through leisure activities (gardening, hunting, fishing), close relations maintained with their rural “homesteads”, but also through a great number of ecological phenomena imposed upon them (water pollution, invasive aquatic species, human-wildlife conflicts, etc.). Hwange inhabitants, along with local resource managers and municipal authorities, also produce diagnostics to explain these environmental changes. These diagnostics are built in complex causality chains, associating ecological causes (climate change, increase of the population for some species and of the competition between them and with humans) with economic, political or religious causes. We will focus here on the discourses where, in a circular manner, changes in urban biodiversity, the local governance and the ways of living in a city are intertwined. This specific case could serve to open a discussion on how to address urban governance and urbanity through relations to nature in urban settings.
Bio
Emilie Guitard holds a PhD in Social Anthropology (University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) and is currently researcher at French Institute of Research in Africa – Nigeria. She studies the relationship between urban African societies and their environments. Her PhD research was conducted between 2007 and 2011 with public authorities and city-dwellers of two North Cameroonian, middle-size cities (Garoua and Maroua); it focused on the perceptions and the institutional and popular practices of waste management, linked to power relations.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Social cohesion and violence prevention symposium
South Africa is a place of many contradictions, conflicts, and tensions, including but not limited to racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Since the 2000s, the term “social cohesion” has been used as something of a catchall ideal, to which these are all an affront. As common as the term is, it does not rest on a clear analysis of why social tensions exist, or what is to be done about those that do. So far, social cohesion has proved both elusive and resistant to official encouragement.
The GCRO and ACMS, in partnership, are undertaking a programme of research into the empirics of violence prevention, based on previous work on social cohesion. As part of the preparation for this programme a ‘State of Knowledge Symposium’ will bring together academics and practitioners working on problems of social tension, and particularly those that manifest as violence, in an academic setting. The interest of this workshop is to interrogate the kinds of interventions that are being deployed to address this field of social problems, with a particular focus on anti-violence work.Some initial questions include:
- To what extent do those who run various interventions articulate a theory of change, which conceptualises how their intervention will ‘work’ to achieve the goals they have in mind?
- What goals do those running interventions hope to achieve?
- What do they think are the specific causes of violence and related problems?
- Why were specific methodologies and approaches chosen for particular interventions (over alternative methodologies)?
- How has the thinking of implementing agents shifted over time in relation to a particular approach they are pursuing?
- To what extent have studies done to establish the impact of particular interventions (e.g. M&E)?
- What are the major opportunities that various actors, including government, should be exploiting to reduce violence and the potential for violence?
Please find attached the programme here. The venue is Humanities Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, Wits East Campus, Braamfontein - Map.
Parking is available at various places on East Campus, including visitor’s parking at either the Planetarium or the Origins Centre.
You can RSVP via Google forms here.
CTIN - What data do we want? Understanding demands for open data in South Africa
What data do we want? Understanding demands for open data
by Civic Tech Innovation Network
Speakers include:
Rachel Manxeba (Municipal Barometer, SALGA)
Adi Eyal (Open Up)
Kirsten Pearson (Online Budget Data Portal, Treasury)
Ithumaleng Mongale (DPSA)
Zodwa Keto (COGTA)
8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
LOCATION
Tshimologong Precinct, 41 Juta Street, Johannesburg
Please join us for a workshop on open data demand to mark the launch of our new research:
“What data do we want?
Understanding demands for open data amongst civil society organisations in South Africa”
Join researchers and practitioners from the open data community – both public and industry – for an insightful and practical workshop on improving the access and use of open data, as well as testing demand.
Open data is frequently cited as a necessary component for increased government accountability and openness. If that’s the case, what kind of open data is needed? There are many open data portals and projects in South Africa. But very little research on how they are used or on what open data civil society organisations actually want or need.
The Centre for Municipal Research and Advice (CMRA) conducted a study of open data demand by interviewing groups of national CSOs and local community-based organisations and exploring with them when, how and why they accessed government information or might need to use government data in their work. The research was conducted with the support of the Network Society Research programme at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Faces of the City: A right to the city perspective on spatial justice and housing South Africa’s urban poor
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: A right to the city perspective on spatial justice and housing South Africa’s urban poor
Dr Margot Strauss
Tuesday, 5 September 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Spatial injustice holds profound implications for the democratic transformation of South African society, the planning and development of inclusive towns and cities, and the realisation of the constitutionally enshrined housing rights of vulnerable and marginalised urban inhabitants. Patterns of spatial segregation in urban areas remain a persistent legacy of our apartheid past and current approaches to interpreting and realising housing rights largely fail to adequately address complex housing needs. This seminar highlights the value of Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city, as a normative paradigm, for developing the substantive content of the housing rights of South Africa’s urban poor. Drawing on history, social theory, constitutional and international human rights law, this seminar investigates the potential of the right to the city paradigm to advance housing rights and promote spatial and social transformation in South Africa.
Bio
Margot Strauss is a senior research associate at the Socio-Economic Rights and Administrative Justice (SERAJ) Research Project at Stellenbosch University. In 2017, Margot completed her doctoral dissertation entitled A right to the city for South Africa’s urban poor under Professor Sandra Liebenberg’s supervision, who holds the H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights. Her researchfocuses on constitutional law, housing rights, planning law, social and spatial justice in urban areas. She obtained her LLB degree from Stellenbosch University and joined the Overarching Strategic Project on Combating Poverty, Homelessness and Socio-Economic Vulnerability under the Constitution in 2011.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Synecdochic governance of the north-eastern Gauteng city-region periphery
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Synecdochic governance of the north-eastern Gauteng city-region periphery
Dr Ngaka Mosiane
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: The primacy of party politics in governing the GCR: Sedibeng's pending re-demarcation, amalgamation and metropolitanisation
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: The primacy of party politics in governing the GCR: Sedibeng's pending re-demarcation, amalgamation and metropolitanisation
Thembani Mkhize
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In 2011, the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) published a proposal detailing 157 cases of changes to be made to certain municipalities after the 2016 local elections, three of which were in Gauteng. One of the Gauteng cases was the proposed merger of ANC-run Emfuleni and DA-controlled Midvaal into a single Category A municipality, as part of the ANC’s plan to create wall-to-wall metros in Gauteng. The proposed merger would result in the dissolution of Sedibeng District Municipality as well as incorporation of Lesedi within Ekurhuleni. While the Gauteng Provincial Government and ANC Gauteng hailed the move for its potential to enhance development and service delivery in the hypothetical new metro, the DA fiercely resisted it on the grounds that it was driven by political agendas. So fierce was the DA’s opposition that the merger had to be set aside until after the 2016 local elections. Following the 2016 local elections, the political terrain in the GCR has changed considerably, with the DA having gained control of three more Gauteng municipalities, albeit via coalition with smaller parties. While the political landscape is unchanged in Sedibeng, the jury is still out on whether the merger will go ahead. This paper uses the case of Sedibeng to discuss the impetus and preeminence of ‘party politics’ and/or (both horizontal and vertical) political competition for government and governance in the GCR.
Bio
Thembani Mkhize is a junior researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), Mkhize has wide research interests which include urban regeneration, sub-local governance, city branding and large-scale city politics as well as the role of youth sub-cultures in shaping urban governance/politics.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Routes and rites to the city: Mobility, diversity and urban space in Johannesburg
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Routes and rites to the city: Mobility, diversity and urban space in Johannesburg
Dr Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Dr Lorena Núñez & Bettina Malcomess
Tuesday, 15 August 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
This seminar draws on the recent publication Routes & Rites to the City (ed. M. Wilhelm-Solomon, L. Núñez, P.B. Kankonde, B Malcomess, Palgrave 2016) along with the associated visual supplement curated by Bettina Malcomess. It argues for a re-reading of urbanism and diversity in Johannesburg through the lenses of religion and mobility. It explores the diversity of processes through which religion produces the post-apartheid city relating to social identities, spatialities, belonging, and the mobility of people, commodities, and aesthetic forms. Here, we theorise 'super-diversity' not only in terms of the horizontal diversity of groups of different ethnic, racial and religious composition but also in terms of both spatial and temporal diversity and the ways these layer the urban fabric. We argue that, beyond the binarism of the sacred and profane, religious forms and rites constitute contintual flows and movements, demarcations and inscriptions, territorialisations and de-territorialisations. This presentation will engage with the diversity of case studies explored in the published work dealing with a wide variety of sites and religions in Johannesburg.
Bio
Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Lorena Núñez is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Bettina Malcomess is Lecturer in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Creative economy and the global South: an opportunity for growing or a tool reinforcing segregation?
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Creative economy and the global South: an opportunity for growing or a tool reinforcing segregation?
Laura Burocco
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Although the term creative economies was initially popularised in countries such as the UK and the US, it has since gained currency in some middle income countries. Often linked to urban regeneration projects "creative hubs" arise in the city, where local (and international) elites define urban enclaves, which work as city-state and concentrate power and elite interests. On sale is not simply a working or residential space, but a lifestyle which has no dialogue with the reality of the original lived spaces. Indeed these real estate products claims to correct the incivility of the city within which they are imbedded in order to link to the modern world (and its markets). The presentation will show my PhD project, and illustrate some of the findings of the study. This research interrogates who these new economic subjects are, the sustainability and interests of these new economies and who the real beneficiaries are. It analyses the phenomena of gentrification in the South as a new form of colonialism acting bot h in a local and global scale, reproducing relations of power and control on societies already marked by serious indexes of inequality. It explores the link between cultural institutions and private and public investors in these processes.
Bio
Laura Burocco is currently a PhD candidate at Escola de Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Communication Technologies and Aesthetic field of research, CAPES scholarship. Her research areas: cognitive capitalism, creativity and institutional critique, gentrification and decolonial studies. She graduated in Law by the State University of Milan and holds a Master in Urban Sociology by the State University of Rio - UERJ, and MBE Housing from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Faces of the City: Social cohesion as a concern for local government: learning from past and current initiatives
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Social cohesion as a concern for local government: learning from past and current initiatives
Kate Joseph
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Mobility and the future city: Archipelagos of territory, representation, and belonging
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Mobility and the future city: Archipelagos of territory, representation, and belonging
Prof Loren Landau
Tuesday, 25 July 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
African cities’ rapidly transforming morphology and social composition starkly illustrates human mobility’s power to reconfigure politics’ spatial and temporal foundations. Whereas urbanisation elsewhere in the world has accompanied expanding state infrastructure and economic opportunities, African urbanisation is typically rapid, unstable, and occurring with limited possibility of accessing formal employment or public services. The results are moral and material economies linking rural towns to particular urban gateways with these gateways in turn tied to specific sites within the city, other African cities, and across global diasporas real and imagined. This paper explores how these emerging archipelagos are generating ‘future urbanism’: spaces in which residence creates patterns of self-alienation and deferrence in preparation for geographic and temporal elsewheres. These work against the consolidation of territorially bounded patterns of state-centred power and authority. But while these point to a kind of fragmentation and anarchy, these places are not bereft of order. Rather, they generate unique political subjectivities rooted in localised disconnection that will relocate cities’ position as the foundation of national and global political power. The consequences demand a geographic and temporal rescaling of how we explore political representation, authority, and belonging.
Bio
Prof Loren B Landau is the South African Research Chair in Human Mobility and the Politics of Difference at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg where he was the founding director. His work explores human mobility, citizenship, development, and political authority.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Mobility and Urban Archipelagos: Conceptualising Space and Connection amidst Africa’s Urban Fluidity
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Mobility and Urban Archipelagos: Conceptualising Space and Connection amidst Africa’s Urban Fluidity
Prof. Loren Landau
Tuesday, 16 May 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Tracing the metabolism of the everyday: Livelihoods and informality in Delft, Cape Town
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Tracing the metabolism of the everyday: Livelihoods and informality in Delft, Cape Town
Dr. Suraya Scheba
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: The Moral Geographies of Mothers in Greater Johannesburg
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: The Moral Geographies of Mothers in Greater Johannesburg
Dr. Alex Parker
Tuesday, 25 April 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
There is a rich mine of literature on spatial exclusions due to race, in South African cities, however few studies have focused on the gendered spatial experiences of women and more particularly, mothers. Our research explores the spatial dynamics of mothers in Johannesburg: how mothers navigate their and their families’ daily lives; the challenges that they face; their routes, supports and efforts that typify their lives. Through in-depth interviews and mapping exercises, the study draws on the everyday practices of 25 mothers in the city. The research shows that the spatial injustices of the past and new inequalities impact the everyday movements and practices of women. In addition, these spatial practices are influenced by a form of moral geography, which result in compromises and sacrifices for both mother and child. Exploring the spatial geographies of the mothers provides valuable insights and exposes the depth of spatial inequalities and poor urban management in new ways.
Bio
Alexandra Parker joined the GCRO in late 2016 after a long and fruitful association with the University of the Witwatersrand as an undergraduate and postgraduate student and most recently, a postdoctoral research fellow. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research explores the influence of urban films on everyday practice in the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town. She has presented and published on this research, most recently in the monograph Urban Film and Everyday Practice: Bridging Divisions in Johannesburg. Margot Rubin is a senior researcher at the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning and has historically worked on housing-related issues, questions of governance and socio-economic rights with a strong interest in comparative urbanism. This study is her first foray into questions of gender and the city.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Rural Landscapes – Urban Transitions for a Sustainable Future
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Rural Landscapes – Urban Transitions for a Sustainable Future
Prof. Barend Erasmus
Tuesday, 18 April 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: A ‘Marshall plan’ for human settlements: How mega projects became South Africa’s housing policy
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: A ‘Marshall plan’ for human settlements: How mega projects became South Africa’s housing policy
Dr Richard Ballard
Tuesday, 11 April 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In 2014, the South African National Department of Human Settlements announced that it would phase out its many small housing projects of a few hundred units. Henceforth all housing would exclusively be delivered in large settlements of thousands or tens of thousands of units. Shortly afterwards, the Gauteng Provincial government announced its own version of the policy, stating that it intended to build dozens of new cities around the province. This article examines the turn to mega projects within the Human Settlements sector in South Africa. We address three questions: where is the mega projects policy turn articulated? what are the rationales that feed into this policy direction? and how has the policy been received? We show the genesis of this policy direction, its heterogeneous nature and its logics. This policy moment flows from some major experiments in scaled up projects since the 1990s. These were informed by a desire to ramp up the quantity of housing delivery which had been declining in the years prior to the announcement of the new policy, the appeal of designing entirely new integrated settlements, a drive to invest in deprived areas, and the expectation that large projects can cut through bureaucratic entanglements slowing down smaller projects. The policy direction has been criticised for presuming to be able to attract economic activity to new settlements and, in the event of failing to be able to do so, exacerbating an already disbursed urban pattern which is difficult to service and which requires workers to commute long distances or renders them unable to find work.
Bio
Dr. Richard Ballard is a Specialist Researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory who trained in the field of geography. He has published on race, urban desegregation, social movements, participatory mechanisms and social policy.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Symposium: Taking Streets Seriously
5 April 2017
Sturrock Park, Braamfontein Campus West, University of the Witwatersrand
Gauteng’s streets are a hostile place, designed to facilitate the rapid flow of motor traffic at the expense of almost everyone who uses them—including many drivers. They facilitate enormous flows of people around the city, without encouraging economic activity, social cohesion, or indeed any engagement with the city beyond work and home on either end of a long, arduous commute. The value of streets as spaces connecting the city has been lost, and rather they function to move people away from each other as quickly as possible. Such street life as survives under these conditions is despite, not because of, the best efforts of public and private actors in the city.
We hope to provoke a re-imagination of our streets, not least as streets rather than roads, but also as public spaces. Streets taken seriously have enormous potential to enable and encourage public life in Gauteng’s cities. Ultimately we hope to encourage an urban discourse that does not overlook streets and their potential. In a time of enormous excitement and corresponding investment in our cities, we would like to see some of both directed towards the street.
This seminar, a companion event to the forthcoming research report by the same name, will be an opportunity for academics, practitioners, and activists to present on their work and engage on the subject of Taking Streets Seriously.
Academics, practitioners, and activists are invited to submit relevant abstracts of 250 words to kate.joseph@gcro.ac.za by 10 March. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 17 March.
Faces of the City: Producing Urban Security: between spectacle and everyday contingency
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Producing Urban Security: between spectacle and everyday contingency
Dr Aidan Mosselson
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
In this paper I examine the tactics, processes and underpinning logics through which urban security is produced and maintained in a volatile, 'disorderly' urban environment. I argue that the production of urban security rests on processes of contingency and adaptation, as much as it relies on spectacle and the enactment of force. Research from Johannesburg's inner-city reveals that even powerful actors, such as private security personnel, have to engage in contingent, everyday practices which adapt to the socio-spatial realities they are confronted with in order to effectively create regimes of security and order. Whilst research about urban management, security and governance in Johannesburg has concentrated on spectacular displays of force, such as police raids and 'crackdowns', I demonstrate that, whilst these displays of force are important for the performance of urban governance and policing, the creation of an urban order rests on more mundane and everyday processes too.
Bio
Dr. Aidan Mosselson is currently a post-doctoral research fellow, employed jointly by the University of Johannesburg and the Gauteng City Region Observatory. His research predominantly focuses on inner-city Johannesburg and explores the effects market-based solutions have on public space and the accessibility of housing in low-income areas; urban management and policing practices in volatile neighbourhoods; and the dynamics of racial transition and emerging forms of belonging in previously racially-segregated areas. He has also published on xenophobia and migration. He holds a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand and a PhD in Social Geography from University College London.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Everyday practices of waste management and peri-urban vulnerabilities in Dar es Salaam
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Everyday practices of waste management and peri-urban vulnerabilities in Dar es Salaam
Dr Natalie Jean-Baptiste
Tuesday, 28 March 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Abstract
Behind statistics about urbanized populations in Africa, behind maps showing unregulated growth and numerous disaster risk assessments, there are compelling tales of coping and adapting capacities framed within everyday practices. A large part of Dar es Salaam is not planned or designed in function of nodes of infrastructure. The city’s expansion remains largely uncontrolled and defies any pre-conceived wisdom that availability of infrastructure is a precondition for urban growth. This talk addresses the premises of understanding technical infrastructure through everyday practices. It provides a first insight on organizational components connected to waste management and how this connection may influence positively or negatively the resilience of cities. I argue that addressing waste issues from the point of view of everyday processes helps expand our knowledge on different layers of livelihoods. Across most African cities, what we lack is insight on how local processes, technologies and social initiatives may act as a stimulus for more viable infrastructure.
Bio
Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste is a Marie Curie Global Fellow affiliated with the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany and is currently based in Tanzania at Ardhi University. Her work focuses on the vulnerability of urban systems to climate related risks in low-income countries. She has extensive international research experience with a focus on urban infrastructure, risk assessment and climate adaptation in Mexico and several African countries. She is the Coordinator of the Housing Network of the International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS) and the Lead Coordinating Author of the chapter on Housing and Informal Settlements of the Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and cities (ARC3-2, Urban Climate Change Research Network, Cambridge Press: 2017).
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: Luxified skies: How vertical housing became an elite preserve
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Luxified skies: How vertical housing became an elite preserve
Professor Stephen Graham
Tuesday, 21 March 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
This paper is a call for critical urban research to address the vertical as well as horizontal aspects of social inequality. It seeks, in particular, to explore the important but neglected causal connection between the demonisation and dismantling of social housing towers constructed in many cities between the 1930s and 1970s and the contemporary proliferation of radically different housing towers produced for socio-economic elites. The argument begins with a critical discussion of the economistic orthodoxy, derived from the work of Edward Glaeser, that contemporary housing crises are best addressed by removing state intervention in housing production so that market-driven verticalisation can take place. The following two sections connect the rise of such orthodoxy with the ‘manufactured reality’—so central to neo-liberal urban orthodoxy—that vertical social housing must necessarily fail because it deterministically creates social pathology. The remainder of the paper explores in detail how the dominance of these narratives have been central to elite takeovers, and ‘luxification’, of the urban skies through the proliferation of condo towers for the superrich. Case studies are drawn from Vancouver, New York, London, Mumbai and Guatemala City and the broader vertical cultural and visual politics of the process are explored. The discussion finishes by exploring the challenges involved in contesting, and dismantling, the hegemonic dominance of vertical housing by elite interests in contemporary cities. Paper available here: http://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1360481...
Bio
Stephen Graham is Professor of Cities and Society at the Global Urban Research Unit and is based in Newcastle University's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Professor Graham has a background in Geography, Planning and the Sociology of Technology. His research centres, in particular, on: the vertical aspects of cities and urban life; links between cities, technology and infrastructure; urban aspects of surveillance; the mediation of urban life by digital technologies; and links between security, militarisation and urban life. Amongst a large number of publications, he is coauthor of Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (2001) and author of Vertical: Looking at the City from Above and Below (2016).
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City: The void, dust, gold, and powering the Rainbow Nation
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: The void, dust, gold, and powering the Rainbow Nation
Mark Olalde
Tuesday, 14 March 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
From gold in the Far West Rand to platinum in Bapong and titanium in Pondoland, the mining industry has left an indelible mark on South Africa. In recent years, South Africa has seen both an increased, community-based resistance to expansion within parts of the industry as well as a growing governmental interest in researching the impacts of minerals extraction on affected communities. As a more nuanced national awareness comes to the sector, a logical next step in this progression is to question whether each aspect of the so-called Minerals-Energy Complex is unique or if commonalities exist. By reordering and comparing individual photographs captured from different mining sectors, the exhibit connects the themes that permeate South African mining, such as the impact of race on power in the business, the influence of international markets on local communities, and the direct, physical impacts of the extractive industry. By focusing on shared experiences, the aim of this exhibit is to better understand which variables influence mining and how affected communities interact with them.
Bio
Mark Olalde is a journalist who investigates mine abandonment in South Africa’s failed system of mine closure. He is based in Johannesburg at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Wits City Institute and is affiliated with the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry. He publishes print stories and photography as an associate of the Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Journalism and places additional work across Independent Media’s platforms, among other publications. His investigations are financially supported by the Fund for Environmental Journalism, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Fund for Investigative Journalism
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Living the Urban Periphery: Investment, Infrastructure and Economic Change in African City-Regions
The Gauteng Introductory Stakeholder meeting for the 'Living the Urban Periphery' project will be held over lunch and the early afternoon of Monday 6th March 2017, 12h30 for 13h00 till 15h00 at Wits University, Braamfontein. Please RSVP by 24 February to Thammy Jezile (Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za) if you would like to attend.
The project is a partnership between the University of Sheffield (Department of Urban Studies and Planning: Dr Paula Meth, Dr Tom Goodfellow) and the University of the Witwatersrand (School of Architecture and Planning: Prof Alison Todes; Prof Sarah Charlton; Prof Phil Harrison; Dr Margot Rubin) in collaboration with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (Dr Richard Ballard). It is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council and South Africa’s National Research Foundation through the Newton Urban Transformation Programme.
The project focuses on understanding the transformation of urban peripheries and lived experience in three city-regions: eThekwini and Gauteng (South Africa), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is a 3 year project (2016-2018).
We hope that the meeting will provide advice and a sounding board for our project, and enable us to adapt it to be more useful to policy makers and practitioners. We will also present the project to the specific local communities where we intend do research. At the end of the project, we will again present our findings to stakeholders such as yourselves, and to local communities where we have worked. Should you be unable to attend, we would like to make you aware of our research, and hope that we will be able to talk to you individually about the project at a later stage.
Please RSVP by 24 February to Thammy Jezile (Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za)
Project Summary:
The spatial edges of large cities and city-regions in Africa are places of complex but poorly understood urban transformations; in some areas, large-scale formal investment is evident, while others are characterised by informal development or a complex mix of formal and informal processes, alternatively, there is stagnation or decline. These processes are often inadequately managed through policy and planning as institutions of governance are frequently weaker and more fragmented on the edge than in the spatial core. There is a critical gap in existing research on African cities, which has tended to overlook peripheral areas or focus on a donor-driven conception of the ‘peri-urban’ concerned primarily with changes to land use and agriculture (Mbiba and Huchzermeyer 2002). Without responsive policy and planning they may continue to be poorly managed, experience decline; institutional weakness; and neglect.
This project seeks to understand how transformation in the spatial peripheries of African cities, is shaped, governed and experienced, with a view to informing governance approaches, strategies for poverty reduction and addressing the gap in the existing literature. It will use the lens of ‘lived experiences’ to understand the intersection of state, market and people’s practices in producing “new urban spatialities” (Beall et al 2015; Mabin et al 2013; Todes 2014). The project examines seven cases within three African city-regions: Gauteng, eThekwini and Addis Ababa. These choices will facilitate comparative analysis spanning both a low and a middle-income country, as well as primary and secondary cities. All three cases display rapid but variable urbanisation, changing patterns of segregation and integration, and variant patterns of governance and investment, offering critical spaces for comparative analysis, theorisation, and policy influence.
Faces of the City: Lawnbefok: Civilising Grass on the Highveld
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Lawnbefok: Civilising Grass on the Highveld
Johathan Cane, Civilising grass on the Highveld
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
The central object of concern for this seminar paper is the South African lawn: a colonial idea and ideal with far-reaching implications for the environment, for the expression of ownership and national belonging. The common sense view of the lawn as a stable, flat, green, family-friendly and apolitical surface is measured against an eccentric archive of real and imagined lawns from the Highveld between 1886 and 2016. The ‘lawn art’ archive includes maps, (photographs of) geographic spaces, intentionally and unintentionally unbuilt architectural proposals, empty spaces on the page and the ground, patterns of lived space, uses and obscene misuses, reappropriations and rejection of spaces on paper and in person. The argument is that neither the real nor imagined boundaries which divide civilised nature from the wilderness are able to provide an immutable, safe, impermeable bulwark. The South African lawn, like many other postcolonial landscapes, is muddy, queer and alive, resisting optimistic narratives of progress and growth.
Bio
Jonathan Cane is a postdoctoral fellow in the Wits City Institute. His research is interested in landscape, modernism and queer studies. He currently working on building an archive of the Rand Mines Properties’ plan for Ormonde in the late 1960s.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Tommaso Vitale: Policy instruments and the governance of large metropolis
CUBES, together with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory and Spatial Analysis and City Planning will host Tommaso Vitale to deliver this lecture.
Thursday, 16 February 2017
16:00-18:00
Dorothy Susskind Auditorium (A1), John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Tommaso Vitale is an Associate Professor in Sociology in Sciences Po (Paris), research director of the Master ‘Governing the Large Metropolis’ in the School of Urban Studies at Sciences Po.
He is part of the research team ‘Cities are Back in Town’ around Professor Patrick Le Gales, and his research deals with urban change and conflict, civil society mobilisation, spatial segregation, social services delivery, the local governance of industrial restructuring.
He has also worked on the place of migrant and “Rom” communities in European cities.
RSVP: Thammy.Jezile@wits.ac.za; CC: Busi.Nkosi@wits.ac.za
Habitat III Urban Future event: Shaping informed cities: Platforms for knowledge generation and use in urban decision-making
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), in partnership with University College London (UCL), invites you to an official event of the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador, as part of the 'Urban Future' space. The event is entitled 'Shaping informed cities: Platforms for knowledge generation and use in urban decision-making'. It seeks to showcase and explore the function of existing institutions involved in the generation and analysis of data to support urban decision-making. The session will be illustrated by a case study profiling the work of the GCRO, because of its unusual structure (a partnership between two universities and the Gauteng Provincial Government), and its engagement with multiple governance levels across a heterogeneous city-region, rather than a single, constrained urban core. The case study will focus on one of GCRO’s work programmes - Green assetsand Infrastructure - which provides detailed insight into methods used, and the challenges and dilemmas that must be negotiated, in this operating space.
The event will be chaired by Carla-Leanne Washbourne (UCL STEaPP), and will include presentations by Rashid Seedat (Head of the Gauteng Planning Commission and member of the Board of GCRO) and Christina Culwick (lead researcher on GCRO's Green assets and infrastructure project).
The official event description can be downloaded here.
Date & time:
Wednesday 19 October 2016
17:00 - 17:45
Venue:
Urban Future, Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana "Benjamin Carrion"
Quito, Ecuador
See the Habitat III website for more details about the 'Urban Future' space.
@GCR_Observatory
@UCLSTEaPP
Faces of the City: Revisiting the urban land question in Kenya in the post-2015 context: The case of Nairobi
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Revisiting the urban land question in Kenya in the post-2015 context: The case of Nairobi
Dr Luke Obala, University of Nairobi
Tuesday, 20 September 2016
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
The history of Kenya and the question of land remain intrinsically related. At the core is access and ownership of land that directly define the social, economic and political interactions in the city of Nairobi and the country at large. Attempts to address the land question by the state have not produced the desired results. A range of informal processes have emerged in this vacuum. This paper will use various case studies drawn from Nairobi to help deepen our understanding of how actors and stakeholders (both formal and informal) in the land market interact. The paper will further attempt to establish the contribution of the formal and informal governance of land to achieving the sustainable development goals adopted in 2015. The paper will thus analyse various dimensions of the land question. In closing the paper will draw conclusions on the linkage between the urban land question and Sustainable Development Goals.
Bio
Luke Obala is a Senior Lecturer at University of Nairobi and former Head of the Department of Real Estate and Construction Management. He holds a PhD from University of the Witwatersrand and has over 25 years of experience in research and teaching urban management, economics, planning and housing administration at Jomo Kenyatta and University of Science and Technology and the University of Nairobi. He is a member of Kenya Institute of Planners, Institution of Surveyors of Kenya, Spring International Association of Development Planners and African Real Estate Society. In partnership with Pamoja Trust (a local NGO), Dr. Obala runs an annual workshop focusing urban housing and slum upgrading. Dr Obala has wide experience gained over the years of university teaching, research and consultancy in a variety of areas including urban governance, policy, resource mobilization, project and/or programme management and general planning. These activities have provided him with deeper insights into the urban issues affecting African cities as well as a linkage with a network of actors in urban development and its related politics. Dr Obala’s two month visit hosted by CUBES is funded by the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute at Wits University.
Faces of the City: The urbanisation of responsibility
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: The urbanisation of responsibility
Professor Clive Barnett, University of Exeter
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
Cities have become central to a range of policy fields, activist imaginations, and advocacy campaigns. Across these areas, 'the city' refers to different spatial forms, and is used to address a variety of issues and problems. This paper seeks to develop an analytical framework for understanding this proliferation of urban concern. The paper argues that understanding the multiple roles ascribed to urban processes in addressing problems requires shifting attention away from debates about what the city is to what it is that cities are assumed to be able to do. 'The city' emerges from this sort of analysis as a figure that enables wicked problems to be subjected to reflexive forms of intervention.
Bio
Clive Barnett is Professor of Geography and Social Theory at the University of Exeter, and author of the forthcoming book “The Priority of Injustice: Locating Democracy in Critical Theory” (University of Georgia Press).
Faces of the City: Ghetto in the cities and films of Johannesburg and Cape Town
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Ghetto in the cities and films of Johannesburg and Cape Town
Alexandra Parker, University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
In the unequal city, spaces are divided into the ‘citadel’, the fortified enclaves of the wealthy, and the ‘ghetto’, poor and crime-ridden neighbourhoods (Friedmann and Wolff, 1982). The ghetto in the South African context is a legacy of the apartheid government planning in cities that segregated non-whites to the periphery of urban centres. In this case, the ghetto is not the space of a minority; its urban form varies and is embodied in townships, the inner city and informal settlements. In films of Johannesburg and Cape Town these spatial divisions have been depicted with contrasting meanings to reflect perceptions of the city.
The ghetto as a metaphor is strongly present in the hood film and offers both utopian and dystopian representations of the city for African-Americans (Massood, 1996), which has influenced the gangster genre in South Africa (Maingard, 2007). This paper focuses on the construction and depiction of the ghetto in the films of Johannesburg and Cape Town. The paper explores the geography of settings and locations as well as aspects of mobility within the narratives of two key films, Jerusalema (2008) and Four Corners (2013). The films of Johannesburg juxtapose spaces of the citadel and the ghetto with mobile characters while films of Cape Town focus on particular areas with less urban context and with less mobility of individual characters. These different depictions may reflect differences in the respective film industries but also have implications for residents of the cities and the ways in which the post-apartheid city is being re-imagined and re-planned.
Bio
Alexandra Parker is a postdoctoral research fellow (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) researching the influence of urban films on everyday practice in the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town. The research aims to understand the ways in which residents interpret and negotiate their urban environments through the popular medium of film. She has presented and published on this research, most recently in her book 'Urban Film and Everyday Practice: Bridging Divisions in Johannesburg'. She has taught first year courses at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning, South Africa and a Masters course at the Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy. She serves on the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation board, actively campaigning to save the city’s heritage and is a director of the Architects’ Collective.
Faces of the City: Habitus, capital and the production of space: the spatial praxis of innercity regeneration
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: Habitus, capital and the production of space: the spatial praxis of innercity regeneration
Aidan Mosselson, Gauteng City-Region Observatory
Tuesday, 23 August 2016
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
AbstractThis presentation outlines an emerging theoretical approach for analysing the relationship between social action and space. The analytical frameworks provided by Bourdieu and Lefebvre can be productively combined to arrive at a spatialized perspective of habitus – i.e. an account of how dispositions, worldviews and practices emerge in and through space, and also come to shape and alter spaces. The presentation illustrates this theoretical perspective in practice by drawing on evidence from the process of urban regeneration and low-income housing provision in inner-city Johannesburg. It shows how this process is driven by spatial practices which reproduce forms of habitus and social ordering, but simultaneously respond to the existing spatial reality which developers and housing providers encounter, and that these encounters in turn shape their praxis and consequently the type of regeneration being pursued and enacted. It therefore comes to demonstrate how spatial practices and habitus, whilst reflective of and able to reproduce dominant systems and social orders, are also not static and constantly shift to reflect the contingencies and multiplicities of space. Thus habitus is made through space, and comes to make space at the same time. The talk will also document experiences of tenants living in social or affordable housing in the inner-city to demonstrate the relationship between space and habitus, and how people’s lived spatial experiences reflect and reproduce forms of habitus which replicate existing forms of social stratification and domination. In the case of tenants, it is shown how existing spatial and social inequalities are reflected in people’s experiences of space, which then come to reinforce their subordinate positions in the social hierarchy. In this case, habitus and space are shown to combine to reproduce social divisions and forms of domination.BioAidan Mosselson currently a post-doctoral research fellow, employed jointly by the University of Johannesburg and the Gauteng City Region Observatory. His research has predominantly been carried out in inner-city Johannesburg and focuses on the effects market-based solutions have on public space and the accessibility of housing in low-income areas, urban management and policing practices in volatile neighborhoods, as well as the dynamics of racial transition and emerging forms of belonging in previously racially exclusive areas of South Africa.He holds a Masters degree in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand and a PhD in social Geography from University College London.
Faces of the City: The private city: Real estate politics in the making of Lavasa new town, India
Please join us for the Faces of the City Seminar: The Private City: Real estate politics in the making of Lavasa new town, India
Anokhi Parikh
Tuesday, 16 August 2016
16:00 - 17:30
Wits Club, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
In the heart of India’s Mumbai-Pune mega-region an urban experiment is underway. The city of Lavasa is a city conceptualised, built, and controlled by a private company – Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL). Planned for a stable population of 240,000 and 2 million visitors by 2020, it is imagined as an “inclusive city”, a “prime tourist destination”, with educational institutions, “non-polluting industries”, and “world-class” facilities. Lavasa is committed to being a “prototype of a medium-sized city which can act as a financially viable and an environmentally and socially sustainable substitute to the ill-served and overcrowded mega cities”. Founded primarily on private property, Lavasa’s vision brings together in an experimental manner, the seemingly disparate goals of inclusion, environmental sustainability, economic profitability, and exemplary service delivery.
The presentation draws on doctoral research on the development of Lavasa. It takes seriously the attempt to create a ‘market utopia’, treating it as an empirical phenomenon with social consequences, and asks: why, how, and with what effects did Lavasa come to be? The presentation traces the ideologies, rationalities, and interests that enabled Lavasa's making. It demonstrates how the symbolic power of this ‘market utopia’ conceals the conditions of its possibility, that is, the ways in which it was made through the state, through speculation, and the discursive and material operations of the land market. In doing so, it offers some theoretical reflections on the processes of privatised urban development.
Bio
Anokhi Parikh is a Project Manager at Dalberg Global Development Advisors in Johannesburg, where she is the deputy lead of the urban practice. Prior to joining Dalberg, Anokhi played an instrumental role in setting up the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), a university start-up in India. IIHS aims to establish an independently funded and managed National University for Research and Innovation focused on the challenges and opportunities of India’s urban transition. She began her career in South Africa in 2005 as an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Fellow, conducting research that fed into provincial health sector policy and features in several publications.Anokhi holds a PhD in International Development from the London School of Economics, an MSc in Development Economics from Oxford University, and a BA (Hons) in Economics from UC Berkeley.
Faces of the City: Resources and Recourses: Market Interventions and Legitimacy in Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar: Resources and Recourses: Market Interventions and Legitimacy in Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa
Marcus Walton
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
16:00 - 17:30
First floor seminar room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
Scarcity or the inaccessibility of basic resources (food, energy, education, housing, employment etc.) is a shared characteristic of poverty and inequality across the world. Yet policies for market interventions differ not only in scale, but also in the selection of particular resources to be subsidized or distributed. My dissertation looks at three different cases of large scale, high-profile market interventions in Africa: bread subsidies in Egypt, fuel subsidies in Nigeria, and housing subsidies in South Africa. I trace the history of these policies and use the particular resource as a lens for understanding relations between the post-colonial/post-apartheid State and its citizens. I present my observations on the relevant linkages between these cases and their implications for market interventions as a unique space for contestation.
Bio
Marcus Walton is a PhD candidate at Brown University in the department of Political Science. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) at the University of Witwatersrand.
Faces of the City: The Real Estate Turn in Asia's Urban Politics
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar: The Real Estate Turn in Asia's Urban Politics
Gavin Shatkin, Northeastern University, Boston
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
16:00 - 17:30
Wits Club, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
Recent years have seen a distinct real estate turn in urban policy and politics across much of Asia, as governments have deployed increasingly assertive means to enable the large scale commodification of urban land. Government actors have sought to gain control of land and transfer it to for-profit actors, whether through forcible acquisition of land from existing users, the use of regulatory powers to facilitate the transfer of land to private sector or state-owned corporations, or land reclamation from lakes and coastlines. In some cases governments themselves have also engaged in the commercial development of government-owned land, or formed public-private partnerships to develop such land. Government actors have also aggressively promoted the development of large-scale, corporate-driven urban megaprojects, in an effort to realize the commodification of land on a large scale. This presentation will explore the varied strategies that governments have pursued in this real estate turn, across political systems, urban contexts, and land use regimes. It will further examine the implications of these strategies for issues of social, spatial, and political inclusion and exclusion.
Gavin Shatkin has a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, Boston. His research focuses primarily on globalization and urban poverty in Southeast Asian cities. He is the author of Collective Action and Urban Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and the Struggle for Shelter in Manila.
Glocal Nexus: Johannesburg’s position within global, regional and local economic networks
The GCRO hosts Prof. Ronald Wall, who will present a seminar on Johannesburg’s shifting position within global, regional and local economic networks.
Prof. Wall will argue that through smart urban planning and smart corporate benchmarking, the density and diversity of global economic connections can be improved, which in turn can (if done astutely) increase social, economic and environmental development. An important element of this presentation is that policymakers should in future develop strategies based on local, regional and global knowledge.
The presentation argues for the need for empirical research, big data, quantitative and qualitative studies, and interdisciplinary approaches to research.
Ronald Wall holds the newly established Chair in Urban Economic Development, recently endowed by the City of Johannesburg, and representing a partnership between the Wits School of Economic and Business Sciences, the Wits Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, and the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies at Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
Thursday 30 June
University of the Witwatersrand, Braamfontein Campus East
Post Grad Seminar room, John Moffat Building Basement
15h30 - 17h30
RSVP: farah-naaz.moosa@gcro.ac.za
Quality of Life Survey 2015 Results Launch
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) invites you to the launch of our Quality of Life Survey 2015 — the largest ever social attitudes survey conducted in the province. The fourth in our series of biennial surveys, with over 30 000 respondents, reveals key insights into the lives and opinions of Gauteng’s residents.
The results will be launched by GCRO Executive Director Dr Rob Moore, and responded to by Gauteng Premier Honourable David Makhura.
*Limited seating is available, RSVP essential.
Tuesday 28 June 2016
09:30 for 10:00 - 12:30
Registration and tea from 09:30
A finger lunch will follow the launch.
University of Johannesburg
RSVP: 22 June 2016, farah-naaz.moosa@gcro.ac.za
#gcroQL4
Faces of the City: A Pedagogy of Confrontation: Reclaiming urban regeneration in inner São Paulo
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar: A Pedagogy of Confrontation: Reclaiming urban regeneration in inner São Paulo
Alexandre Apsan Frediani, Beatrice De Carli, Benedito Roberto Barbosa, Francisco de Assis Comarú, Ricardo de Sousa
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Faces of the City: The Interpellation of Celebrity Diplomacy in the Urban Development Johannesburg: The Case of Newtown
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar: The Interpellation of Celebrity Diplomacy in the Urban Development Johannesburg: The Case of Newtown
Fana Sihlongonyane, University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Faces of the City: Trajectories of Global Urbanism at the Start of the 21st Century: the Delicate Balance between Tourist-Entertainment Cities; Shrinking Cities in Decline; Instant Cities, and Mega-cities of Hyper-growth
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar: Trajectories of Global Urbanism at the Start of the 21st Century: the Delicate Balance between Tourist-Entertainment Cities; Shrinking Cities in Decline; Instant Cities, and Mega-cities of Hyper-growth
Martin Murray, University of Michigan
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Faces of the City: "My Dream, My House": Are Middle Class Residents Satisfied with Government Housing Provision in Post-war Angola?
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
"My Dream, My House": Are Middle Class Residents Satisfied with Government Housing Provision in Post-war Angola?
Anne Pitcher, University of Michigan
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Faces of the City: Making Massive Small Change - open, responsive and collaborative urbanism in a complex world
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Making Massive Small Change - open, responsive and collaborative urbanism in a complex world
Kelvin Cambell, Smart Urbanism
Tuesday, 23 February 2016
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Rob Moore
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Universities and Urban Futures: Models for Trans-disciplinary Knowledge Exchange
Rob Moore, University of the Witwatersrand
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
This seminar addresses two foundational and interlinked questions with regard to how we address the complex challenges confronting global society and its evident vulnerabilities: what are the forms of knowledge required to shape our collective social futures, and how are they to be generated? In particular, how should universities gear their activities to enable these knowledge forms, and concomitantly position themselves in relation to their social partners? This problematic is addressed from a Southern African perspective, and possible approaches to the matter are illustrated by means of two indicative case studies. An argument is developed that universities need to reconsider how they provide for the ‘third mission’ of academia, and that this implies reconfiguring how they engage with the needs of wider society.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Carlton Reid
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Roads were not built for cars: How cyclists were the first to push for good roads and became the pioneers of motoring
Carlton Reid, BikeBiz
Thursday, 8 October 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Biography
Carlton Reid is executive editor of BikeBiz magazine and is writing a book about the recent history of roads. He is author of Roads Were Not Built For Cars. Carlton Reid has been a journalist for 28 years. His work has appeared in National Geographic Traveller and The Guardian and many other magazines and newspapers. He is the executive editor of BikeBiz.com, a monthly trade magazine which he founded (and sold to Intent Media in 2006). He is also comms for the Bicycle Association and the BA’s Bike Hub levy fund. In 1997 he was the co-owner and editor/publisher of On Your Bike magazine, a magazine for family and “born-again” cyclists, which was sold to EMAP of Peterborough in December 1999. (EMAP turned the general interest, non-Lycra magazine into a mountain bike magazine – it soon folded, and not in a good way.) His previous books include Adventure Mountain Biking (Crowood Press, 1990); Complete Book of Cycling (contributor, Hamlyn 1997); I-Spy Bicycles (Michelin 1998); Discover Israel (Berlitz 1998); Lebanon: A Travel Guide (Kindlife 1995); Classic Mountain Bike Routes of the World (contributor, Quarto Publishing, 2000) and Bike to Work Book (November 2008). He was co-manager of the first ever British mountain bike team. This team competed in the World Championships in Villard de Lans, France, in 1987. In June 2008, he was inducted into the MBUK Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, one of the first 20 inductees. He got into mountain biking after a mid-1980s failed attempt to cycle around the world on a Claud Butler Majestic touring bike (he got as far as Israel and then decided to cycle tour the deserts of the Middle East for a year on one of them new-fangled mountain bikes).
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Emaculate Ingwani & Hloniphile Simelane
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Land transactions in peri-urban communal areas of Zimbabwe: the structure-agency interactions
& Urban Land Management and its Discontents: a case study of the Swaziland Urban Development Project (SUDP)
Emaculate Ingwani, University of Venda
Hloniphile Simelane, Planact
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
1. Land transactions are increasingly becoming a cause for concern in communal areas that are situated in the peri-urban zones of bourgeoning cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The nature, causes, outcomes and dynamics of these land transactions vary in space and time. However, in most cases these land transactions are a response to ubiquitous change as a result of irresistible forces of urbanization and social change - the structure-agency interactions. This paper seeks to unravel these interactions using a case study of Domboshava communal area situated in the peri-urban outskirts of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe, where land transactions are on the increase. The paper is based on part of the findings on my PhD study that highlights the dimensions of these interactions in depth.
2. Whilst much has been written about land contests in rural settings in Sub-Saharan Africa, less attention has been paid to land disputes between traditional and formal authorities in urban areas. Using the Swaziland Urban Development Project as a case study, this paper examines jurisdictional conflicts over land that occur between traditional leaders and formal structures such as the Swaziland’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and city councils. The focus is on local residents, who are caught in the middle of the power contests and use various strategies to hold onto their land. This study adopted a qualitative methodology to explore the different competing interests. The study concludes that rival jurisdictional claims negatively affect residents and impede economic development not just for the residents but the city in general.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Noeleen Murray
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Thinking through architecture of failure: modern architectures' dark side?
Noeleen Murray, Wits City Institute
Tuesday, 22 September 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
Thinking through architectures of failure: modern architectures' dark side' takes as its starting point the that, today, the platonic forms of the modernist, Corbusian-inspired Werdmuller Centre, by South African architect and urban designer Roelof Uytenbogaardt, stand against a background of decay in a neglected corner of Claremont, Cape Town. Controversial ever since its construction in the 1970s, the building is again the vortex of a dispute. It has been subject to a process of consideration for ‘heritage worthiness,’ drawing public attention in the post-colonial, post-apartheid present to the contemporary significance of Uytenbogaardt’s work. Cape Town has been World Design Capital in 2014, and the Werdmuller Centre, standing almost in ruins, exemplifies many of the tensions that exist over the presence of modernist design and buildings in the contemporary city. Occupying a site considered to have commercial development potential by its owners, its proposed demolition is opposed by architects who argue that the Werdmuller Centre deserves to be classified as ‘heritage’. As the building’s future hangs in the balance, the debates that have emerged since the announcement of intentions to demolish have become heightened in 2013, revealing the contested nature of modern architecture in post-apartheid South Africa as buildings become 'failures'.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Hannah Dawson
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Navigating economic uncertainty on the urban periphery: Economic strategies, household arrangements and social differentiation in Zandspruit informal settlement
Hannah Dawson, Oxford University
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
The rise of unemployment and precarious forms of work in a context of rapid urbanisation has seen the proliferation of informal settlements on the urban periphery of South Africa’s big cities. The growth of informal settlements reflect two important and interrelated shifts: first, a shift in household composition towards smaller and more numerous households, and second, a shift in the urban labour market from more permanent to temporary and from more formal to informal work (Hunter & Posel, 2012). Through an ethnographic exploration of Zandspruit informal settlement this paper explores the constraints and opportunities changing economic conditions place on young people’s economic practices and strategies in relation to household arrangements, social relations and aspirations. This paper seeks to draw attention to the multifaceted social and cultural contexts through which young people navigate economic exclusion and marginality.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Smart | City | Region: Event and Symposium
The GCRO will host the Smart | City | Region Exhibition and Symposium on 26 August 2015, at the Digital Innovation Zone, 111 Smit Street, Braamfontein. The event forms part of the Fak'ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival 2015.
THE SYMPOSIUM
There is an increasing worldwide focus on ‘smart cities’ as a means to address the challenges of rapid urbanisation and enhance the lives of residents. Internationally, there are a number of initiatives to build complete new cities as smart cities. There is a broad consensus that smart cities are empirical, intelligent, wired, innovative, entrepreneurial and future-proof.
The smart city also conjures up Orwellian images of a panoptic state, obsessed with controlling the city, and leaving little to chance. Here data is seen as the ultimate governance tool, from which policy decisions are constantly drawn, without consultation, enquiry or participation.
This symposium will critically engage with the debate around smart cities, asking questions such as: What does this mean for local and provincial government in a City-Region struggling with the adequate provision of services? Can smart city projects provide a city-regional solution to address key development and infrastructure problems in the Gauteng City-Region? Is smart city a catchy buzzword driven by corporate profit making with limited benefits for government and general public? Will a smart city approach slowly erode the democratic city as we know it, or produce new types of publics, ways of being and urban expressions that enhance urban society and culture?
The symposium will be divided into two sessions, the first will grapple with the smart city debate, and the second will look at the role that cities and organisations such as the GCRO can play in ensuring a balanced approach to smart city development. Symposium attendees are invited to attend the exhibition which follows.
The symposium is an invite only event that runs from 12:15 - 17:30. Should you wish to attend, however, please contact chris.wray@gcro.ac.za.
THE EXHIBITION
The GCRO has over a number of years produced interactive online content that facilitates a smarter and more informed Gauteng City-Region. This one-night only exhibition will highlight key GCRO work in the realm of data visualisation, infographics, mapping, and GIS. A number of new websites, including the GCRO's revamped online presence and a new GIS website will be launched together with the GCRO's new graphic identity. These will be on display together with Map of the Month examples, Wits Digital Arts Interactive Visualisations and other interactive platforms.
As a component of the Fak'ugesi Festival 2015, the interactive and digital exhibition will embed the city in the wider conversation on African innovation and smart cities.
This interactive and digital cocktail event is open to the public, by RSVP only. It will run from 18:00 to 21:00.
Please RSVP to guy.trangos@gcro.ac.za before 21 August 2015.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Ivan Turok
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar:
Myths and realities of informal urbanisation: the role of informal settlements and backyard shacks
Prof. Ivan Turok, Acting Executive Director, Human Sciences Research Council
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
16:00 - 18:00
First Floor Seminar Room, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
The role of informality in urbanisation in the global South is subject to considerable international debate and deep policy ambivalence. The paper explores the contrast between theoretical perspectives that emphasize the opportunities/choices available to the poor and those that stress the pressures of necessity/constraints they face. It applies these ideas to two concrete situations in South Africa: (i) the role of informal settlements in urban labour markets, and (ii) the role of backyard shacks in urban housing markets. In terms of the former, it compares the role of informal settlements as ladders out of poverty through enabling access to urban jobs, versus poverty traps where debilitating conditions mean enduring hardship and insecurity. In terms of the latter, it compares the role of backyard shacks as stopgaps born out of expediency versus their potential to provide elements of a useful solution to the urban housing crisis. The paper draws on a mixture of cross-sectional and longitudinal data to assess the veracity of these perspectives. This includes the GCRO Quality of Life Survey, the Labour Force Survey and the National Income Dynamics Study.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Wits City Institute.
Faces of the City Seminar Series: South Africa's urban agenda and its relationship to urban research
Tuesday, 18 August
16:00 – 19:00
Dorothy Susskind Auditorium, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
On the programme:
1. Introduction to topic and speakers (Prof Marie Huchzermeyer)
2. National urban policy and its linkages with research (Prof Edgar Pieterse)
3. National Development Plan and its key research drivers (Prof Philip Harrison)
4. The long view/reflections on past links between urban policy and research (Prof Alan Mabin)
5. Referencing the past to the present: reconsidering the role of heritage in the urban agenda (Prof Noëleen Murray)
6. Types of research methods that might be side lined in the bigger agendas (Prof Sophie Oldfield)
7. Concrete examples from research in Durban (Prof Monique Marks / Dr Kira Erwin)
8. Wrap up and thanks (Dr Modjadji Malahlela, CoGTA)
Panel inputs will be interspersed with discussion
Followed by refreshments
Faces of the City Seminar Series: Javier Auyero
Please join us for the next Faces of the City Seminar, in the Graduate Seminar Room of the South West Engineering Building.
Javier Auyero from the University of Texas, Austin, will present, 'A practical logic of clientelist domination.'
Abstract:
Based on a series of analytic revisits of three rounds of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Buenos Aires, Argentine, and focusing on a micro-sociological level of empirical analysis, this work aims to redirect the study of patronage politics towards its quotidian character and to acknowledge the key role played by brokers’ strong ties with their closest, most reliable, followers, so as to better understand and explain the practical features of clientelist domination. Contrary to extant accounts, this work argues that clientelist politics occur during routine daily life (not solely during campaigns and elections) and that most loyal clients’ behavior should be understood and explained neither as the product of rational action nor as the outcome of normative behavior but as generated by a clientelist habitus, i.e. a set of cognitive and affective political dispositions manufactured in the repeated interactions that take place within brokers’ inner circles of followers.
Louis Grundlingh at Faces of the City seminar series
Public spaces have long formed a key element of the urban landscape, answering to particular needs—notably concerns regarding morality and physical health of the urban populace, the display of civic virtues and social and cultural values, enshrined in practices that uphold the social and moral order, i.e. middle and upper class respectability.
The critical period of the early growth of Johannesburg presents the context and the opportunity to explore the nature, purpose, function, characteristics, meaning and design of Johannesburg’s erstwhile premier municipal public park, Joubert Park. The paper is based on the premise that the layout, design and features such as areas for promenading, a bandstand, conservatory and art gallery combined to create and give material form to Victorian and Edwardian concepts of identity, and respectability as interpreted and reflected by Johannesburg’s town fathers.
Giovanni Aleggretti at Faces of the City seminar series
Building the Right to the City through the Multigoal Tool of Citizens’ Participation: The Contribution of Participatory Budgeting
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Cities Institute.
Please note that Dr Allegretti will also be conducting a workshop on participatory budgeting on 18 & 19 May. The workshop is open to researchers, students, municipal officials and professionals working on development and built environment related fields. Please see the attached poster for more information.
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Hope to see you there!
Workshop & Seminar at Faces of the City seminar series
Urban Design Room, North Basement, John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand. NB: Please RSVP indicating whether you will attend the workshop (12:00 -15:30), the seminar (16:00-18:00), or both (12:00-18:00) to Margot Rubin: margot.rubin@wits.ac.za
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Cities Institute.
Hope to see you there!
Panel Discussion at Faces of the City seminar series
Please join us for the next seminar in the Faces of the City series next week:
The Johannesburg Conundrum: Key Dimensions of the Materialities of Delivering Infrastructure
HERMAN PIENAAR, City of Johannesburg
MIKE MULLER, School of Governance, Wits, & NPC Commissioner
MARTIN MURRAY, University of Michigan
Please note the slightly later starting time and the change in venue!
Date: 05 MAY Tuesday
Time: 16:30
Venue: Dorothy Susskind Auditorium (A1), John Moffat Building, University of the Witwatersrand
Abstract
CUBES/SoAP/SA&CP/GCRO partnership hosts a panel discussion focused on the materialities of urban infrastructure provision and access to this, in the Johannesburg context. The event explores approaches taken to the provision of infrastructure during the last 20 years, and their results and impacts. The panel surfaces the contested dimensions, contrasting logics and unpredictable outcomes of service provision, service demand and consumption within the City of Johannesburg. The event complements a week of discussions focused on infrastructure at WISER.
The Faces of the City seminar series is a partnership between the SARChI in Spatial Analysis and City Planning, the Gauteng City Region Observatory, the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies, and the Cities Institute.
RSVP: thammy.jezile@wits.ac.za
Hope to see you there!
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