{"title":"Pieter Roos Park and public dwelling: displacement in an inner-city Johannesburg public space network","authors":"T. Middelmann","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Broad structural problems including poverty, spatial and economic inequality, and unemployment, manifest in public space through informality, homelessness, residential settlement in open space, as well as criminal activity. Often, interventions focus on these symptoms of structural problems without enough attention to the influence of broader factors on public space nor to the impacts and implications of these interventions. My research demonstrates a series of public sector interventions that entailed evictions from public spaces in inner-city Johannesburg. These incrementally increased the residential population of Pieter Roos Park until public authorities again evicted residents in early 2019, many of whom have since returned. Evicting people from public open spaces does not end their homelessness, rather displaces them to different localities, often nearby. Sometimes, the same people return to the same space soon after displacement. Moreover, evictions exacerbate the vulnerability of rough sleepers and perpetuate their state of poverty (often linked to destruction or confiscation of materials for shelter or other belongings). These ‘hard’ interventions are rooted in uncollaborative and fragmented local governance, based on a narrow understanding of public space that lacks consideration of how public space refracts broader socio-spatial dynamics and the complex drivers of homelessness. As such, ‘hard’ approaches to public space management continue to undermine emerging social networks of public dwellers. Therefore, this research argues for a more holistic understanding of and approach to public space as a nexus of urban processes, with an accordingly more integrated approach by related city departments to the issue of public dwelling based on an inclusive, non-punitive policy.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"17 1","pages":"26 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89490232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"They Called You Dambudzo: a memoir by Flora Veit-Wild (review)","authors":"M. Daymond","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"16 1","pages":"105 - 110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89272618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Mamdani’s Neither Settler nor Native and the Israel/Palestine Question","authors":"G. Achcar","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0029","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"37 1","pages":"67 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91390230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transformation from below: questions from the Mabola struggle to achieve a just transition in South Africa","authors":"J. Cock","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article focuses on the concept of a ‘just transition’ and asks what work it does. When the concept of a just transition from coal was introduced into South Africa by the labour movement in 2010, it had a transformative potential. Since then the concept has been appropriated by powerful forces, stripped of its radical content and reduced to mean only a shift to a new (largely privatised) energy regime. Theoretically framed by Critical Environmental Justice Studies the article draws from an account of the struggle against the proposed establishment of a coal mine in the Mabola Protected Area to illustrate some of the problems and potential of reclaiming a transformative version of a just transition.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"15 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88187196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theory as Keyword/Keyword as Theory","authors":"J. Higgins","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"60 1","pages":"110 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81505608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decolonisation in Universities: the politics of knowledge ed. by Jonathan Jansen (review)","authors":"W. Long","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"36 5","pages":"119 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72415019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"History and hope in Cradock, Eastern Cape","authors":"A. Mabin","doi":"10.1353/trn.2021.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/trn.2021.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:South African small towns receive relatively little research attention. Many find themselves in great difficulty presently. The article examines Cradock and its people using some of the relatively unusual volume of literature on this small town. The article briefly considers contemporary developments and concludes with some thoughts about the future. Its interest is in transformations that have (and have not) taken place in the town, so imbued in the consciousness of many political and other moments in wider society–the Eastern Cape particularly, and South Africa more generally. It argues that deeper consideration of histories as well as their traces in present social dynamics can contribute to addressing the difficulties that the town faces, and provides some thoughts on how that may occur, as well as suggesting forms of further research.","PeriodicalId":45045,"journal":{"name":"Transformation-Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa","volume":"13 1","pages":"35 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79082487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}