SESSION 21

PRAGMATIC COHABITATION IN REALMS OF URBAN CHANGE. CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA

In contexts which are both characterised by rapid urban change and high levels of (social) inequality, cohabitation for most urban residents is (often) less about choice than bargained compromise or necessity. With numerous cities becoming more densely populated (both vertically and horizontally) and diverse, this phenomenon is coupled with concurrent shifts in the built environment and in the ways of living together. From the outset, these transformations raise questions about how the interface between material shifts in the urban fabric, altered interpersonal connections and cognitive experiences manifests socially and spatially. This session seeks to unpack how this flexible condition of contemporary urban life plays out in cities in Southern Africa, interrogating how people forge meaningful and durable lives amidst realities of uncertainty and anonymity. Veering away from a normative approach of human modes of togetherness, the emphasis here is to gauge how hesitant and even reluctant ways of living together intersect with the material and mental dimensions of spatiality. As such, the underlying aim is not solely framed around the (possible) effects of place on the configuration of conviviality and the experience of encounters and interactions, but it also deals with the ways in which space and living together are produced, imagined and experienced from different viewpoints. For this session, we invite contributions which draw on empirical research in the region (especially outside South Africa) and focus on how cohabitation at different scales (whether at city-, neighbourhood-, street- or building-level) and in different urban environments is negotiated and lived.