(Re)Conceptualising Public Space Through Everyday Practices in Post-Apartheid Cape Town

Abstract

In Cape Town, South Africa, public space planning and ordering were at the heart of colonial logic and urban apartheid. Since 1991, the notions of “dignity” on the one hand and “safety” on the other hand have become core to urban upgrading and urban renewal programs enhanced by public/private partnerships. However, challenging the replay of socio-spatial boundaries, urban residents, street vendors, and taxi workers remake the city every day as they transform buffer zones, streets, and parking lots into convivial spaces of encounter. In order to trace how these practices interfere with Cape Town’s top-down urban policies and produce dynamic and contested spaces of interaction despite the endurance of urban segregation, this study focuses on two different urban sites: the Wynberg Improvement District and Khayelitsha CBD. Drawing from ethnographic methods, primary published sources, and archives, my research investigates the existing processes of place-making through everyday practices. Focusing on the way “informal” workers are (re)negotiating and performing a position in the social space, it aims to highlight alternative narratives on public space in the post-apartheid city. Building on Southern and Everyday Urbanisms and on Postcolonial theory, the project implies questioning how the everyday is bound to the regime of rule of planning and governance as the latter is engaged and renegotiated by these overlooked workers. My presentation will address questions and insights opened up through my preliminary fieldwork taking place from June to August 2024. Therefore, it will bring to the discussion theoretical and methodological avenues.