Urban Research in Housing Struggles: Reflections on Participatory Action Research in Collaborative Design/Planning at the Cissie Gool House Occupation, Cape Town

Abstract

This presentation is based on my PhD research, which investigates how insurgent home-making practices and claims to well-located affordable housing, articulated by racialized and impoverished residents of housing occupations challenge the reproduction of spatial segregation and injustice that continue to shape post-Apartheid South African cities. The study examines the collective work and forms of organization performed by the residents of Cissie Gool House (CGH), a large housing occupation in Cape Town, part of the Reclaim The City (RTC) movement for housing and spatial justice. The primary focus of the presentation is on the ‘CGH Co-Design’ project, which aims to collaboratively imagine and design stable, inclusive housing solutions for CGH, while avoiding the displacement of its residents and the dismantling of their homemaking practices and community structures. The Co-Design project serves as an ‘invented space’ of participation, bringing together experiences and knowledge-making practices from a wide range of subjects, including CGH residents, architects, activists, and researchers. Through a Participatory Action Research framework, I explore how the collective work of the Co-Design project is articulating alternative conceptions of home and housing than those informing the state’s housing policies and approach to houselessness. Based on my engagement in the Co-Design project and ongoing support to the CGH occupation, I stress the importance of adopting participatory, action-oriented research approaches to: a) decolonize urban research practice; b) produce actionable research outputs that support housing struggles. In conclusion, I reflect on the politics of knowledge production in processes of grassroots collaborative design/planning.