Relocation, relocation, marginalisation: development, and grassroots struggles to transform politics in urban South Africa

Relocation, relocation, marginalisation: development, and grassroots struggles to transform politics in urban South Africa

by Dan Wilcockson, University of Derby

Abstract

Society in post-apartheid South Africa is highly polarised. Although racial apartheid ended in 1994, this paper shows that an economic and spatial apartheid is still in place. The country has been neoliberalised, and this paper concludes that a virtual democracy is in place, where the poor are excluded from decision-making. Urban shack-dwellers are constantly under threat of being evicted (often illegally) and relocated to peri-urban areas, where they become further marginalised. The further away from city centres they live, the less employment and education opportunities are available to them. The African National Congress (ANC) government claims to be moving the shack-dwellers to decent housing with better facilities, although there have been claims that these houses are of poor quality, and that they are in marginal areas where transport is far too expensive for residents to commute to the city for employment. The ANC is promoting ‘World Class Cities’, trying to facilitate economic growth by encouraging investment. They are spending much on the 2010 World Cup, and have been using the language of ‘slum elimination’. Services to shacks were halted in 2001, and shack-dwellers in the Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) social movement feel that they are being forced out of the city of Durban. Development practice in Durban seems to be based on physical development for economic growth, rather than human development. After analysing the socioeconomic climate, and neoliberal development path, of South Africa, this paper concludes that much can be learnt from AbM’s political theorising, and that the ANC should listen to the poor if they want more equality, and a stable, functioning democracy in the future. South Africa is in a much healthier economic position than other African countries, and thus has more of a chance to make positive social changes for its poorest citizens.