IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v11y2023i2p326-335.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Housing as a Battlefield Between Self‐Organization and Resistance: The Case of Reclaim the City

Author

Listed:
  • Antje Daniel

    (Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

Cities are a place of transformation, since cities are being challenged through various processes, among them gentrification. Likewise, cities are a space for innovation and new solutions, as many changes start locally. Reclaim the City is one such local movement: It is a response to weak statehood which results in a limited ability to solve the housing crisis and the continuation of spatial segregation in Cape Town. Gentrification deepens the housing crisis and has an impact on the most vulnerable groups, black and colored people, who are affected by eviction. Based on a qualitative study, this article first unpacks the weakness of the city authorities regarding housing and then analyzes the relationship between Reclaim the City and the city. This relationship is not to be understood as a binary, conflictual liaison; rather, the relationship is complex, involving resistance but also complementarity, because in the self-organized occupation Reclaim the City offers what the city is not able to provide. The response of the authorities is ambivalent: They welcome self-organization and yet try to control and delegitimize the occupation by criminalizing the occupants. The relationship between Reclaim the City and the city thus shows that self-organization does not necessarily lead to new interfaces between the state and social movements, as often discussed in the context of new municipalism, but rather housing becomes a field of social contestation in that the city and Reclaim the City negotiate for mutual acceptance and legitimation, at times with an open end.

Suggested Citation

  • Antje Daniel, 2023. "Housing as a Battlefield Between Self‐Organization and Resistance: The Case of Reclaim the City," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 326-335.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v11:y:2023:i:2:p:326-335
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i2.6449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/6449
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v11i2.6449?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Alexander, 2010. "Rebellion of the poor: South Africa's service delivery protests -- a preliminary analysis," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(123), pages 25-40, March.
    2. Kate Meagher, 2012. "The Strength of Weak States? Non-State Security Forces and Hybrid Governance in Africa," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(5), pages 1073-1101, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antje Daniel, 2023. "Housing as a Battlefield Between Self‐Organization and Resistance: The Case of Reclaim the City," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 326-335.
    2. Nora Stel, 2016. "Languages of Stateness in South Lebanon's Palestinian Gatherings: The PLO's Popular Committees as Twilight Institutions," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(3), pages 446-471, May.
    3. Luiz, John M. & Barnard, Helena, 2022. "Home country (in)stability and the locational portfolio construction of emerging market multinational enterprises," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 17-32.
    4. Tim Glawion & Lotje de Vries & Andreas Mehler, 2019. "Handle with Care! A Qualitative Comparison of the Fragile States Index's Bottom Three Countries: Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(2), pages 277-300, March.
    5. Sophie Oldfield, 2015. "Between activism and the academy: The urban as political terrain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(11), pages 2072-2086, August.
    6. Akaateba, Millicent Awialie & Huang, Huang & Adumpo, Emile Akangoa, 2018. "Between co-production and institutional hybridity in land delivery: Insights from local planning practice in peri-urban Tamale, Ghana," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 215-226.
    7. Tobias Lechtenfeld & Asmus Zoch, 2014. "Income Convergence in South Africa: Fact or Measurement Error?," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 157, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    8. Nick Bernards, 2018. "The Truncated Commercialization of Microinsurance and the Limits of Neoliberalism," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(6), pages 1447-1470, November.
    9. Sinclair Dinnen & Matthew Allen, 2016. "State Absence and State Formation in Solomon Islands: Reflections on Agency, Scale and Hybridity," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(1), pages 76-97, January.
    10. Ronelle Burger & Megan Louw & Brigitte Barbara Isabel de Oliveira Pegado & Servaas van der Berg, 2015. "Understanding consumption patterns of the established and emerging South African black middle class," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 41-56, January.
    11. Pellicer, Miquel & Piraino, Patrizio & Wegner, Eva, 2019. "Perceptions of inevitability and demand for redistribution: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 274-288.
    12. Muyeba, Singumbe, 2019. "Institutional capital, urban poverty and household wealth in Cape Town," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    13. Filip Reyntjens, 2016. "Legal Pluralism and Hybrid Governance: Bridging Two Research Lines," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(2), pages 346-366, March.
    14. World Bank, 2020. "From Isolation to Integration," World Bank Publications - Reports 33513, The World Bank Group.
    15. Jon Phillips & Saska Petrova, 2021. "The materiality of precarity: Gender, race and energy infrastructure in urban South Africa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1031-1050, August.
    16. Bowman, Brett & Stevens, Garth & Eagle, Gillian & Langa, Malose & Kramer, Sherianne & Kiguwa, Peace & Nduna, Mzikazi, 2015. "The second wave of violence scholarship: South African synergies with a global research agenda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 243-248.
    17. Kuckertz, Andreas & Brändle, Leif & Gaudig, Anja & Hinderer, Sebastian & Morales Reyes, Carlos Arturo & Prochotta, Alicia & Steinbrink, Kathrin M. & Berger, Elisabeth S.C., 2020. "Startups in times of crisis – A rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 13(C).
    18. Edward Webster & Katherine Joynt & Thabang Sefalafala, 2016. "Informalization and decent work: Labour’s challenge," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 16(2), pages 203-218, April.
    19. Rapatsa Mashele, 2017. "Student Activists or Student Anarchists? South Africa’s Contemporary Student Protests Reviewed," European Review of Applied Sociology, Sciendo, vol. 10(15), pages 13-20, December.
    20. Michael Neocosmos, 2016. "The Sociology of Crisis and the Crisis of Sociology: Academic Marxism and the Absence of a Thought of Politics in South Africa," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(1), pages 188-202, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v11:y:2023:i:2:p:326-335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.