IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v49y2017i3p555-571.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dis-locating public space: Occupy Rondebosch Common, Cape Town

Author

Listed:
  • Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch
  • Emma Thébault

Abstract

We argue here that public space research might benefit theoretically from the Southern Turn in urban studies. Our first objective is theoretical and methodological: unpack the idea of public space to make it suitable beyond its original location. Détienne’s work on Comparing the Incomparable , combined with Staeheli and Mitchell’s notion of “regimes of publicity†offer the theoretical tools for such a displacement. We end up thinking about public space as various, context-specific configurations of loosely structured, juridical, political, and social elements that take on new shapes and are prone to partial dislocation when dis-located. We test this model by displacing it to a piece of vacant land—Rondebosch Common in Cape Town. In so doing, we deal with our second objective: offering a detailed empirical analysis of the Occupy Rondebosch Common 2012 events, which relates to broader public space debates in contemporary, liminal, South Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch & Emma Thébault, 2017. "Dis-locating public space: Occupy Rondebosch Common, Cape Town," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(3), pages 555-571, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:49:y:2017:i:3:p:555-571
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X15603985
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X15603985
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X15603985?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. Ananya Roy, 2009. "The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 819-830.
    2. Ananya Roy, 2011. "Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 223-238, March.
    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. Azunre, Gideon Abagna & Amponsah, Owusu & Takyi, Stephen Appiah & Mensah, Henry & Braimah, Imoro, 2022. "Urban informalities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): A solution for or barrier against sustainable city development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Understanding Urban Processes in Flint, Michigan: Approaching ‘Subaltern Urbanism’ Inductively," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 791-804, May.
    3. Almeida, Renan P. & Hungaro, Lucas, 2021. "Water and sanitation governance between austerity and financialization," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Christine Hentschel, 2015. "Postcolonializing Berlin and The Fabrication of The Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 79-91, January.
    5. Gordon MacLeod & Martin Jones, 2011. "Renewing Urban Politics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2443-2472, September.
    6. Marco Allegra & Irene Bono & Jonathan Rokem & Anna Casaglia & Roberta Marzorati & Haim Yacobi, 2013. "Rethinking Cities in Contentious Times: The Mobilisation of Urban Dissent in the ‘Arab Spring’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(9), pages 1675-1688, July.
    7. Andrew Harris, 2012. "The Metonymic Urbanism of Twenty-first-century Mumbai," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2955-2973, October.
    8. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(12), pages 2596-2612, September.
    9. Tariq Jazeel, 2021. "The ‘City’ As Text," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 658-662, July.
    10. Mary Lawhon & Yaffa Truelove, 2020. "Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(1), pages 3-20, January.
    11. Allen J. Scott, 2019. "City-regions reconsidered," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 554-580, May.
    12. Tooran Alizadeh & Deepti Prasad, 2024. "The right to the smart city in the Global South: A research agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 426-444, February.
    13. Jennie Gamlin, 2022. "Coloniality and the political economy of gender: Edgework in Juárez City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(3), pages 509-525, February.
    14. Tom Goodfellow, 2018. "Seeing Political Settlements through the City: A Framework for Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(1), pages 199-222, January.
    15. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    16. Anke Schwarz & Monika Streule, 2016. "A Transposition of Territory: Decolonized Perspectives in Current Urban Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(5), pages 1000-1016, September.
    17. Cary Wu & Rima Wilkes & Daniel Silver & Terry Nichols Clark, 2019. "Current debates in urban theory from a scale perspective: Introducing a scenes approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(8), pages 1487-1497, June.
    18. Jérémie Sanchez & Su Su Myat, 2021. "Expanding the Southern urban critique: Elite politics, popular politics, and self-governance in the wards of Mandalay," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(7), pages 1453-1470, November.
    19. Oluwole Soyinka & Yusuf A. Adenle & Mohammed Abdul-Rahman, 2021. "Urban informality and sustainable design of public space facilities: a case study of Hong Kong SAR of China in 2018," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16560-16587, November.
    20. Linda Peake, 2016. "The Twenty-First-Century Quest for Feminism and the Global Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 219-227, January.

    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:sae:envira:v:49:y:2017:i:3:p:555-571. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.