Urban visions and divisions in the global south: Comparing strategies for Mumbai and Cape Town

Abstract This article explores language ideologies and sociolinguistic scales from the perspective of decolonization. Coloniality is a multi-scalar world system that affects micro-level interactions in multiple locales, both in the metropole and in the former colonies. Not only does coloniality exist on a world scale, resistance to it is scaled up too and engulfs the world. The linguistic tradition that I seek to trace in this article is imaginative, creative and oriented towards alternative decolonial futures. It speaks to the experience of the coloniality of language, of language as alienating and oppressive, and to the corresponding desire, and need, for a different language. It articulates a decolonial philosophy and brings art and politics together to change the world. I show that the global south was, and is, an intellectual-artistic-political vanguard, articulating and shaping discourses about language and revolutionary action. In philosophical, artistic and political practice – stretching from Martinique to Paris, from Cape Town to Kingston – language and revolutionary practice merge into one: language no longer just reflects reality, it can change it.

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Fragment urbanism: Politics at the margins of the city

Environment and Planning D Society and Space ◽

10.1177/0263775818777496 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 36 (6) ◽

pp. 1007-1025 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Colin McFarlane

Keyword(s):

Urban Poverty ◽

Cape Town ◽

Global South ◽

Urban Theory ◽

Urban Sanitation ◽

Poverty And Inequality ◽

History Of ◽

To Receive ◽

The City

Fragmentation is a keyword in the history of critical urban thought. Yet the products of fragmentation – the fragments themselves – tend to receive less attention. In this paper, I develop a politics of urban fragments as a contribution to debates both in urban theory and in urban poverty and inequality. I examine inadequate and broken material fragments on the economic margins of the urban global South, and ask how they become differently politicized in cities. I develop a three-fold framework for understanding the politics of fragments: attending to, generative translation and surveying wholes. I build these arguments through a focus on a fundamental provision – urban sanitation – drawing on research in Mumbai in particular, as well as Cape Town, and connecting those instances to research on urban poverty, politics and fragmentation.

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The urban water metabolism of Cape Town: Towards becoming a water sensitive city

South African Journal of Science ◽

10.17159/sajs.2021/8630 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 117 (5/6) ◽

Author(s):

Ffion Atkins ◽

Tyrel Flügel ◽

Rui Hugman

Keyword(s):

Urban Landscape ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Cape Town ◽

Global South ◽

Spatially Explicit ◽

Urban Water ◽

Water Metabolism ◽

Groundwater Storage ◽

Quality Of Water ◽

The City

To improve its resilience to increasing climatic uncertainty, the City of Cape Town (the City) aims to become a water sensitive city by 2040. To undertake this challenge, a means to measure progress is needed that quantifies the urban water systems at a scale that enables a whole-of-system approach to water management. Using an urban water metabolism framework, we (1) provide a first city-scale quantification of the urban water cycle integrating its natural and anthropogenic flows, and (2) assess alternative water sources (indicated in the New Water Programme) and whether they support the City towards becoming water sensitive. We employ a spatially explicit method with particular consideration to apply this analysis to other African or Global South cities. At the time of study, centralised potable water demand by the City amounted to 325 gigalitres per annum, 99% of which was supplied externally from surface storage, and the remaining ~1% internally from groundwater storage (Atlantis aquifer). Within the City’s boundary, runoff, wastewater effluent and groundwater represent significant internal resources which could, in theory, improve supply efficiency and internalisation as well as hydrological performance. For the practical use of alternative resources throughout the urban landscape, spatially explicit insight is required regarding the seasonality of runoff, local groundwater storage capacity and the quality of water as it is conveyed through the complex urban landscape. We suggest further research to develop metrics of urban water resilience and equity, both of which are important in a Global South context.

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Migration, Interfaith Engagement, and Mission among Somali Refugees in Kenya: Assessing the Cape Town Commitment from a Global South Perspective One Decade On

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel12020129 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 129

Author(s):

Martin Munyao

Keyword(s):

Cape Town ◽

Global South ◽

First Century ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Culturally Appropriate ◽

Mission Theology ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Somali Refugee ◽

And Migration ◽

The Church

In the last decade, since the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (2010) in Cape Town, South Africa, the world has significantly changed. The majority of the world’s Christians are located in the Global South. Globalization, conflict, and migration have catalyzed the emergence of multifaith communities. All these developments have in one way or another impacted missions in twenty-first-century sub-Saharan Africa. As both Christianity and Islam are spreading and expanding, new approaches to a peaceful and harmonious coexistence have been developed that seem to be hampering the mission of the Church as delineated in the Cape Town Commitment (2010). Hence a missiological assessment of the Cape Town Commitment is imperative for the new decade’s crosscutting developments and challenges. In this article, the author contends that the mission theology of the 2010 Lausanne Congress no longer addresses the contemporary complex reality of a multifaith context occasioned by refugee crises in Kenya. The article will also describe the Somali refugee situation in Nairobi, Kenya, occasioned by political instability and violence in Somalia. Finally, the article will propose a methodology for performing missions for interfaith engagement in Nairobi’s Eastleigh refugee centers in the post Cape Town Commitment era. The overall goal is to provide mainstream evangelical mission models that are biblically sound, culturally appropriate, and tolerant to the multifaith diversity in conflict areas.

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‘We see you’ – Sawubona, safe spaces and being human together in South Africa: An ethnographic probe into a fresh expression of church

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies ◽

10.4102/hts.v75i2.5390 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 75 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Ian A. Nell ◽

Ben Aldous

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Cape Town ◽

Global South ◽

Safe Spaces ◽

The Poor ◽

Epistemic Violence ◽

History Of ◽

Democratic Elections

Since the end of apartheid and the advent of democratic elections, South Africa has made great strides, but we still continue, at times, to be unable to practise sawubona. On one level, this is not surprising given our history of separateness. The article asks whether fresh expressions of church, such as the community supper at St Peters in Mowbray, Cape Town, indeed create a space for genuinely ‘seeing’ each other and practicing being human together. The article also explores some of the problems inherent in ethnographic work amongst the poor and the vulnerable by asking whether some types of ethnographic work actually practice a form of epistemic violence and muses upon the idea of the postcolonial gaze and ‘othering’ in ethnography in contexts of poverty in the global South. Can ethnography, in some cases, be a form of academic pornography?

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Changing tune in Woodstock: Creative industries and local urban development in Cape Town, South Africa

Gateways International Journal of Community Research and Engagement ◽

10.5130/ijcre.v5i0.2010 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Laura Wenz

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Development ◽

Cape Town ◽

Field Research ◽

Global South ◽

Creative Industries ◽

Urban Setting ◽

Creative Economy ◽

Creative City ◽

The Right

Since the beginning of the new millennium, a plethora of works has been published on the making of the ‘creative city’ and the urban impact of the creative economy. So far, however, limited recognition has been given to how the development of cultural industries and the creative economy as a whole influences urban transformation in the rapidly urbanising Global South, especially in Africa. In Cape Town, a steadily growing number of creative industries and ‘culturepreneurs’ (Lange 2005) are carving out new spaces from the city’s highly contested urban setting. Over the past five years, the mixed-use, inner-city fringe area of Woodstock has seen the incessant arrival of creatives from various sectors. Travelling alongside is a property sector geared towards catering specifically for the creative industries’ spatial demands by turning old industrial structures – the remains of Woodstock’s former capacity as national hub for clothing, food processing and other light manufacturing – into creative centres hosting international film studios, leading galleries and designer ‘theatre retail spaces’. After setting the stage through a comprehensive introduction to the rise of the creative economy in South Africa and Cape Town, this article tunes into the current local development of Woodstock, based on extensive field research in the area. It traces ways and forms of conflict but also new social interfaces between the new creative tenants and the old established community, on the one hand pointing to problematic issues like lingering gentrification, sociospatial polarisation and lopsided cultural representation while also trying to flesh out some of the opportunities for finding the right frequency of engagement between creative industries and spaces of vernacular creativity within Cape Town’s post-apartheid urban realm. Keywords: Creative economy, creative city, Global South, urban regeneration, gentrification, vernacular creativity

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Shorter commutes, but for whom? Comparing the distributional effects of Bus Rapid Transit on commute times in Cape Town, South Africa, and Barranquilla, Colombia

Journal of Transport and Land Use ◽

10.5198/jtlu.2021.1907 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 647-667

Author(s):

Manuel Santana Palacios ◽

Lisa Rayle

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Urban Form ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Cape Town ◽

Global South ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Urban Context ◽

Two Factors ◽

Using Data

Bus rapid transit has become an increasingly popular investment in cities in the Global South, where policy discourse often positions BRT as a pro-poor investment. Planners usually expect BRT to reduce commute times in urban areas, particularly for economically disadvantaged populations, thus reducing mobility gaps between transit users across different socioeconomic population groups. Despite increased interest in BRT, there is surprisingly limited research testing these assumptions. Using data from a retrospective survey administered in Barranquilla, Colombia, and Cape Town, South Africa, we investigated whether BRT contributes to reducing commute time gaps between socioeconomic populations. Our comparative and distributional analyses indicate that, while BRT narrowed the gap in commute times in Cape Town, it did not contribute to closing the gap in Barranquilla. We argue that this contradiction may, in part, be explained by the degree to which BRT route configuration responded to the urban form and pre-BRT transit conditions in each city—two factors often overlooked in academic literature and discussions surrounding BRT planning. We close by providing policy recommendations that promote more equitable planning practices and recognize the links between transport and land uses in the Global South urban context.

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