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'Living Together, Separately in the New South Africa': The ‘LIVING TOGETHER, SEPARATELY IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA’: THE CASE OF INTEGRATED HOUSING IN MOGALE CITY AND LEHAE PROJECT Research report Contents Acknowledgements 2 Foreword 3 Introduction 4 Maps 5 Research approach 7 Racial integration and the housing allocation process 8 Racial integration in Lehae and Chief Mogale? 13 Summary and areas for further research 17 References and Endnotes 18 Acknowledgements The following report is based on research undertaken by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) for the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. PARI and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation wish to thank the residents of Lehae and Chief Mogale who gave us their time, as well as the officials and councillors who engaged with us. The report was written by Sarah Meny-Gibert, with input from Ivor Chipkin. Margot Rubin provided useful input on sections of the report. Fieldwork was managed by Letta Mhlanga and Mpho Mohapi, who both also undertook fieldwork. The fieldwork team also included Ryan Brunette, Emile Coetzee, Carolien Greyling, Sarah Meny-Gibert, Mluleki Masgina and Masimba Yuba. The Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) was commissioned by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to conduct this research report. The lead researcher from PARI for this study is Sarah Meny-Gibert. The views expressedin this report do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Trustees of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. Funding for this research was made possible by the Svenska Postkod Lotteriet (the Swedish Postcode Lottery). 2 Foreword he Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has deepening non- demands from applicants for the Department of Human Tracialism as its core objective. It is an ideal entrenched Settlements (Housing) to make RDP houses available to all in our constitution as well as the Freedom Charter. The race groups. This had seen city officials acquiesce, respond Foundation develops various programmes and structured with a structured consultative approach in the case of public engagements to ensure that this important ideal Mogale City, and reluctant agreement in the case of Lehae. is realised. In addition to this, research forms a significant The purpose of the project was really to enable the Ahmed part of what we do, in a broader aim to inform policy, Kathrada Foundation to critically assess interpretations of and engage with intellectual communities. Towards this non-racialism, through interviews with selected public goal, the Foundation has begun to probe meanings and sector officials, and through tracing the process of interpretations of non-racialism in contemporary South housing allocations. It was to get an initial sense of how Africa through research with ordinary South Africans government officials deal with everyday issues such as and prominent leaders. This work is complimented by delivery of services to different constituencies in South historical research on individual contributions to a non- Africa. In the two cases looked at in this pilot research racial South Africa. project, there was no unified approach in how public officials dealt with housing applications from individuals In 2012, the Foundation aimed to increase its research work who would have been racially classified under apartheid. on contemporary forms, meanings and interpretations of non-racialism. The focus was less about what should define While the two cases did not offer the ideal entry point non-racialism in contemporary South Africa, as it was about into looking at integrated housing, since this was not whether and how non-racialism was translated from ‘the the purpose of the housing settlements, it did provide us ideal’ to ‘the practice’. Implied here is how non-racialism with insight about non-racialism is made sense of outside is made sense of by various individuals, and how these of ‘engineered’ spaces. The next step is to contrast this individuals interpret what is meant by pronouncements with looking at projects of the Department of Housing of non-racialism in public or organizational policy. In 2012, Settlements that are specifically concerned with integrated with funding from the Swedish Postcode Lottery, two housing. One of the benefits of having conducted this pilot projects were conceptualized and commissioned – this is that there is a clearer sense of the approach needed to publication, and the other entitled ‘The ANC: Still a Home critically assess the state of non-racialism in various public to All, which explores perspectives on non-racialism of a sectors such as education, service delivery, and housing. selection of ANC branch members. The kind of agenda around change management within the public service, in terms of implementing service to all Both research reports explore the state of non-racialism who live in South Africa beyond banal racial classification, in the party that champions it and the public service that is something we envisage emerging from this research. implements it. Read as a composite, they give us a sense of the extent of the challenge ahead to build and non-racial We trust that as you read this fascinating report, you will society in South Africa. Where non-racialism is interpreted have a renewed sense of what it takes to deepen non- as social relations between individuals, this work gives us racialism in whatever sector of life you live and work in. We a sense of the substantive nature of building a truly non- trust that it will inform your perspective of what democracy racial society that has implications for service delivery, and inclusion means in contemporary South Africa two organisational identity and social inclusion. decades in to our political transition. And we trust that it will allow us to further critically identify potential and The focus of the study in this publication is integrated emerging frays in the fabric of our celebrated democracy, RDP Housing and is entitled ‘Living Together Separately and to work towards mending these. in the New South Africa: The case of integrated housing in Mogale City and Lehae’. The Foundation approached Neeshan Balton Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) as partner to Executive Director: Ahmed Kathrada Foundation conduct this research given the intersections of the two institutions’ work. Over the past few years, there had been Caryn Abrahams Head of Research: Ahmed Kathrada Foundation 3 Introduction o a large extent, the geography of the apartheid though, that RDP settlements have done little to change Tcity remains – in the racial homogeneity of many the broader apartheid geography of South African urban, and in particular rural, areas and in “delimiting cities: the poor (primarily black residents) still live on the racialised patterns of inequality and … access to periphery of cities and the wealthier reside in locations economic opportunities and political and social networks” closer to employment and social amenities (Klug, (Christopher, 2001 cited in Oldfield, 2004). forthcoming). Despite the continuities from the Apartheid period, In the case of Gauteng, where this research has focused, there are important sites of change. Further, Sophie some degree of desegregation has also occurred in Oldfield (2004) points out that although the majority of public rental stock owned and run by municipalities and the population in urban areas has not moved from the the Province and in Social Housing schemes. There are, racially delineated areas in which they resided prior to the however, a few examples of RDP settlements in Gauteng repeal of the Group Areas Act, “post-apartheid patterns in which a mix of ‘races’ reside. PARI recently undertook of segregation have become increasingly complex”. Inner research in two such sites, namely Lehae in Region G of city areas have experienced radical changes (Morris, 1999; the Johannesburg municipality (the City of Joburg), and Crankshaw and White, 1995 cited in Oldfield, 2004) – most Chief Mogale Housing Development in Kagiso in Mogale notably in Johannesburg, while some racially mixed areas City Local Municipality. have become racially homogeneous (Houssay-Holzschuch et al, 2000 cited in Oldfield, 2004). The following report summarises the findings from a pilot research project in these two settlements commissioned There have also been changes in the socio-economic and by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation (hereafter the racial character of middle class residential areas (Kracker Kathrada Foundation). The Kathrada Foundation’s primary Selzer and Heller, 2010 cited in Klug et al, forthcoming). interest in the research was to explore the prospects of In Roodepoort, where the Public Affairs Research Institute using racially integrated housing projects as a means to (PARI) has been undertaking research, hundreds of facilitate the building of a non-racial society, supporting thousands of newly built townhouses now accommodate the Foundation’s work in the area of non-racialism more a great diversity of families – in terms of race, language broadly. and nationality – in an area historically the stronghold of Afrikaner nationalism1 (Chipkin, 2012). The Foundation approached PARI as a research partner on the Project given the organisations’ mutual interests in Much of this change in the demographic composition of issues of social change and identity in contemporary South these areas has been as a result of “market mechanisms Africa. Over the last few years PARI has been engaged in and individual homeowner choices” since 1994 (Oldfield, research on the townhouse complexes, luxury estates 2004). Ivor Chipkin suggests that the entry of black middle and informal settlements that have mushroomed on the class families into historically white neighbourhoods in western edge of Johannesburg. The research has focused, the 1990s was facilitated by an earlier period of upward amongst other things, on exploring contemporary forms class mobility amongst a small number of black families of social identity in South Africa and the institutions in the 1980s, as much as the result of policy interventions shaping these identities (see Chipkin, 2012). This report since democracy (Chipkin, 2012). draws on some of this research. The state has played some role in racially desegregating Lehae Housing Development is located south of Soweto urban areas in South Africa.
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