Housing and Hopes: Mowbray's Elderly Whites and the Effects of Reforms in South African Property Legislation
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HOUSING AND HOPES: MOWBRAY'S ELDERLY WHITES AND THE EFFECTS OF REFORMS IN SOUTH AFRICAN PROPERTY LEGISLATION by SIMON ROBERT BELL, B.Soc Sc (Honours) 1993 Presented in fullfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Social Science in Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town University of Cape Town The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Chapter Outline iv List of Maps, Figures, Tables and Case Studies vii Introduction 1 Section One 14 Chapter one 14 Methodology Chapter Two 41 A Short History of Mowbray: A Context of Winning Chapter Three 69 Elderly White Mowbray Residents: Their Experience of and Strategies for Securing Accommodation in a Context of Change Section Two 102 Chapter Four 102 History as a Political Tool Chapter Five 136 Elderly White Mowbray Residents' Use of the Southern Suburbs Action Network as an Avenue of Response 'Housing Crisis Chapter Six 169 Responding to the 'Housing Crisis' through Opposed Images of Self and Others Conclusion 204 The Politics of Housing: Loss of Power and Hope References 214 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr 'Mugsy' Spiegel, from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, for his continued encouragement, supervision and support throughout the research process. I would also like to thank John Kench, my good neighbour, for his willingness to read through pages of rough draft, and for his editorial comments and assistance. Thanks also needs to be expressed to my wife, Christine, for her ongoing support and encouragement in spite of her own workload. This research would not have been possible without the willing participation of many residents of Mowbray. While most of their names have been changed in the thesis, in order to protect their identities, my gratitude is expressed to them as individuals. I hope that I have represented them fairly, in spite of their own diverse opinions and experiences. The financial assistance of the Human Science Research Council is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed in this work, or conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not to be attributed to the Human Science Research Council. ii ABSTRACT My aim in the thesis is to look at how elderly White Mowbray residents have responded to the effects of reforms in South African Property legislation. In order to reach this objective I have used Gregory Bateson's notion of the double bind, as describing no win situations, as a structural framework for analysis. Firstly, recognising Bateson's injunction that double binds can only be understood contextually, I provide three contexts which give rise to elderly White Mowbray residents' responses. These are: (i) the research process; (ii) a history of 'winning' for Whites in terms of access to housing; and (iii) elderly White Mowbray residents' experiences of, and their strategies for, securing accommodation in a context of change. Secondly, I document the responses of elderly White Mowbray residents to changes in their housing situation by discussing: (i) their construction and selective use of history as a political tool; (ii) their use of a local support and lobby group as an avenue of response; and (iii) their construction of opposed images of self and others. In the process I tease out levels of differentiation and complexity and show how the double bind comes about and is re inf creed in relation to each response to the changing housing situation. iii Bateson' s notion of a double bind, as describing no win situations, has proved a useful tool for analysis for two reasons. It helps in understanding the relationship between elderly White Mowbray residents' perceptions of their experiencing a 'housing crisis' and their responses to it. It has also proved useful to understand the range of different responses of elderly White Mowbray residents to the 'housing crisis'. Recognition of these different responses leads to a critique of two traps into which other social scientists have fall en when discussing White South Africans: (i) a tendency to over-generalise; and (ii) a tendency play down the importance of responses of Whites to the process of political reform in the 1980s and 1990s. As such, Bateson's notion of the double bind proves a valuable tool for understanding the complex manner in which some White South Africans have responded to a changing context which they perceive as being to their disadvantage. iv CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction 1-13 SECTION ONE: CONTEXTS Chapter One Methodology 14 I. The Parameters of the Study 14 II. A Theoretical Consideration: The Definition of 'the Elderly' 19 A. Definitions of 'the Elderly': Gerontology and Anthropology 19 B. South African Gerontology and My Research: a Debate over Definitions 22 c. Age and Sex Profile of the 'Primary Informants' Selected 27 III. Fieldworker's Status and the Fieldwork Process 28 IV. Participant Observation: The Problems of Dependency, Political Legitimation and Alliances 31 A. Participant Observation and Dependency 32 B. Participant Observation, Political Legitimation and Affiliation 34 V. Conclusion 39 Chapter Two A Short History of Mowbray: A Context of Winning 41 I. Colonial Frontier: the Mapping out of 'Who was Boss' 44 II. From Farm to Village 48 III. 1890-1913: The Town Called Mowbray and the Mapping Out of 'Appropriate Space in Class and Race' 52 IV. The Apartheid Era: Mapping out 'Clear Space' 57 v. Filling in 'Clear Space': the Paradox of 'Modernization' 62 VI. Conclusion 66 Chapter Three Elderly White Mowbray Residents: Their Experiences and Strategies for Securing Housing in a Context of Change 69 I. Residents in Free-Standing, Terraced- and Semi-Detached Houses 70 A. Costs of Maintaining a House 70 B. Fear and Experience of Crime 73 C. Introduction and Removal of the Group Areas Act: a Source of Benefit 77 D. The Impact of Business Use on Residential Property 80 E. Housing as a Rentable Asset and to Ensure Kin Support 82 V II. Residents in Flats 84 A. The Scrapping of Rent Control and the Introduction of Sectional Title 84 B. Purchase of Blocks of Flats by UCT for Student Residences 91 III. Conclusion 98 SECTION TWO: NO WIN SITUATIONS Chapter Four History as a Political Tool 102 I. Introduction 102 II. Conflicting Histories 105 III. The Construction, Selective Use and Appropriation of an Idyllic History as a Political Tool 107 A. Two Written Histories as Example 107 B. The Historical Text as a Political Statement on Housing 109 c. Appropriating Written Histories as Sources of Authority 111 D. Idyllic History: Social Differentiation and the Value of the 'Holders of History' 114 IV. The Use of Competing Histories: Understanding the Present, Making Claims to the Future and Offering a Challenge 120 A. Elderly White Mowbray Residents: 'Holders of Competing Histories' 120 B. 'Competing Histories': suppressed Texts in Local Discussion 125 c. Presenting 'Competing Histories' as a Challenge 130 V. Conclusion 132 Chapter Five Elderly White Mowbray Residents' Use of the Southern Suburbs Action Network as an Avenue of Response to the 'Housing Crisis' 136 I. The Political Organisation of 'the Elderly': a Brief History of the SSAN 137 II. Use of the SSAN by Elderly White Mowbray Residents 143 A. A Petition to Parliament 143 1. Reflections of Shock in the Petition 144 2. Reflections of Displacement in the Petition 147 3. Reflections of the 'Housing crisis' and 'Reform" in South Africa 151 B. The SSAN as a support Group 154 c. Attempting to Bring to Fruition the SSAN's Model for Political Action 162 III. Conclusion 166 vi Chapter Six Responding to the 'Housing Crisis' through Opposed Images of Self and Others 169 I. The Last "Frontier" and the "Black Cloud" 169 A. The Self as "Civilised" and Defender of the Last Frontier 170 1. Connections to Historical Space 170 2. symbols of One's Faith 173 3. Proper Upbringing 175 B. The "Black Cloud" as Uncivilised 176 II. The "Community" Versus Intruders 181 A. The Mowbray "Community as "White" 182 B. The Mowbray "Community" Versus "Students as Transients" 186 C. Forest Hill: The Break Up of "Community" 188 III. "Law Abiding Citizens" Versus "Criminals" 191 1. Avoidance Behaviour to Escape Crime 193 2. Attempting to Make the House a Haven from Crime 194 3. Moving to Safer Suburbs in Order to Escape Crime 195 4. The Instrumental Use of Stereotypes to Address the 'Housing Crisis' 196 IV. Conclusion 200 Conclusion The Politics of Housing: Loss of Power and Hope 204 References 214 vii LIST OF MAPS Map 1.1 The Cape Peninsula 17 Map 1.2 Map of Area of Mowbray Included in the Study 18 Map 2.1 The Dutch Colony at the Cape by 1660 46 Map 2.2 Farms in the area of Driekoppen by the early 19th Century 49 Map 2.3 The sub-division of the farm Zorgvliet for large residential homes 50 Map 2.4 Mowbray in c1960 with 'coloured' sections of the suburb demarcated 60 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Floor Plan of "Workmen's Dwellings" by the Mowbray Municipality, Constructed in c1905 53 Figure 2.2 Floor Plan and Front Elevation of Five of the 'Villas' by F.W.Struben along Strubens Rd, Mowbray 55 Figure 2.3 Early (Post-1894) Photograph of 'Cadboll House' in Avenue Road, Mowbray 56 Figure 2.4 Floor-Plan of Three 'Labourers' Houses' in a Terraced Row, numbers 17, 19 & 21.