The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University Village People: Quartering De Waterkant in discourse and bricks Bradley Michael Rink Thesis Presented for the Degree of Town DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of EnvironmentalCape and Geographical Science of UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN August 2008 University Abstract Village People: Quartering De Waterkant in discourse and bricks Bradley Rink – University of Cape Town Focusing on the urban quarter of Cape Town known as De Waterkant, this thesis examines the product and process of shaping urban space that serves as the locus for the symbolic framing of culture. Through a detailed analysis of human, narrative and visual texts which describe the production and consumption of space, this work demonstrates that there are both utopian and dystopian tropes working in discursive and material ways to shape the identity and form of De Waterkant’s quartering. Drawing on Situational Analysis and Actor Network Theory methodologies, this research uses case study, interviews, participant observation, and analysis of texts to identify the discursive and material structures that have contributed to the creation of quartered space. This work combines insights and arguments drawn from a body of literature on place, the city, utopia, and identity—all grounded within the South African urban context that makes De Waterkant’s quartering subject to identities, histories, and spatial power structures that may not affect quarterings in other urban settings. The findings show that De WaterkantTown has undergone a series of quarterings including: an ethnic quartering which was dismantled under apartheid; a Bohemian quartering that changed racial dynamics and improved housing stock; a ‘gay village’ quartering that enacted place making alongCape lines of sexual identity; and most recently a consumer lifestyle quartering that established new notions of citizenship and consumption. The findings further demonstrateof that hegemonic discourses of place making drive the shaping and re-shaping of urban quarters that are always ‘becoming’ while they are stabilised and de-stabilised by the struggle between utopian and dystopian forces. This work further exemplifies the quarter as a locus of identity production and consumption, and a space that enables commodification of the urban experience, all which address a geographical contribution to understanding the mediated discursive and material nature of place making and theUniversity resulting utopian and dystopian effects on South African urban space. Page ii Acknowledgements A debt of gratitude and special thanks to CIEE—especially to Dr. Stevan Trooboff, Martin Hogan and Adam Rubin for their material and moral support, without which none of this would have been possible. Many thanks to Dr. Sophie Oldfield for guiding me through this adventure, for helping me to find my voice and agency in the narrative, and for showing me how to construct argumentative billboards. Thanks to the African Gender Institute/EGS project Contesting Body Politics: Insecure Homes, Gendered Relationships and Citizenship in Cape Town and Lusaka for research funding. Thanks also to Sally Adam for assistance with maps. Thanks to Kenny for your patience, understanding, and for our journey that began in De Waterkant nine years ago. Thanks also to my parents for giving me the tools to fulfil my passion for geography: roots for understanding the comfort of home and wings for exploring the world beyond. I probably got more than my share of wings! And finally, to all those actors in and around De Waterkant who opened their doors,Town told their stories and shared their invaluable insights: You are the fabric of De Waterkant and an important source of texts on which this research is based. Enkosi kakhulu, Baie Dankie, Thank You! Cape of University Page iii Table of Contents LIST OF MAPS and FIGURES ............................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ..............................................................................................ix Chapter 1. THE QUARTERED CITY ........................................................................ 1 Quartering as place making ............................................................................ 5 Tropes: Mediators of the quarter...................................................................... 8 Quartering debates in the South African context..................................................10 Que(e)rying place .......................................................................................12 “From ghetto, to gay, to gorgeous”: Chapter outline and scope of research.................15 Chapter 2. LOCATING AN URBAN VILLAGE: Literature that situates the quarter ................ 21 The quarter as ‘place’ .................................................................................22 Good place and no place: Utopian frameworks ....................................................24 Utopia and the city ..................................................................................28 South Africa’s urban legacy: the apartheid city ...................................................29Town Identity and the city: Sexuality, consumption, and community.................................31 Sex(uality) and the city .............................................................................31 The struggle for citizenship ........................................................................33Cape The citizen-consumer................................................................................35of Unpacking community ...............................................................................37 The mobility turn and questions of scale ...........................................................38 Mundane and extraordinary mobilities...........................................................39 Scaling discourse .....................................................................................42 The effects of theUniversity quartered city: Identity, exclusion and fortification.......................43 Fortified quarters: The new segregation ........................................................45 Quartering De Waterkant ..............................................................................47 Chapter 3. FINDING, FOLLOWING and LISTENING TO THE ACTORS: Methodology and conceptual framework .................................................................................... 49 Methodological approach ..............................................................................50 Actor Network Theory...............................................................................51 Finding and following the actors: Situational Analysis ........................................51 Page iv Research data.........................................................................................54 Data selection and collection: From intellectual wallpaper to situational analysis......57 Data analysis..........................................................................................63 Research Ethics..........................................................................................68 The beauty of incompleteness: Fluidity, reflexivity and queer geographies ..............70 Conceptual approach...................................................................................77 Layers of history, layers of discourse.............................................................77 History matters.......................................................................................77 Relational Achievements: Discursive interactions between actors ..........................80 Chapter 4. QUE(E)RYING CAPE TOWN: Queer quests and the Pink Map .......................... 82 ’Coming out’ with the map............................................................................84 Situating pink Cape Town..............................................................................88 The trope of the body: De Waterkant’s embodied landscape ................................88 The bathhouse and journeys across race, place and identity ................................94Town Locating lesbian space ..............................................................................96 Out of Africa........................................................................................ 101 De-sexing the Map ....................................................................................Cape 103 ‘Keeping up’: Locating information and findingof yourself....................................... 109 Consuming queerness: From sexual to consumer citizenship .................................. 111 The map as discursive archive ...................................................................... 113 Chapter 5. VILLAGE PEOPLE: Everyday quartering ................................................. 118 Queering beyond the binary......................................................................... 119 Loader Street, LouderUniversity Street: Ethnic quartering ................................................ 120 Young, artsy, hip: Bohemian quartering .........................................................