Infrastructures of Property and Debt: making affordable housing, race and place in Johannesburg A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Siân Butcher IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Advisors: Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard Department: Geography, Environment and Society July 2016 ©2016 by Siân Butcher Acknowledgements This dissertation is not only about debt, but has been made possible through many debts, but also gifts of various kinds. I want to start by thanking the following for their material support of my graduate study at the University of Minnesota (UMN), my dissertation research and my writing time. Institutionally, my homes have been the department of Geography, Environment and Society (GES) and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC). ICGC supported me for two years in partnership with the Center for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) through the generous ICGC-Mellon Scholar fellowship. Pre-dissertation fieldwork between 2010-2011 was supported by GES, ICGC, the York-Wits Global Suburbanisms project, and the Social Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (SSRC DPDF). Dissertation fieldwork in Johannesburg was made possible by UMN’s Global Spotlight Doctoral Dissertation International Research Grant (2012- 2013) and the immeasurable support of friends and family. My two years of writing was enabled by a semester’s residency at the CHR at UWC in Cape Town; a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota (2014-5), and a home provided by my partner Trey Smith and then my mother, Sue Butcher. I want to thank a number of collectives and colleagues for their role in shaping my ideas and questions, and also for sharing many homes away from home. Those three years in situ at UMN were smoothed by the administrative prowess of Bonnie Williams, Jodi Larson, Glen Powell, Sara Braun and Laura Noppe. My fellow Geography graduate students from all over the country and world pushed me in new directions of thought and action. I was fortunate too to interlope in the African History department. I’ve so appreciated shared seminars, conversations and dance floors with Adam Blackler, Alicia Lazzarini, Asli Ikizoglu, Basil Mahayni, Ben McDaniel, Bill Lindeke, Catherine Chang, Cecilia Aldarando, Chris Strunk, Clement Masakure, Dave Morton, Dinesh Paudel, Dudley Bonsal, Elizabeth Williams, Elliot James, Gabriale Payne, Hillary Waters, Ilona Moore, Jake Barney, Jerry Shannon, Jessi Lehman, Jesus Estrada-Perez, Joe Getzoff, Joya John, Julia Corwin, Kai Bosworth, Katie McKeown, Kevin Dyke, Lalit Batra, Laura Cesafsky, Laura Matson, Meryl Lodge, Nathan Clough, Omar Tesdell, Paul Vig, Phuthego Molosiwa, Renata Blumberg, Sami Eria, Sara Nelson, Sinan Erensu, Sri Ananth, Srivanthi Kollu, Terence Mashingaidze, Ursula Lang, Valerie Were and Virgil Slade. In i between, I was fortunate to be part of formative seminars and other learning spaces at the U with faculty Abby Neely, Abdi Samatar, Allen Isaacman, Arun Saldanha, Brenda Kayzar, Bruce Braun, Eric Sheppard, Helga Leitner, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, John Archer, Kathy Klink, Lorena Muñoz, Ron Aminzade, Roger Miller, Simona Sawhney, Teresa Gowan, Tracy Deutsch, Valentine Cadieux, Vinay Gidwani. Karen Brown’s proposal development seminar, and the feedback from my ICGC peers there, was critical to my PhD’s development. The ICGC’s Brown Bag seminar and its lounge with endless coffee and company, made even the longest winter bearable, as did Friday happy hours at the Nomad. Old friends on the East Coast did too: thank you for those annual breathers together, Joanne and Mike Mendoza, Lindsey and David Lagan. In the final months, the UMN Writing Centre’s online writing consultants, especially Rose, helped me see the wood for the trees. The SSRC’s DPDF workshops on either side of the summer of 2011 were absolutely formative to my work. Convened by Helga Leitner and Ananya Roy, on the California coast and then the streets of Philly, I had my research proposal turned inside out in the most constructive way by a passionate and interdisciplinary set of peers and faculty. Asli Ikizoglu was my rock throughout. Also formative were two intensive ‘Winter Schools’ organized back in South Africa by the ICGC, the CHR and the University of Fort Hare’s Chair in Social Change. I had the opportunity to share my work in progress there; I am thankful for the productive pushes from Ciraj Rassool, Gary Minkley, Giorgio Miescher, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, John Mowitt, Leslie Witz, Lorena Rizzo, Noëleen Murray, Patricia Hayes, Premesh Lalu, Ruchi Chaturvedi, Suren Pillay. And for the walks on the beach with Lameez Lalken, Phindi Mnyaka and other friends I would get to meet again during my writing residency at UWC in 2014. A residency where I was welcomed by Premesh Lalu and the CHR, and by the Geography Department under Dan Tevera, and by Noëleen Murray and Shirley Brooks. Soon after arriving in Johannesburg for my fieldwork, I was part of the generative SA City Studies workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) – I am grateful for the close engagement with my work there by Edgar Pieterse, and input from Alan Mabin, Chloé Buire, Elaine Salo, Gordon Pirie, Laura Wenz, Laura Drivdal, Melanie Samson, Ngaka Mosiane, Sylvia Croese, and Suzall Timm. ii During my fieldwork, I was affiliated to the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits thanks to Marie Huchzermeyer and Alan Mabin, where I had the opportunity to interact with scholars with long rich histories of work on Johannesburg and the region. I was fortunate to overlap with three related research projects there, whose PIs generously included me or shared research in process: I participated in Alan Mabin’s African chapter of York’s Global Suburbanism’s project, which organized reading groups and workshops for colleagues to share their work on new suburbs throughout the region; an architectural studio on Rosettenville in the ‘Old South’, through which Aly Karam and Jen Busch introduced me to a range of actors in the South; and met with Phil Harrison about his and Tanya Zack’s research on Johannesburg South which also introduced me to local actors and dynamics. I then had the opportunity to write through some early material with a committed Wits writing group organized by Claire Benit-Gbaffou and Sarah Charlton from the second half of 2013. At Wits, I was also lucky to meet Alex Wafer, Alison Todes, Christine Bischoff, Francis Kintu, Graeme Gotz, Guy Trangoŝ, Kerry Bobbins, Li Pernegger, Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Margot Rubin, Max Bolt, Mucha Musemwa, Obvious Katsaura, Peter Kankonde, Potsiso Phasha, Robin Bloch, Sharad Chari, Thammy Jezile and Zoe Groves. And in other institutions around Gauteng and South Africa, thanks to Federica Duca, Melanie Samson, Patience Mususa and Vito Laterza, Richard Ballard, Sonja Narunsky-Laden, Sue Parnell, Tariq and Tahira Toffa for sharing their work and ideas. While affiliated to Wits, Nikhil Anand and Ananya Roy also visited and participated generously in writing workshops with young researchers: I am grateful for formative conversations through those. At the end of 2015, I was fortunate to have a supportive writing space offered by the GCRO. Of course, without all the people in Johannesburg’s property and debt infrastructure who shared their time, insights and experiences with me during our interviews or at events, this dissertation wouldn’t be here. Thanks to all who participated, especially those anonymous folks living in Johannesburg South who shared their homes with me, and the others I talked to and interviewed who are not cited in this dissertation. All of you shaped a picture of a place and process for me. The interpretation, of course, is my own. To all the archivists, I am thankful for their assistance at Wits Historical Papers; City of Joburg Library’s Harold Strange media clippings and their basement full of “dead” and living company reports; the photo archive at Museum Africa in Newtown (I am grateful for Laura Burroco telling me about them). Particularly, thanks to the welcoming archivists at Standard Bank Heritage Center in downtown Joburg who let me camp out for weeks, and the most helpful South African History Archive (SAHA) on Constitution Hill. iii For guidance in shaping my own unwieldy archive, I am thankful for my eclectic and brilliant committee at the University of Minnesota (and in the end, UCLA too). Arun Saldanha was key in keeping race on my mind as I shaped this project. In the Geography department, he introduced us to the Foucault we needed to balance out the Marx, and always pushed for more creative approaches to geographic fieldwork and writing. Teresa Gowan, I’m so glad I found you in Sociology during your summer ‘boot camp’ on discourse analysis. Thank you for your energy and insight as my project has twisted and turned. Your constant challenge to work between theory and field stays with me. Helena Pohlandt-McCormick: thank you , most immediately, for your deep reading of the thesis for my defense. It has been an honor over the years to think again the question of the postapartheid with you and your African history students in your seminar rooms, in workshops on either side of the Atlantic that you generously invited me to participate in, and at your table. A table and home that you and Michael shared with all of us Southern Africanists so far from home. To my advisors Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard: from your initial geographical political economy seminar to the afterlife of the defense, I’ve had the privilege of having you grow, guide, push and support me. Building the thesis was a major part of that; a construction project stretched between UCLA and Johannesburg. Thank you for going ‘long-distance’ with me! The skype dates, the email and track changes epistles, the lovely visit to your new home in LA.