Contents THOKOZA RESEARCH – NEW DRAFT OUTLINE Chapter 1 TERMS OF REFERENCE 7 Chapter 1.1 OVERALL RESEARCH PROJECT 8 6 DESCRIPTION OF THOKOZA HOSTEL 41 1.2 THOKOZA WOMEN’S HOSTEL SITE 8 6.1 A BRIEF HISTORY 42 1.3 KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS 9 6.2 SPACE IN THOKOZA HOSTEL 45 6.3 INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS 66 2 RESEARCH TEAM 11 6.3.1 MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE 66 6.3.2 BUDGET, RENTAL, COSTS AND AFFORDABILITY 68 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15 6.3.3 PROPOSED HOSTEL UPGRADE 72 3.1 INTRODUCTION 16 3.2 GETTING ACCESS FOR THE FIELDWORK 16 7 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 75 3.3 PARTICIPANT SELECTION 18 7.1 SPACE AS MULTI-DIMENSIONAL 77 3.4 METHODS OF ENQUIRY 18 7.2 SPACE AS FLUID 83 3.4.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 20 7.3 SPACE AS GENDERED 85 3.4.2 2011 JOURNEY MAPS 20 3.4.3 MIGRATION ORAL HISTORIES 20 8 ANALYSIS 95 3.4.4 QUESTIONNAIRE 21 8.1 AGENCY | ACQUIESCENCE 96 3.4.5 IN DEPTH INTERVIEWS AND PHOTO SHOOTS 21 8.2 PRIVACY|SOCIABILITY 100 3.4.6 OBSERVATION 22 8.3 COLLABORATION|COMPETITION 112 3.4.7 FOCUS GROUP 22 8.4 PRIDE | SHAME 118 3.4.8 SUPERVISOR INTERVIEW 22 8.5 URBAN | RURAL 121 8.6 LIVELIHOODS (& REMITTANCES) | LOCATION (& DISLOCATION) 133 4 REPORT STRUCTURE 27 8.7 PERMANENCE|IMPERMANENCE 150 8.8 ‘SINGLES’ | ‘FAMILY’ 160 5 AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF URBAN HOUSING 8.9 AMENITY|RULES 168 OPTIONS FOR AFRICAN WOMEN IN DURBAN 31 9 CONCLUSION 175 REFERENCES 180 “The home is the centre of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. We say that at home, we can ‘be ourselves’. Everywhere else, we are someone else. At home, we remove our masks. The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, where as children, we imagine, play and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised…” “Civic life too begins at home, allowing us to plant roots and take ownership over our community, participate in local politics, and reach out to neighbours in a spirit of solidarity and generosity.” “…residential stability begets a kind of psychological stability, which allows people to invest in their home and social relationships. It begets school stability, which increases the chances that that children will excel and graduate. And it begets community stability, which encourages neighbours to 1. form strong bonds and take care of their block.” Chapter 1 MATTHEW DESMOND: EVICTED: POVERTY AND PROFIT IN THE AMERICAN CITY (PAGES 293 – 127, 2017) PENGUIN TERMS OF REFERENCE 1.1 OVERALL RESEARCH PROJECT into neighbourhoods……” universal, even when the only space work, the findings of this research 4. What kinds of place identities The core enquiry to do this is a single bed. That was the project deepen our understanding of develop in these spaces and why? In 2017 the DesigncoLab team was “Places, it is worth remembering main point of this profoundly moving home in Thokoza. Home occupies a 5. How does the design of the built of this ‘narratives selected to participate in the Narratives become part of people’s identities. Here photographic work. spectrum, that is contingent and environment in these spaces enable of Home and Neighbourhood Research we aim to deliberatively draw into the not constant. or constrict social relations, and in of home & Project. The project is funded through heart of the planning disciplines the In 2011, she completed a similar turn shape peoples’ sense of home, an NRF Blue Skies Grant and is experiences of how people make homes project at the Thokoza Women’s Hostel, 1.3 KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS belonging and neighbourhood? neighbourhood’ managed by the Urban Futures Centre and neighbourhoods ….” photographing every room in Block A. 6. How do residents transform the (UFC) at the Durban University of These works belong to the Durban Art The research questions of the built environment through everyday research project talks Technology (DUT). “This social lens aims to develop Gallery’s permanent collection, and are overall ‘Narratives of Home and livelihood practices and ways alternative theoretical models and exhibited from time to time. Neighbourhood’ Project, which have of belonging? to many of the issues The research broadly examines how imaginative methodologies. It also guided this Thokoza research, are 7. What are some of the intended and state housing models in the city of offers valuable insight into the The core enquiry of this ‘Narratives about “investigating not only what it unintended social consequences of in the hostels, where Durban shape the social landscape: intended and unintended consequences of Home & Neighbourhood’ research means to make a place a home, but living in state delivered housing? of state provided housing.….” project talks to many of the issues how these built forms shape ideas the commonly held “Various models of state housing in the hostels, where the commonly of self, neighbourhoods and broader The more specific framing of this should be locations for investigating (UFC Researcher Briefing document: held qualities of ‘home’ are, at face social belonging…..how people make project, located within the overall qualities of ‘home’ not only what it means to make a place 2017) value, absent. The research project homes and neighbourhoods out of research intention, was proposed a home, but how these built forms has provided an opportunity to places”, and “how housing shapes as follows: are, at face value, shape ideas of self, neighbourhoods 1.2 THOKOZA WOMEN’S HOSTEL explore and better understand the social landscape far beyond the and broader social belonging. Five SITE the underlying complexity of bricks and mortar of the 1. What does home mean and what absent. The research research sites are proposed in the these spaces. units themselves”. are the strategies for making ‘home’ Durban area; a mega human settlement Thokoza Women’s Hostel is one of ten for women living in a single sex project has provided (preferably Cornubia), a Community historically single sex hostels in the Hostels have traditionally (UFC Researcher Briefing document: hostel, in the inner city? Residential Unit or hostel, a subsidised eThekwini Municipality. The other nine been regarded as temporary 2017) 2. What are the desires and an opportunity municipal rental estate, an informal - KwaMashu, KwaDabeka, Wema, Jacobs, accommodation, with occupants expectations of ‘home’ in an settlement in-situ upgrade, and Klaarwater, KwaMakhutha, Dalton, assumed to have some other ‘real The key research questions as per the upgraded/converted Community to explore and buildings run by Social Housing SJ Smith, and Glebelands – were all homes’ elsewhere. What Buckland’s brief were as follows: Residential Unit (CRU) and how does Companies. Research at each site men’s hostels, although there are many Thokoza project showed was that this relate to the CRU policy? better understand should experiment with creative and women living in all of them. Thokoza is although occupied periodically, with 1. What are the meanings 3. What is the relationship and participatory methods and run by a one of only very few hostels originally visits ‘home’ over holidays at least, residents attach to home and meaning of other homes left behind? the underlying team of multidisciplinary members intended for women only, in South hostels are often occupied on a much neighbourliness in specific types of from the fields of sociology, planning, Africa, and is the only women’s hostel more permanent basis. Although state-delivered housing? We planned to interrogate the social complexity of architecture, public art, dance and in Durban. many of the more long-term residents 2. How do residents in state-funded consequences of hostel living, drama, amongst others ……” may still have an attachment to a housing create places that are including issues of place identity, these spaces. In 2002, Angela Buckland, an home-base elsewhere, often in rural understood and experienced as both for the hostel residents and “Research teams in each site will established Durban photographer, areas, they spend most of their time home? their relationships with each other, investigate how people living in a undertook a project in the oldest block at the hostel. For these residents, 3. And how are the concepts of and for their families at their other specific state housing model make of the Jacobs Men’s Hostel, and clearly the hostel is more than temporary neighbourliness and neighbourhood homes; and how the sense of the these places into a home, and showed that the need to create a accommodation: it constitutes understood and shaped in clusters of hostel as a temporary place to stay, transform collectivities of homes personalised sense of ‘home’ is almost a home. Building on this earlier housing units? or as a ‘home’, changes over time? 8 Ῐ Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Ῐ 9 2. TOP LEFT: Joanne Lees Chapter 2 TOP RIGHT: Angela Buckland BOTTOM LEFT: Melinda Silverman BOTTOM RIGHT: Phumzile Xulu RESEARCH TEAM At project inception, the proposed Unfortunately, political interference in Durban. She had also worked on core project team comprised Angela in the selection of our team and an oral history project with the UFC, Buckland, Joanne Lees, Melinda participants delayed the start of Migration and Shaping the Inclusive Silverman, and Hlengiwe Makhathini. the project, and almost derailed it City: The Case of Durban, South Africa, completely. With the assistance of the in 2017. Angela Buckland is a well-known Human Settlements Department and photographer in Durban, and this the hostel supervisor in particular, Ten of the oral history participants research builds on work she did in the process to be used to select the were Thokoza residents.