Abstract
Development policies and city planning models that are informed by the modernist utopian ideal still inform formalisation practices in developing countries. These practises have unintended consequences that contribute to the proliferation of poverty and inhumane living conditions. By exploring new ways of thinking and adopting planning and development models that are sensitive to the complexity of people's lived experiences in informal settlements, new public discourses are given the opportunity to emerge. Processes and discourses that adopt practices of “agonistic engagement” offer a means of interaction that is a pre-requisite for rebuilding utopian thinking as an authentic source of inspiration in communities characterised by complexity and difference. Mediated modelling techniques as implemented by organisations such as Stalker allow for development practices that are sensitive to the diversity of voices found in informal settlements. Inspired by practices of transgressive dialogical engagements, development policies might bring about sustainable social change that will benefit vulnerable communities. Case studies of communities in the Western Cape (South Africa) serve to highlight the consequences of interventions that implement rigid development planning policies that aim at reducing and cleaning up "messy spaces". The failures of such policies are highlighted. Research and modelling methods are explored that offer new and creative ways of understanding space in terms of the lived experience of the communities themselves. The case studies aim to elucidate the ethical importance of development interventions that advocate contextually rooted change. A process of opening up deliberative spaces for dialogue informs such interventions in which complexity and difference can be negotiated authentically.
Agonistic politics seeks to advance radical democracy by highlighting and challenging the limits of “the possible”.
Edgar Pieterse, 2006
Dissenting voices receive no special privilege; they have to enter into the ‘agonistics of the network’, where their relevance is dynamically determined through competition and co-operation in terms of the history as well as the changing needs and goals of the system.
Paul Cilliers, 1998
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This is the slogan of the Western Cape Provincial Government
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For a review of the local government context see Van Donk et al. 2008.
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“Roll out” being one of the most oft used and abused phrase amongst government officials since 1994.
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NIMBY = “Not in my back yard”
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Greenfields means a development on land that had not been previously developed
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There is no space to go into this vast and complicated story, but the deliberate restraint on public debate about housing policy during the years 1992–1996 are derived from two post-graduate theses supervised by Mark Swilling, namely: Rust, 1998, Civil society participation in the housing process, 1991–1996. Masters in Management, Unpublished Also: Khan (2008).
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Heterotopias are defined as places where differences meet
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Swilling, M., Roux, P., Guyot, A. (2010). Agonistic Engagements: Difference, Meaning and Deliberation in South African Cities. In: Cilliers, P., Preiser, R. (eds) Complexity, Difference and Identity. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 26. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9187-1_11
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