Abstract
Focusing on the urban enclave in Cape Town known as De Waterkant, this paper examines the product and process of ‘quartering’ urban space—shaping urban space as the locus for the symbolic framing of culture. This paper advances recent studies of De Waterkant by applying the concept of quartering to understand urban change in an African context. Complicating existing research on De Waterkant, the findings show that the area has witnessed four distinct quartered identities 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 engaged sexual identity performance as a strategy for place making and most recently a consumer lifestyle quartering that exhibited new notions of citizenship and consumption. This paper advances theorisation of how quartering as a process is articulated through the application of discursive and material tropes to the urban fabric of the city.
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Notes
The De Waterkant Civic Association delimits the enclave by the area bounded on the east/west by Somerset Road and Strand Street and on the north/south by Boundary Road and Hudson Street
The area’s proximity to Cape Town’s port as well as the Muslim neighbourhood of the Bo-Kaap meant that Loader Street was comprised of a racially and ethnically diverse range of families of working class background drawn from a cross-section of African, European and Asian origins.
In South Africa a ‘café’ (pronounced ‘ka fe with an emphasis on the first syllable) is a name used to describe a general merchant that sells household essentials such as bread and milk, as well as prepared foods, newspapers, etc. For many residents, corner cafes acted like modern-day convenience stores and used to be the mainstay of many Cape Town neighbourhoods. Such shops are also known locally as ‘bappi shops’ from the fact that many were owned and/or operated by South Africans of Indian origin. Bappi is a term of Indian origin that refers to a male elder.
His use of the term ‘African’ in the first instance refers to black South Africans. In correcting himself, he is implying that the African residents were from other parts of Africa, not South Africa. His reference implies that the ethnic diaspora was rich, but that it excluded some.
The Group Areas Act of 1950 determined where residents from the various racial groups (European, Indian, coloured and African) could legally reside. While the Act was set into law in 1950, its implementation took place over decades and changed the racial profiles of South African urban areas in particular.
It should be noted that during the period that I characterise as De Waterkant’s ethnic quartering, most residents in the area were tenants rather than owners of the properties in which they lived.
Not their real names
Moffie is a colloquial term for a gay male. It is a word of Afrikaans origin that generally has pejorative connotations. (Cage 2003: 82)
The upper areas of De Waterkant—above Jarvis Street—remain largely in residential use to this day. Although residences are still the main use of housing stock in the upper area of De Waterkant, many of the homes have been converted into bed and breakfast or other forms of guest accommodation.
The ‘lifestyle centre’ concept is attributed to Memphis, TN (USA) property developers Poag & McEwen. According to company sources, their centres are designed to ‘[serve] a growing and affluent community as the primary centre for quality shopping and dining’ (Poag and McEwen 2015). They are places where ‘life meets style’ and where ‘the customer is never overwhelmed but is, instead, able to escape the pressures of the day to relax, dine and shop in style’ (Poag and McEwen 2015).
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Rink, B. Quartering the City in Discourse and Bricks: Articulating Urban Change in a South African Enclave. Urban Forum 27, 19–34 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-015-9270-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-015-9270-8