Abstract
Straddling apartheid’s buffer zone between Soweto and Johannesburg South lies a newly demarcated municipal ward. Described by its councillor as a miniature “Rainbow Nation”, it is a provocative site for stitching together the apartheid city and for exploring postapartheid socio-spatial change at a mesoscale between the neighbourhood and the city. Qualitative fieldwork reveals that reconfigured political boundaries are just one of many boundary-making projects unfolding at multiple scales. Formerly white suburbs are racially desegregated, but have also witnessed white flight out of neighbourhoods, institutions and public space, and some enclavisation through gated complexes and private schools. Microgeographies of racially coded space inform everyday life, now often attributed to “cultural difference”. Black residents produce connections to other parts of the city through relationships to family and friends in townships and create new communities in developer-built subdivisions. Infrastructural distinctions between “township” and “suburb” are blurring, with new and old infrastructural inequalities and entanglements emerging. Not all discourses and practices of belonging and exclusion can be mapped onto racial categories or racialised space: new alliances based on property ownership, class and security are emerging, along with new shared “others”. This site demonstrates how new boundary placements overlay and cathect existing boundaries and their repertoires of belonging and exclusion in ambivalent ways.
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Notes
This was not necessarily true: the first suburbs in the area, such as Mondeor developed by a private township owner from the late 1940s, had few amenities and basic infrastructure for years (clippings from resident Noel Thornton).
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Interviews
Interview with Councilor (2013a). Interviewed in person at City of Johannesburg Council Chambers, Braamfontein, March 27.
Interview with Councilor (2013b). Of neighbouring ward. Interviewed in person at Columbine Square, Suideroord, February.
Interview with DA representative (2013). Interviewed in person at Turffontein, March 7.
Interview with former city planner (2013). Interviewed in person at Braamfontein, September 23.
Interview with journalist (2013) Interviewed in person at Comaro Crossing, Oakdene, July 10.
Interview with principal (2013). Interviewed in person at Ward 125 school, May 22.
Interview with teacher (2013). Interviewed in person at Ward 125 school, May 22.
Interview with real estate agent (2013a). Interviewed in person at Suideroord, November 19.
Interview with real estate agent (2013b). Interviewed in person at Southgate, September 2.
Interview with real estate agent (2013c). Interviewed in person at Ormonde, October 14.
Interview with resident (2013a). Interviewed in person at Alveda Park, June 1.
Interview with resident (2013b). Interviewed in person at Alveda Park & Southgate, November 22.
Interview with resident (2013c). Interviewed in person at Parktown, October 16.
Interview with resident (2013d). Interviewed in person at Ormonde View, November 3.
Interview with resident (2013e). Interviewed in person at Meredale, June 14.
Interview with resident (2013f). Interviewed in person at Xavier Reefs, March 10.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the interviewees who shared their time and insights; Aly Karam, Jennifer Van Den Bussche and Peter Kankonde who introduced me to a range of Joburg South actors and spaces; Phil Harrison and Tanya Zack’s invaluable southern suburbs research and Jennie and Mpho Tsekwa for their wonderful home base in Joburg South. Thanks to the archivists for assistance in navigating Wits Historical Papers, and City of Joburg Library’s Harold Strange media clippings collection and their basement full of “dead” and living company reports. This article is indebted to the Scale of Belonging working group at the Gauteng City Region Observatory. Thanks to Richard Ballard and Alexandra Parker for all their editorial support and guidance; Sandiswa Mapukata for thinking boundaries together, and Luke Spiropoulos, Christian Hamann, Ngaka Mosiane and Lee Smith for feedback and input at various stages which, along with the two anonymous reviewers, were vital for strengthening the paper.
Funding
This research was supported by University of Minnesota’s (UMN) Global Spotlight Doctoral Dissertation International Research Grant (2012–2013).
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Butcher, S. New Ward for a New Johannesburg? Reformatting Belonging and Boundaries in the City’s South. Urban Forum 32, 183–204 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-021-09426-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-021-09426-8