Abstract
M.A. (Sociology)
Prior to 2012, ward committees (WCs) were elected informally and with very little
regulation. Ward Councillors were instructed to convene public meetings during
which community members were nominated and voting was done by a raise of
hands – this dissertation refers to these as “first generation” WCs. Over the last
decade this process became problematic as politically motivated ward councillors,
were found to manipulate the WC election for their own benefit. In 2011 public revolt
ensued on a national level, and as a result it was decided that all municipalities had
the option of utilising the IEC to ensure the 2012 election process would be more
transparent – these will be referred to here as “second generation” WCs. Two
municipalities in Gauteng province opted for this alternative; one of them was the
City of Johannesburg (COJ). This dissertation looks at the relationship between a
“second generation” WC and a social movement organisation (SMO) in the COJ.
Since the late 1990s the South African state has placed a large emphasis on
the restructuring of local government, and the creation of WCs was one outcome of
this process. Simultaneously there has been a rise in social movements which serve
to represent the needs of the poor and marginalised, who have seemingly been
ignored by the state’s neoliberal policies. This dissertation focuses on the WC of
Ward 8 and the Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC) as a SMO, within the context of
the Thembelihle informal settlement. The former is an “invited participatory space”
which has been created by the state to invite residents to participate. The latter is an
“invented participatory space” created from below by the grassroots, through which
residents assert their agency as active community members.
Many scholars have conceptualised these participatory spaces as separate
and distinct. Faranak Miraftab (2004) applied this analysis to understand the South
African context, which proved valuable at the time. Subsequently, “invited spaces”
were labelled as pseudo-democratic, state controlled, and hence there was the
suggestion that they should be abandoned, while “invented spaces” were perceived
as more accurately reflecting the views and needs of the poor in South Africa (SA).
More recently, scholars such as Luke Sinwell (2012) and Claire Bénit-Gbaffou
(forthcoming) have begun to argue that the binary of invited and invented is too
simplistic. They have urged that we need to look more closely at the relationship
between these two spaces as opposed to setting them apart. Bénit-Gbaffou claims
that “invited spaces” remain important and should not be abandoned. However,
scholars have not sufficiently investigated the interface of the “invited” and
“invented”.
By drawing on various sources, including in-depth interviews, non-participant
observation, surveys, literature and informal communication, this dissertation
attempts to fill this gap in the literature by presenting a concept which I refer to as
“contesting space”. The concept will be used to extend beyond the invited/invented
binary, and hence more accurately analyse what is taking place at the interface of
the two. By analysing where the WC and TCC meet, we begin to see what happens
when a powerful SMO inserts itself onto the invited space of a “second generation”
WC.