Abstract
In 1955 much of South Africa was highly racialised and segregated, making it difficult for non-racial organisations to gather and deliberate on matters pertaining to the liberation of all. However, one township on the outskirts of Soweto existed outside of apartheid segregation laws, Kliptown. As a racial and ethnic melting pot of Johannesburg, it became the obvious site for the Congress of the People as it set out to adopt the Freedom Charter. Owing to the township's significance to the country's liberation struggle, it attracted much redevelopment investments at the dawn of democracy. This was done through the Greater Kliptown Development Project and other such initiatives. In keeping with the 'people shall govern' principle, these projects were participatory development endeavours. The local authority proposed measures to ensure the community's engagement through formations such as the Greater Kliptown Development Forum (GKDF) and other citizen groupings. While the community itself has proven to prefer other forms of participation such as civic protests, they nonetheless joined the GKDF in hopes of shaping the development of their area. However, despite the local authority's efforts, studies have shown that the community of Kliptown in general has largely been excluded from participating in its development. While these studies have uncovered the (in)effectiveness of Kliptown’s participatory development projects, they have not done much to examine specifically the participation of women in them. Hence, on the backdrop of African feminism and Gender and Development, as well as participatory development, this study sought to contribute to the closing of this research gap. The research was undertaken using qualitative research approaches. Data collection tools used were unstructured focus groups, semi-structured interviews including participatory and non-participatory observations. An experiential, bottom-up approach to thematic analysis was used to analyse gathered data. Two major themes were born from this thematic analysis process with five subthemes emerging from each of the two. The first theme and subthemes revealed the women’s perspectives of their living conditions in Kliptown, their discontent with the water and sanitation infrastructure, their struggle with food and housing insecurity and how the illegal power connections are impacting their lives. In the second theme the women explore their perspectives on participatory development in the township. Thus, revealing their experiences with Kliptown’s popular participatory activities, motives for engaging in these activities, opinions about community participatory and leadership structures as well as interesting narratives on radical participatory activities. These findings were presented and evaluated through the lenses of participatory development and African feminism to pose further research and policy recommendations in line with the theory of method and more specifically, critical realism.
M.A. (Urban Studies)