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Title:Inaugural lecture: Humanism, creativity and rights: invoking Henri Lefebvre's right to the city in the tension presented by informal settlements in South Africa today
Author:Huchzermeyer, MarieISNI
Year:2014
Periodical:Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa (ISSN 0258-7696)
Issue:85
Pages:64-89
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:informal settlements
urban life
social and economic rights
About person:Henri Lefèbvre (1901-1991)
External link:https://muse.jhu.edu/article/554462
Abstract:In urban South Africa today, there is evidence of deep-rooted exclusions, signalling the ongoing need to realise city rights. While the socio-economic rights framework is a liberal one, the 'right to the city' as coined by the French sociologist/philosopher Henri Lefebvre in the late 1960s stems from a Marxist humanism. The literature that considers the relevance of Lefebvre's 'right to the city' for the urban condition of the 21st century largely emanates from and speaks to urban struggles in the First World or so-called 'global North'. At the same time, a prominent shack dwellers' movement in South Africa invokes an explicitly Lefebvrian right to the city in its urban struggles over the past eight years. This paper discusses key aspects of Lefebvre's 'right to the city', in part contested, in relation to the field of tension that represents informal settlements in cities such as Johannesburg today. It focusses in particular on Lefebvre's humanist concept of a right to the 'œuvre' or 'creative work' in relation to that of 'inhabiting'. These are less explored dimensions of Lefebvre's right to the city, but of central relevance for an engagement with informal settlements and for constructive mobilization around the South African urban condition today. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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