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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Beyond legibility: violence, conflict and development in a South African township
Author:Bähre, ErikISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:African Studies
Volume:66
Issue:1
Period:April
Pages:79-102
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:informal settlements
urban renewal
local politics
corruption
urban development
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Urbanization and Migration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Development and Technology
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/00020180701275956
Abstract:In order to understand the relative success or failure of development, one needs to go beyond legibility (James Scott, 1998) and examine development as an arena of contestation over scarce resources, ideological justifications and political security. The present case study of the transformation of the illegal squatter settlement of Indawo Yoxolo in Cape Town into a formal township under South Africa's Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) draws on the author's fieldwork in 1995 and reveals that, instead of the establishment of a more or less hegemonic power of the State over its citizens, State development led to fierce and violent conflicts in which mafia-style leaders, rivalling political factions, as well as protesting residents, tried to take charge of the development project. Policy is only one of the many factors of development. Even a national presidential development programme such as the RDP relies on the private sector. Concepts such as 'State power' or hegemony tend to overemphasize the level of State control and downplay national, provincial and local divisions. They also relegate forces that cannot be defined as resistance against the State outside the analysis of development and thereby fail to capture how conflict and violence are at the heart of development. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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