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| Title: | Between ontological security and the right difference: road closures, communitarianism and urban ethics in Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Author: | Dirsuweit, Teresa Christine |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Periodical: | Autrepart |
| Issue: | 42 |
| Pages: | 53-71 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | urban planning urban environment communities segregation human security |
| Abstract: | In 1992 the first road closure was recommended to a group of residents in Gallo Manor by the South African police as a means to manage crime in the area. Fifteen years later, road closures, the closing off of public roads with gates and guarded entry points, have proliferated and are a heated topic of debate. The question of what the ethics of road closures are in the broader context of Johannesburg, with its segregationist past and exceptionally high levels of crime, has been asked by urban residents and government officials. Ostensibly, there are two sets of positions in the road closure argument. The first argues that road closures are a response to the failure of the postapartheid State in South Africa to decrease violent crime. Those who oppose road closures argue that they maintain and reinforce Johannesburg's segregated past. The present author examines how road closures relate to Johannesburg's modernist planning origins, and how they serve to construct and reinforce ontological (in)security, by exploring the implications the closures have for the way in which the city and its residents deal with difference. The aim is to provide a philosophical context and situate road closures in a broader discussion about the transformation and democratization of the city of Johannesburg. The spatial focus is the Sandton area, one of the most affluent areas in Johannesburg, with the highest concentration of road closures. The conclusion is that without clear strategies to promote an engaged sense of citizenship for all of Johannesburg's residents, the question of whether road closures should be removed is asked largely out of context. Without a broader sense of Others in policy and practice, there is a powerful logic to the protection of the self as paramount despite the cost to excluded others. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French (p. 204) and English (p. 208). [ASC Leiden abstract] |
