Browsing by Author "Daya, Shari"
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- ItemOpen AccessAn (auto)ethnographic study of the relations between reflexive development and the production of interpersonal social research in Salt River's Locomotive Hotel(2014) Blake, Evan; Daya, ShariFieldwork conducted around The Locomotive Hotel, a drinking establishment in Salt River, took place across a two year period involving building relations with a diverse range of local or regular patrons. During this period there was a lack of reflexive capacity and insight in the researcher to contextualise and theorise the experiences of encountering these patrons in the hotel. Through prolonged, intense and tension filled fieldwork - that was seemingly unrelated to the dissertation - experience was gained that, on reflection, was fundamentally informed and in a recursive virtual dialogue with past research experiences. It was recognised that this dialogue establishes a metanarrative in relation to the fieldwork conducted in The Locomotive Hotel with a narrative traced of how insight through embodied and experienced notions of becoming through encountering difference became essential to retrospectively understanding the interactions with and between patrons in the hotel. These encounters and interactions between patrons form complex systems of relation building; systems that are established through patterns of encountering difference. Self in the hotel is generally reconstituted through dialectical relationships with difference from past to present through notions of place, memory and community. In this unfolding of past and present, a single social norm and practice in the hotel is identified, presented and discussed: the drinking of a brown bottle quart explores the relations of sociability between patrons. The common consumption of a beer can act as a pretext to pull otherwise very different patrons and their varied imaginings and senses of places into sustained and repeated encounters. Implicit within these relations are patterns of exclusion. Escalating tensions between self and difference can lead to irreconcilable differences emerging; differences that may be too great to be openly encountered. Such challenging differences can lead to notions of self, others, community and place being reshaped in potentially linear and closed off ways. These arguments presented in this dissertation in the context of the hotel conceptualise research as a process rather than a theoretical output. They are arguments that demonstrate the fallacy of a researcher as able to neatly and rationally describe their positional situated-ness as distinctly and demonstrably being on the outside of a group or crowd in one moment and inside the next. It is an argument for a form of ethnography and engaging with positionality that demonstrates the researcher as human, as unsure and fallible in their attempts to understand their place and relation to new contexts. It is ethnographic work that has an ethical and political commitment beyond ticking methodological checkboxes.
- ItemOpen AccessBecoming otherwise: two thousand and ten reasons to live in a small town(2015) Sitas, Friderike; Pieterse, Edgar; Daya, ShariThe past few decades have seen a 'cultural turn' in urban planning, and public art has become an important component within urban design strategies. Accordingly, public art is most commonly encountered in the urban literature as commissioned public sculptures. Simultaneously operating are a range of critical, subversive, and experimental practices that interact with the public space of cities in a myriad of ways. Although these other types of public art projects may have been engaged in the fields of Fine Art and Cultural Studies, this has been predominantly in the global North and they have yet to enter Urban Studies in the global South in any comprehensive way. Through an analysis of three examples from the Visual Arts Network South Africa's 'Two Thousand and Ten Reasons to Live in a Small Town', this thesis argues that experimental, inclusionary and less object-oriented forms of public art offers useful lessons for Urban Studies. The research presented in this thesis involved a qualitative study of: The Domino Effect which followed a participatory process to develop a domino tournament in the Western Cape town of Hermon; Living within History, a performative collage project which explored the local museum archive in the town of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal; and Dlala Indima which was a graffiti-led Hip-hop project in the rural township of Phakamisa in the Eastern Cape. Each involved affective engagements with the vastly unequal contexts typical of South African public spaces. Although there is an increasing recognition that affect plays an important role in understanding and designing the urban, it is still largely assumed that citizenship is enacted according to rational criteria. The public art of 'Two Thousand and Ten Reason s to Live in a Small Town' demonstrated that affect impacts on how people can access complex spatial issues and perform citizenship. Furthermore, as part of a larger epistemological project of 'southerning' urban theory, this thesis therefore argues that intersecting conceptual threads from three bodies of literature: public space, public art and public pedagogy, is important. More specifically, it demonstrates that public art can harness an affective rationality that may foster alternative ways of knowing and acting in/on the urban, thereby offering public art as a unique pedagogy for exploring and deepening cityness .
- ItemOpen AccessEthical consumption among Cape Town students: a qualitative study(2016) McMahon, Molly; Daya, ShariMuch of current research on ethical consumption biases the North - South relationship of Northern consumers being considered ethical based on their purchasing of items from Southern producers. This establishes the dominant perspective of ethics needing to be expressed toward the distant other and to be based in a specific object, often typified by Fair Trade. These conditions of ethics have led to the assumption that Southern consumers lack ethics in their consumption. Thus this research seeks to expand the current understanding of ethical consumption to include ethics at home and ethics of care, as well as expand the demographic of ethical consumption studies to include Southern consumers. The aim of this research is to add to the developing understanding of Southern ethical consumption through the exploration of ethics in grocery shopping among students. Students from various universities in the Cape Town area were observed while grocery shopping and interviewed about their shopping habits and their thoughts on ethics and values, particularly in terms of consumption and food. Twenty - eight students were interviewed, and of those, 23 were also observed shopping. At the conclusion of this study, it is evident that students, as Southern consumers, do express ethical consideration in their consumption habits. This is based on both perspectives of ethical goods and ethical practices. However, they are more apt to act on the ethics of care at home than on the ethics of care at a distance. The strongest trends among students are thrift, care at home and care for self, as well as a significant draw toward s shopping local and supporting local producers based in their communities and nationally. The implications of this research are that it adds to the literature through its theorization within the Global South, its focus on ethical consumption as a practice instead of solely object - based and the discussion of students as a research demographic. Overall, this study demonstrates how Southern consumers do express ethics in their shopping choices particularly through care at home.
- ItemOpen AccessExploring alternative values: the Cape Town talent exchange(2014) Huddy, Belinda; Daya, ShariThe Cape Town Talent Exchange (CTTE) is a Community Exchange System operating locally in Cape Town, while allowing national and global exchanges to take place. Trading activity occurs between members of the community through an alternative currency, Talents. There are numerous incentives driving the participation of the community members. These include various political, social, economic, environmental and philosophical motivations. It is evident, however, that the members’ desires meet through the search for an alternative space where social interactions are experienced and social values are formed through economic activity. The construction of the CTTE as an alternative economy, that re¬‐introduces this social dimension into the economic sphere contributes to the movement away from the hegemonic, capitalist economy to one of heterogeneity. There are, however, tensions that lie in the overlapping nature of these systems, restricting the alterity and autonomy of the CTTE and emphasising the power and dominance of the mainstream economy.
- ItemOpen AccessFarming bees in a dynamic social-ecology: An ethnographic exploration of knowledge practices among commercial bee farmers in the Western Cape, South Africa(2013) Visser, Zoë; Ziervogel, Gina; Daya, ShariIn recent years theorists have challenged the certainty that there is one universally 'right' system of knowledge, arguing that there exists a diversity or plurality of ways of knowing the world (Turnbull 1997; Green 2008). Western scientific research has been reframed by these 'relational ontologists' as a set of knowledge practices that tend to produce and reinforce a dualistic view of the world. In particular, 'scientific', positivist accounts of nature have historically positioned mind and body, human beings and nature, humans and non-humans as essentially different or separate from each other (Thrift 2004; Haraway 2008). The methodological recommendation is that, as social theorists, we carefully observe knowledge practices and allow ourselves to be surprised or challenged by what we find rather than constantly performing these preconceived ways of knowing the world through our research (Law 2004; Lien & Law 2010). Farming bees commercially in the Western Cape, South Africa involves a high degree of skill and intimate daily engagements with plants, animals, landscapes and weather-worlds. As such it is an ideal case study for interrogating dualistic framings of human-environment relations through an ethnographic exploration of environmental knowledge practices. Commercial bee farmers that participated in this study raised a range of concerns about complex dynamics influencing their businesses, including challenges accessing viable land for bee sites and accessibility and security of the flowering plants upon which bees depend for food. I argue that, in practice, these challenges involved relational entanglements of farmers and other 'more-than-human' actors (Whatmore 2006) in what I refer to as a dynamic social-ecology (Ingold 2000; Berkes & Jolly 2001; Ommer et al. 2012). I argue that pollination and honey were co-produced by meshworks of more-than-human actors (Ingold 2011; Cohen 2013) and that knowledges were grounded in farmer's physical bodies and performed through practical skills. Farmers embodied multiple roles (such as farmer-businessman and farmer-researcher) and were able to move fluidly between different assemblages of skilled practices and ways of knowing in their engagements with plants, bees and other people (Turnbull 2000; Mol 2002). These insights are used to interrogate dualistic framings of inter-species relationality as well as to critically develop a relational understanding of environmental knowledge practices.
- ItemOpen AccessFun and fear in False Bay Nature Reserve: green space affordances in the post-apartheid city(2015) Baigrie, Bruce; Anderson, Pippin; Daya, Shari; Wright, DaleThe phenomenon and increasing rate of urbanisation is causing many researchers to look deeper at life in cities. Increasingly recognised are the benefits of urban green space and their associated recreational parks and nature reserves. While there is a growing literature on the environmental services provided by these areas; so too is there a growing literature on the numerous social benefits that recreational green spaces in particular afford their users. Although imagined and generally designed as salubrious public spaces, many parks often fall short of this. In fact research has shown that a park's design, its surroundings, and its management can all combine to exclude certain types of people. In this study I conducted ethnographic research to participate in and observe the activities of visitors to False Bay Nature Reserve in Cape Town. False Bay Nature Reserve includes a series of nature reserves and the Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment Works, and is situated in the area of Cape Town known as the Cape Flats. Much of the Cape Flats is beset by poverty, unemployment, and violent drug - related crime carried out by notorious gangs. Despite the challenges of the surrounding areas, my study reveals that False Bay Nature Reserve provides relative safety to its users as well a range of enjoyable re creational activities. Some of the key recreational activities are separated distinctively between two key sites in the reserve. Furthermore the visitors of these sites differ markedly in race, ethnicity and income. The legacy of apartheid almost certainly accounts for much of this separation; however, the study indicates that the barriers of this legacy are eroding and can potentially be further dismantled with engaged and informed management strategies. Due to its surroundings, the reserve is vulnerable and recently experienced a period where crime was prevalent, vegetation was overgrown, and it was feared by many of its users, particularly women. The reserve had in many ways become what researchers call a landscape of fear, a not so uncommon description of parks around the world. However, management and the majority of visitors feel the reserve has recovered from this period. This is in large part due to upgrades that improved recreational facilities and security in the reserve. Accounts from visitors high light how important a sense of safety is for people frequenting this reserve, most of who live in nearby neighbourhoods. The reserve still faces some challenges today, but is a significant asset to the City of Cape Town and many of its more marginalised residents. This study challenges much of the literature on the benefits of urban green space and associated parks. It shows that particularly in cities of the Global South such as Cape Town, parks require specific management strategies that prioritise safety and in doing so promote and ensure inclusivity for all.
- ItemOpen AccessGreener pastures of home: an ethnographic study on everyday sustainable practices in Nyanga, Cape Town(2020) Lukas, Megan; Daya, ShariMost contemporary urban development in cities of the global South is responding to rapid urbanisation caused by prospects of employment opportunities and improved quality of life. Research in the field of sustainability in cities of the global South mainly focuses on economic and social development goals. However, there is an emerging sense that an appreciation of ordinary, everyday practices at the level of the community is important for developing a nuanced understanding of what sustainability might be in Southern cities. There is agreement on the need to pay attention to social and cultural practices in urban sustainability literature; yet relatively little research in the field engages closely with everyday practices at the level of neighbourhoods or communities. This is particularly true in the global South, and especially in low-income urban neighbourhoods, where developmentalist agendas dominate both academic and policy-related research. My thesis addresses this gap through an exploration of a wide range of everyday practices in a lowincome, peri-urban area, which happen to have sustainable effects. Analysing ethnographic data collected over nine months in the Cape Town township of Nyanga, I find that the desire of urban residents to create spaces of home and belonging drives behaviour that in fact has positive sustainable outcomes, yet is seldom considered in literature on sustainable cities. I argue that paying attention to how ordinary citizens ‘make home', specifically by (i) drawing on memories, (ii) developing livelihoods, and (iii) building social relations can enrich understanding not only of economic and social development but also of the complex ways in which social and environmental sustainability are already intertwined in everyday practice. Facilitating sustainable spaces in cities of the global South, therefore, requires critical engagement with the practices that are already taking place in urban residents' everyday lives.
- ItemOpen AccessMediating social entrepreneurship in South Africa and India: exploring the entanglements of neoliberal logics and social missions(2022) Chopra, Vrinda; Daya, Shari; Chaturvedi, RuchiEntrepreneurial approaches advocated as pathways for addressing development goals of unemployment and inequality have been heavily criticised. Critical development scholarship argues that entrepreneurship for development contributes to the deepening hegemony of neoliberal logics (market and finance). I argue that there is scope to problematise the claims of the power and centrality of neoliberal economic logics by viewing these logics in relation with social ones such as trust, morality, reciprocity, exchange, justice (among others). Towards these ends, I focus on social entrepreneurship given the assertions of it being a hybrid field combining the logics of the private sector (markets, finance) with those of the state and civil society (socio-economic change) to deepen efficiency in addressing development goals. Specifically, I focus on a qualitative study based on ethnographic principles of thick description of the meso in-between scales (that is between macro-perspectives on social entrepreneurship and micro-realities of social enterprise practice) in postcolonial emerging economies of South Africa and India. The meso-scale is made up of intermediary organisations providing support services, networking spaces and knowledge to start and grow enterprises geared towards development goals. An analysis of these intermediaries enabled a view into three interlinked issues that I demonstrate in the thesis. One, applying and deploying entrepreneurial approaches like social entrepreneurship produces significant tensions as practitioners attempt to align with economic logics of market and finance, while dealing with complex development challenges. Two, the daily work of intermediaries is fraught with confusions as they attempt to balance out economic and social logics, often resulting in visible leanings towards measurable categories to manage the arising difficulties. Finally, as intermediaries navigate entangled economic and social logics, the ambivalent nature of their work emerges. It is precisely this inchoate and ambivalent nature of practice that problematises the centrality of neoliberal economic logics within development, leading to considerations that power between economic and social logics is negotiated relationally, in an on-going, uncertain manner.
- ItemOpen AccessThe periphery as the centre: trajectories of responsibility and community support in contemporary Maputo, Mozambique(2017) Oppenheim, Beth T; Daya, ShariDevelopment researchers have long held a belief that developed states use their power to provide Aid or other forms of external assistance such as private philanthropy, assistance of Non-Governmental Organisations, and other private financing to underdeveloped, or developing, nations to achieve global economic and political stability. Development scholars (including geographers) have largely attributed this to a sense of responsibility. Many have assumed this assistance to travel in one direction, i.e. from Global North to Global South, thus overlooking the modalities of care and hospitality among individuals within countries of the Global South. In this thesis, I posit that looking at everyday modes of assistance at the community level would challenge scholars to re-think the ways in which place matters in development. Analysing qualitative data gathered through interviews and focus groups in two neighbourhoods in Maputo, Mozambique, this study is ultimately an investigation of proximity. I argue that the closeness of people in these complex community relationships matters in three ways: (i) the everyday practices of assistance in these communities are modes of resistance to an oppressive state; (ii) forms of assistance serve as expressions of local (as opposed to national) identity; and (iii) religious institutions play a significant role in fostering public discourse, rather than motivating assistance itself. In speaking more specifically about how proximity matters, this study contributes uniquely to the growing realisation that development must come from within.
- ItemOpen AccessReclaiming the spatial imaginary: a photovoice study of resistance to displacement in Woodstock, Cape Town(2019) Urson, Ruth; Kessi, Shose; Daya, ShariPresent-day South Africa is still characterised by colonial- and apartheid-era patterns of urban displacement that are exacerbated by gentrification. Low-income tenants’ and evictees’ experiences of displacement and its resistance have social, spatial, psychological, and political components. Examining these components can contribute to understanding the processes and impacts of gentrification. Reclaim the City (RTC) is a young grassroots campaign that resists evictions and demands well-located affordable housing in Cape Town through protest, education, and occupation. This study investigated how RTC activists experience and resist their displacement from the gentrifying suburb of Woodstock in Cape Town. Using a critical psychological framework, data from photovoice, participant observation, and key informant interviews were collected in 2018, triangulated, and analysed using thematic analysis. This study found that participants’ experiences of displacement were characterised by being “thingified” as black low-income tenants through mistreatment by landlords, displacement from centres to peripheries, becoming invisible residents, and internalisation. This was compounded for those with intersectional vulnerabilities, such as women and African migrants. Such experiences uphold rather than contradict an apartheid spatial imaginary, encompassing the continuation of apartheid-era norms relating to psychological, spatial, and social elements of displacement into the present. While sometimes delegitimised for their illegal activities, this study illustrates how RTC activists combined strategies of building new identities, organising legal and illegal resistance to displacement, and making meaning of their occupation of a vacant building in Woodstock, to pave the way for new spatial imaginaries. Implications of these findings are discussed.
- ItemOpen AccessThe role of street committees in the governance of informal settlements : a case study from Waterworks Township, Grabouw(2009) Mngqibisa, Ncedo Ivan Ntsasa; Daya, Shari; Winter, KevinCommunity participation has become a key concept in research on the development and governance of underprivileged communities. It is on these grounds that the post-apartheid South African government has encouraged meaningful participation between local communities and the state, particularly through structures of local government. However, the role that street committees can play in the realisation of this ideal has received little attention from either government or academic scholars. For this reason, this study examines the role that the street committee in Waterworks, Grabouw, in the Western Cape plays in community governance. It analyses data from a qualitative study which took place between 2007 and 2008. In this thesis I argue that while the street committee has a role to play in the governance of the community, that role is limited by their lack of power. The street committee is not a statutory body and this hinders their ability to participate in local government issues. Despite these restrictions, the street committee in Waterworks was largely perceived by the local residents as doing their best in addressing pertinent issues. However, there were some who accused members of the street committee of nepotism and seeking political patronage.
- ItemOpen AccessTexturing absence: a geography of the disappeared Woodstock Beach(2023) Anderson, Molly; Daya, ShariUp until the late 1960s, the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock had a beach. Decades of land reclamation – begun as early as 1890 – culminated in the beach being entirely subsumed by railways, roads, and harbor infrastructure. Woodstock's beachside heritage is largely unknown, as are the processes by which it disappeared, meaning that its role as a site of shipwrecks, a source of food, and a place of leisure has long gone unexplored and unacknowledged. What does the presence, and then absence, of Woodstock Beach mean for people and place in Cape Town? Understanding the role of Woodstock Beach in the making of the city requires a methodological approach that is attuned to both presence and absence. The method of ‘texture' draws on creative and critical approaches to trace the beach through material inscriptions, memories, metaphors, archives and histories. Texture offers an extended rigor by engaging ambiguities, absences, glimpses, and incoherent strands as generative moments that allow more traces to be followed. This critical and creative orientation is engaged in the analysis and the writing of these stories. Attending to Woodstock Beach in this way reveals a series of small-scale and intimate stories about everyday people and things, which layer and juxtapose with stories of slavery, dispossession, colonialism, capitalism, and apartheid. The stories of Woodstock Beach – its presence and its disappearance – illuminate continuities and connections across place, time, and scale which highlight the nuanced, complicated, and always ongoing ways in which place and its politics are made and re-made both in Cape Town, and at a countrywide scale.
- ItemOpen AccessThe use and perception of urban green spaces through the twentieth century: a case study of the Rondebosch Common(2017) Woelk, Michaela; Anderson, Pippin; Daya, ShariThe aim of this research was to unpack and analyse the emergence of narratives around urban green spaces as sites of community interaction, social activity and cultural and conservational value. I used the case study of the Rondebosch Common in Cape Town, South Africa during the period 1900 to 2015 to accomplish these aims. The Rondebosch Common has been fixture of the southern suburbs of the city for over one hundred years and provided a public green space for community interactions. I was able to gather letters and memos sent and received from the Town Clerk's Office from the South African National Archives Repository in Cape Town as well as newspaper articles from the Cape Argus and Cape News newspapers. The archival materials were chosen because they provided the point of view of the local government, the residents of Rondebosch and other users of the Rondebosch Common during the twentieth century. The newspaper articles were used to understand these points of views in the twenty-first century. Public spaces such as the Rondebosch Common are constructed in different ways, i.e. socially, politically, and these constructions determine the appropriate behaviours for the spaces as well as the values and meanings attributed to them. A public open green space such as the Rondebosch Common, which has existed as such for so long, provides an opportunity to examine the inherent political and social nature of old green spaces within the Global South context. Cape Town's colonial and apartheid state added a tension to interactions in the twentieth century as well as a layer of aspiration towards the English or Western ideal. The post-apartheid Cape Town urban and suburban landscape is still fraught with racial and socio-economic divisions. The purpose of my research was to determine how socio-economic, political and ideological context of the Rondebosch Common, in terms of both its physical location and the historical time period, has affected the way in which has been perceived by various groups and how it has been contested by those groups. I also attempt to unpack some of the uses of the Rondebosch Common and how and why they changed over time. It is argued that the demands and claims placed over a public green space such as the Rondebosch Common are represented over broader issues such as belonging, identity and civic entitlements (Di Masso, 2012).
- ItemOpen AccessThe values of nature: personal narratives of conservation in South Africa(2016) Cresswell, Naomi Jayne; Daya, ShariThis dissertation explores the values of nature through the personal narratives of landowners in the Overberg area of Western Cape, South Africa. In the past, scholarly literature has imagined nature as separated from the human world. Historically, mainstream conservation methods have followed ideals of nature in forming environmental management policies and practices, aiming to create and maintain an isolated nature. This ideal of nature has largely ignored the roles of humans within the environment. A range of new fields of studies around identity, business and politics explore new ways of imagining nature, focusing on the human within nature and the nature within the human. Using these alternative imaginings, this research uncovers a variety of ways 'humanness' and nature are deeply embedded within each other. This research challenges the ideal of a pristine otherness whilst both supporting and filling in the gaps of contemporary alternative literature. The personal narratives of 34 landowners were gathered during 10 weeks of fieldwork. These stories offered an alternative portrayal of the relationship between humans, nature and conservation. Landownership was more than business as usual; land embodied deep and meaningful emotions, experiences and discourses of daily human life. Landscapes embodied personal emotions of owners through shaping their identities, spirituality, belonging and family histories. Dynamics of politics manifested in different forms such as fear, mistrust, corruption and exclusion throughout landowner's experiences and attitudes. These political factors, emotions and economic dynamics play a role in shaping landowners' attitudes, resistances and participation both towards conservation as well as nature, in turn influencing the way they organise themselves in relation to conservation bodies such as government run programmes as well as NGOs. It also affects how they organise, negotiate and manage themselves and their land. Conservation management of land should take into account these deeply complex, multidimensional and integrated complexities entrenched within daily narratives of landownership.