A Critical Realist Perspective on Urban Environmental Risk: A case study of an informal settlement in South Africa

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Oelofse
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Realist Perspective

scholarly journals Environmental Justice and Human Rights on the Mining Wastelands of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 67-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy-Lynn Humby
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Environmental Rights ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Alliances

In South Africa, the constitutional and statutory framework seemingly establishes a strong synergy between environmental rights and environmental justice. A prevailing notion of transformative constitutionalism additionally positions law as the foundation for large-scale social change through non-violent political processes. A case study of the Tudor Shaft Informal settlement on the Witwatersrand goldfields elucidates the ambiguities in the notion of environmental justice and the tensions between claims based on the environmental right and socio-economic rights. By highlighting the existence of local moral orders—political alliances based on access to resources that frequently employ violence to achieve political ends—it also suggests the limited reach of the constitutional order and the project of transformative constitutionalism.

Making Informal Settlements ‘Visible’ Through Datafication: A Case Study of Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, Durban, South Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Sutherland ◽  
Bahle Mazeka ◽  
Sibongile Buthelezi ◽  
Duduzile Khumalo ◽  
Patrick Martel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements

scholarly journals The Role of Amateur Football in Circular Migration Systems in South Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Steinbrink
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New South ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Circular Migration ◽  
Informal System ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Migration Systems

This article explores the significance of amateur football for the changing patterns of circular migration in post-Apartheid South Africa. Even after the end of Apartheid, the abolishment of the migrant labour system has not brought a decline of circular migration. The state-institutionalised system has merely been replaced by an informal system of translocal livelihood organisation. The new system fundamentally relies on social networks and complex rural-urban linkages. Mobile ways of life have evolved that can be classified as neither rural nor urban. Looking into these informal linkages can contribute to explaining the persistence of spatial and social disparities in “New South Africa”. This paper centres on an empirical, bi-local case study that traces the genesis of the socio-spatial linkages between a village in former Transkei and an informal settlement in Cape Town. The focus is on the relevance of football for the emergence and stabilisation of translocal network structures.

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