Johannesburg inner city’s appropriated buildings: resident’s responses to vulnerability and precarious living conditions
Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of the Built Environment (Housing), to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 === Johannesburg like many rapidly urbanising...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | en |
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2018
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| Online Access: | Ngwenya, Makale (2017) Johannesburg inner city’s appropriated buildings: resident’s responses to vulnerability and precarious living conditions, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/24101> https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24101 |
| Summary: | Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of the Built Environment (Housing), to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 === Johannesburg like many rapidly urbanising cities around the world has the problem of a lack of
affordable accommodation and inadequate access to basic services (Tissington, 2013). Residents in
the inner city use spaces and buildings in a way that reclaims the promises of the city to a better life.
As historian and cultural theorist Abdou Maliq Simone (2004) has noted people within African Cities
have a probable tendency to improvise. In this research I use the concept of evolutionary resilience,
which has been described to account for individuals and households ability adapt in constantly
changing environments (Simmie & Martin, 2010) to explore the responses of residents to precarious
living conditions and vulnerability that is created by conditions of insecure tenure and evictions.
There is little comparative empirical research about how inner city residents talk about their lives
and experiences. This research contributes to filling this gap by examining the experiences of
residents and highlighting the ways in which as Cirugeda (2004) points to, residents often use
empowerment strategies that encourage inhabitants to subvert laws and regulations, in order to
maximise self-help by appropriating structures for better living conditions (Cirugeda 2004). This
research utilises in depth interviews that were conducted within selected buildings in the inner city
using a semi structured interview guide. The objective is to examine the strategies of coping with
the exposure to risk and how individuals respond to these shocks. Şoitu (undated) states that
vulnerability is a situation of social, economic and physiological need when individuals are
marginalised and resilience is a personal resource that allows individuals to face stress and shocks
and provides strength (Şoitu, undated). This research finds that there are many difficulties, threats
and vulnerabilities that residents are exposed to and residents invoke various strategies and
responses for coping.
KEYWORDS
‘Bad buildings’, inner city, Johannesburg, vulnerability, evolutionary resilience, precarious living
conditions, basic services, insecure tenure === XL2018 |
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