Browsing by Author "Barry, Joshua"

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    Reclaiming the city: exploring the effects of gentrification and the rise of illegal occupation in Woodstock
    (2024-03 ) Barry, Joshua; Geyer, H.S., 1951-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study evaluates the relationship between the illegal occupation of social housing, third-wave gentrification and urban renewal programmes. In this process, the study critically assesses the neoliberal transformation of Woodstock through market mechanisms, and the reactionary processes of informal insurgencies, citizenship-making and counter conducts employed by the low-income groups in Woodstock to prevent their relocation to peripheral settlements outside the city. This study employed an ethnographic research method utilising semi-structured interviews and participant/space observations to evaluate the occupation of Cissie Gool hospital by the Reclaim the City movement. In particular, the study assesses the dual processes of the informal housing occupation through illegal means, combined with the legal discourses used to legitimise the occupation of the Cissie Gool hospital site. This employment of legality/legitimacies tropes are a replication of the strategies employed in gentrification and urban renewal strategies, whereby landed interests use a combination of cash incentives and legal orders for eviction and relocation to appropriate space in the community. In contrast, the community employed a number of counter conducts to legitimise the status of the occupation within the City government. This serves as a reactionary process against the alienating effects of third-wave gentrification in which the residents in the occupation are dislocated from their communities. In order to achieve a sense of legitimacy, the occupation movement implemented measures for community building and the regularisation of the site. However, the efforts are hamstrung by the uncertain tenure, limiting the degree to which the community is invested in the occupation. The occupation is also challenged by infighting between the occupation community and the leadership, increasing gangsterism and drugs. While this occupation serves as a mechanism to retain a symbolic sense of belonging within the community, the grey space of legal uncertainty amid extra-legal occupation creates an uncertain future for the occupation.