Agonistic Engagements: Difference, Meaning and Deliberation in South African Cities

Abstract

Development policies and city planning models that are informed by the modernist utopian ideal still inform formalisation practices in developing countries. These practises have unintended consequences that contribute to the proliferation of poverty and inhumane living conditions. By exploring new ways of thinking and adopting planning and development models that are sensitive to the complexity of people's lived experiences in informal settlements, new public discourses are given the opportunity to emerge. Processes and discourses that adopt practices of “agonistic engagement” offer a means of interaction that is a pre-requisite for rebuilding utopian thinking as an authentic source of inspiration in communities characterised by complexity and difference. Mediated modelling techniques as implemented by organisations such as Stalker allow for development practices that are sensitive to the diversity of voices found in informal settlements. Inspired by practices of transgressive dialogical engagements, development policies might bring about sustainable social change that will benefit vulnerable communities. Case studies of communities in the Western Cape (South Africa) serve to highlight the consequences of interventions that implement rigid development planning policies that aim at reducing and cleaning up "messy spaces". The failures of such policies are highlighted. Research and modelling methods are explored that offer new and creative ways of understanding space in terms of the lived experience of the communities themselves. The case studies aim to elucidate the ethical importance of development interventions that advocate contextually rooted change. A process of opening up deliberative spaces for dialogue informs such interventions in which complexity and difference can be negotiated authentically.