3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Understanding legitimation and the framing of claims: challenging housing demolitions, fighting for a home in Lenasia(2015-04-30) Molopi, Moloi EdwardIn November 2012, the Gauteng Provincial Government engaged on a programme to demolish houses that were illegally built on government land in Lenasia, a suburb located 30 kilometres south of Johannesburg. Over 50 homes were demolished with further demolitions being scheduled. The demolitions spurred various actors into action. Following a court interdict applied for by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on behalf of the residents, the government was then forced to cease with the demolitions. Within the dispute various claims have been advanced and legitimation processes entered into. This study uses the case of the demolitions in Lenasia to investigate the nature of legitimation and the framing of claims. This is done through a consideration of the different actors in the demolitions and each of the claims advanced. The central claims of this work are that legitimacy is context-specific and in a state of constant formation. Furthermore, claims are used to express worldviews and they serve as strategic standpoints for access to various goods.Item [Car]nival: empowering Lenasia's informal 'motor-tainment' industry(2015-04-29) Mistry, RajivThis thesis is part fantasy, part real and part ironic. The automobile enthusiast market has evolved into a fully-fledged entertainment industry where driving is a mere portion of the car experience. With a rich cultural, social, political, spatial, and economic presence in South Africa, it is clear that this informal culture has a religion and following all to its self. Reflecting this, Lenasia, located south of Johannesburg (a predominately Indian township as a result of the apartheid regime) has become notorious for modified cars, loud music and raging petrol-heads. With minimal infrastructure in and around the urban footprint to support this growing culture, car enthusiasts have no option but to take to the streets of the residential suburbs to flaunt their glistening cars and test their roaring engines. This in turn has become a conflicting issue between some frustrated community members and passionate car enthusiasts. More importantly, it has also become a life threatening predicament which has claimed several lives within the community thus far. This recurring conflict has emerged as the vital point of enquiry for this thesis. Addressing the concerns with which this stimulating yet life threatening culture is synonymous, the location of the site plays a vital role in this proposal. The chosen site, Albert Street, is located on the edge of the township. It has a history of being drag raced on and is embedded in an established and robust industrial district which hosts a range of depleted automobile and other workshops which build, “pimp” and recycle cars. This intriguing juxtaposition of construction, de-construction and transformation has proven to be a suitable theme with which to engage in terms of appropriating the anatomy of the street arena and associated fabric into a celebrated “motor-tainment” utopia by night and after hours, but also preserving the current industrial networks of production, retail and repairs by day and during working hours. It will boast programmes amongst others: an appropriated drag racing strip, a multi-purpose activity capsule, a customisation and training facility, various “rent a workshop” spaces and safe spectatorship areas with medical, security and various other support facilities.Item Desegregating and ameliorating the township: demonstrating Lenasia as a case study(2014-02-20) Daya, PriyaJohannesburg, historically as an apartheid city, was a segregationist city. Today, as a globally competitive city, that segregation is being entrenched by new forms of exclusion. This aim of this thesis is to understand the historic forces that created a segregated city and to understand the current forces that continue to enforce segregation within the city. In understanding these forces, the thesis aims at proposing methods to overcome the segregation within our cities. The thesis is located within the context of the township and focuses specifically on the township of Lenasia. At the international level it explores the idea of modernism enabling social engineering and it also explores the impact that Neoliberalism has had on cities internationally. Within the South African context the impact that modernism coupled with the apartheid ideology resulted in the foundations of city of Johannesburg being segregated on the basis of race. The impact of Neoliberalism on the city of Johannesburg is also explored in order to understand the new forms of segregation that is being enforced within the city. The resulting socio-spatial segregation is explored within the context of the township of Lenasia. The key modernist manifestation that has had a profound impact on the layout of the township is the Neighbourhood Unit. The key neoliberal manifestation that has impacted on the study area is the gated strip mall. Theories aimed at overcoming the shortcomings of the modernist city and the neoliberal cities include: Transport Orientated Developments; Suburban Sprawl; Retrofitting Suburbia; and The Compact City Debate. However David Dewar’s South African Cities: A Manifesto for change was particularly important in terms of overcoming the challenges faced within the context of the developing world where issues of integration, equity and sustainability need to be addressed. Methods of intervention in order to overcome segregation extracted from David Dewar’s Manifesto were extracted and applied to case study township of Lenasia.Item The photograph and the ticket: representations of travel in the works of David Goldblatt, Usha Seejarim and Carouschka Streijffert(2009-02-16T12:01:05Z) Seejarim, UshaABSTRACT The major theme of this research investigates artists' representations of journeys; the ritual activity of people's daily journeys along fixed routes, and long distance travel. Through specific projects by David Goldblatt, Usha Seejarim and Carouschka Streijffert, the differences between the experience of actual journeys and the visual codes and conventions used to represent these journeys in artwork is interrogated. In particular, this research is concerned with the presence and absence of the body within these represenations of journeys, focussing on how journeys construct otherness. These concerns have been linked to my own practical work. The Putco bus service also appears in all three artists' works. Through qualitative research, this report shows how ordinary subject matter has been used by the three identified artists to produce interesting work.