Cross-border pollination: incubation hub for urban farming in Yeoville
Date
2024
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Abstract
Yeoville holds the reputation as an Afro-migrantcentric suburb in Johannesburg (ABED, 2019), with each dispossessed body desiring to keep their cultures alive. This has created social boundaries between South Africans and other African nationalities in the urban landscape. The burning of Yeoville Market is the physical manifestation of growing tension in the community. Gambela (BÉNIT-GBAFFOU, 2019) (known by the neighbourhood) provides migrant women from the diaspora the opportunity to respond to the economic crisis they face in their home country. The enclosed market sphere encourages cultural exchange and interaction by eating, processing, and selling food from home. For migrants living in Yeoville, food is not only a source of nutrients but a tool to transmit culture. Thus, the burning of the market signifies the resistance of the community to integrate. The thesis will follow the Congolese women in the Yeoville market who frequently encounter borders, traveling with various products including cassava. The traders use cassava to transgress the misconceptions of a patriarchal stereotype of an African housewife, simultaneously ensuring household survival.
Cassava holds a cultural significance to the West African women as the method of processing cassava requires the knowledge of the native women that have passed down from one generation to another, perfected through time and across borders (Christina Emery, 2021). The importance of the plant not only lies in its mobility but its functional characteristics of promoting harmony, encouraging collaboration, and a medium in which information is transferred (Christina Emery, 2021). In asking the question “how can cassava be used to mend the fragmented community of Yeoville” this thesis will be using cassava as a framework to explore themes of, mobility, boundary, and identity. Re-introducing the market to the community as an agricultural hub. The architectural intervention will re-interpret the market as a space that transmits and preserves culture. The project aims to mediate the fragmented communities of Yeoville using food to educate, generate social spaces, and food works to encourage community involvement.
Description
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Architecture (Professional) to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022
Keywords
Cassava, Creating awareness