Abstract
In situ slum upgrades implemented through community participation are widely considered global best practice in efforts to significantly improve the lives of at least 100 million shack dwellers. This paper scrutinises the process and impact of community participation in a slum upgrade in Durban. Based on data from an ethnographic study of Zwelisha, a newly upgraded settlement north of Durban, South Africa, this paper presents a nuanced analysis of the upgrade process and the role of community participation in achieving successful outcomes in terms of significant improvement to tenure security and wellbeing (as defined by Zwelisha's residents). The analysis shows that successful outcomes are intrinsically tied to the manner in which the upgrade process is implemented. The paper argues the formal changes that result in successful outcomes are possible only because of informal continuities; specifically, the continued and consolidated power and influence of the local community development committee following upgrade. While the paper frames the continuity of informal power relations as important to successful outcomes for wellbeing, the findings can also be read as a tale of caution of how the state's approach to community participation in slum upgrades may consolidate and legitimise informal power relations that may not be necessarily benevolent.
Highlights
The active participation of slum residents in upgrade programmes tends to be captured by the term ‘community participation’ and has been lauded as global best practice in slum upgrades.1 This paper deconstructs ‘community participation’ and its role in the in situ upgrade of a settlement in South Africa
It explores the impact of community participation on the relationship between those who directly participate in the upgrade process on behalf of all residents, and other residents
The findings cannot be generalised to beyond Zwelisha, but the insights offered by this paper on the intricacies of community participation carry a wider relevance to practitioners and academics engaged in work on slum upgrades
Summary
The active participation of slum residents in upgrade programmes tends to be captured by the term ‘community participation’ and has been lauded as global best practice in slum upgrades. This paper deconstructs ‘community participation’ and its role in the in situ upgrade of a settlement in South Africa. The paper argues that the relationship between committee and non-committee residents throughout the upgrade process is imperative not just to the successful implementation of the process itself, but what happens after e the maintenance and upholding of rules on planning and construction, approaches to home maintenance and improvements to self-conceptions of tenure security and wellbeing. It is in this context that the paper claims the upgrade was successful and that a particular type of community participation was essential to that success. The earliest settlers arrived in the mid-1980s from the old Transkei ( Eastern Cape) and were Xhosa-speaking They cleared land at the foot of surround hills and established a settlement on the bank of a river. The ‘old settlers’ include members of the old leadership from the 1980s and the descendants of early Xhosa-speaking settlers who tend to believe that their turn at the leadership was usurped
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