Abstract
The boundary identified by Robinson between ‘urbanism’ and ‘developmental-ism’ will not be eliminated overnight. South African urban studies in all its hues are probably too set in its ways to make room for the kinds of imagining proposed in this paper. However, there are signs that scholars and artists in other fields will simply drag the ‘multiplex’ dynamics of everyday urbanism to the front door, forcing recalcitrants to take notice. For instance, the flood of fiction and cultural studies on the city by authors like Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe, Ashraf Jamal, Gabeba Baderoon, Dominique Malaquais, Ntone Edjabe, Sarah Nuttal, amongst many others, is rising surreptitiously behind the backs of scholars, biding time. The immediate challenge is to create spaces for cross-disciplinary dialogues and exchanges, which may eventually lead to trans-disciplinary practices to capture the elusive South African urbanism in all its starkness, impervious to desire or redemption.
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