Abstract
Amaphela, meaning cockroach in isiXhosa, are a form of paratransit that provide township dwellers in Cape Town, South Africa with flexible, inexpensive and relatively comfortable transportation in combination with other formalised and semi-formalised services. While this shared mobility practice has received scant attention through the lens of paratransit and transportation geographies, amaphela have completely evaded analysis through the lens of mobility studies. The flexibility and informality of amaphela services can be understood through both utopian or dystopian lenses: It can be seen as a threat to order, formality, safety and reliability in the modern South African city; or it can be celebrated for the unique and creative ways that they negotiate township space while serving the public through flexible and affordable demand-driven service. This paper concludes that amaphela services in Cape Town thrive in an intermediate zone of adaptive infrastructure and governance to fulfil their mobility role.
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