Fleeting Public Place and Lasting Communities

Abstract

South Africa’s history of purposefully segregated public space as a stage on which the anti-cohesion ideals of various colonial governments played out is well known. What is less known is the rich history of public space resistance which accompanies this, particularly that of the People’s Parks. These collectively driven public places which emerged as pop-ups in public space captured the imagination of communities seeking to activate new norms departing from state-enforced segregation. Reading current public space through the lens of the People’s Parks thus presents an opportunity to uncover and better understand the existence and impact of fleeting places in public space, with lasting impacts in terms of building engaging communities. Drawing on immersive participant observation in Johannesburg’s Killarney Park, this paper focuses on a community of local residents and their dogs. Brought together first by their pets but later by strong in-group social bonds, this group demonstrates the potential for communities to grow from and in public space entirely organically, not reliant on infrastructure or physical planning and design interventions. Instead, an often invisible and seemingly intangible place is created with very real dimensions for those who co-create it once a day in coming together. This paper explores the space that is Killarney Park, and the place that is the dog walkers’ circle, in an effort to better understand these dynamics and suggest possibilities for further research on public space in Africa.