Insurgency and Spaces of Active Citizenship

Abstract

This article concerns the struggle waged by the poor in Cape Town, South Africa, to assert their constitutional rights to shelter and basic services and protect their life spaces against neoliberal policies. Using insurgent urbanism and active citizenship as its conceptual guide, this article attempts to enhance understanding of grass-roots spaces for practicing inclusive citizenship, stretching beyond a limited interpretation of formal citizen participation. Through the example of the Western Cape Anti-eviction Campaign in South Africa, the article aims to contribute to a recent opening in the planning inquiry by overcoming the selective definition of what constitutes civil society and public participation and underlining the significance of invited and invented spaces of citizen participation in the formation of inclusive citizenship and just cities.