Urban networks, community organising and race: an analysis of racial integration in a desegregated South African neighbourhood

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of racial integration in Delft South, a desegregated low-income neighbourhood in Cape Town developed through the provision of state funded housing to families previously classified coloured and African. Through a qualitative analysis, the research examines the effect relocation has had on the racial character of economic and social networks around which resident families construct their everyday activities. In light of the importance of race in shaping these networks, the paper then examines the relationship between access to housing and practices of social and spatial integration, in particular organisation of and participation in street- and neighbourhood-level organisations. I demonstrate that in Delft South legacies of segregation persist in residents’ reliance on economic and social networks built on long, durable histories and geographies of racial segregation. Although physical relocation has not led to a lessening of the importance of racial identities, other identities built around issues such as neighbourhood norms, housing politics, and issues of criminality and legality manifest according to circumstances and residents’ interests. Context and situation therefore are significant for whether and to what degree race and place matter in the post-apartheid context.