The Politics of Transformation: Improvement, Gender and Transitional Housing in Cape Town, South Africa

To explore what transformation means in practice, this thesis investigates the state-led project of Pickwick Transitional Housing in Cape Town. This empirical example offers insight into the ways in which housing models concerned with social, economic, and physical “transition” connect with housing [in]security and South African state agendas for transformation. Pickwick houses nineteen families who are transitioning from informal, insecure housing to formal, temporary housing through a state-led process of change. However, over time, Pickwick has become a symbol of “permanent transitionality” as residents wait for a transformation that never materialises. Though the materiality and concept of Pickwick holds the promise of change, it also exemplifies the complicated and uneven nature of state-led improvement in post-apartheid South Africa. This research is situated in scholarly debates on improvement, housing, and gender. The relational practice of homemaking unites these overlapping spheres of theory, connecting the gendered, material, and emotional dimensions of domestic life to the national project of inclusion and belonging via improvement. This thesis focuses on the domestic experiences of Coloured men in Pickwick through a decolonial-feminist approach, critically exploring how masculinities are constructed, contested, and negotiated within the material and political context of transitional housing. Gender is positioned as integral to understanding homemaking as both a personal and political act, as constructions of Coloured masculinities connect to processes of resistance against historical exclusion, structural violence, and contemporary housing insecurity. Through connecting the everyday realities of homemaking to the broader politics of nation-building, this study contributes to scholarship on transformation, masculinities, and housing in post-apartheid South Africa. The work demonstrates that the materiality of housing is not disconnected from the emotions of transformation and the relational experiences of home, situating Pickwick as a case study to understand the contradictions and capabilities of state-led improvement in the post-colonial city.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Mohandas, Priti

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lemanski, Charlotte

• Housing
• Gender
• Masculinities
• Transformation
• Decolonisation
• Feminism
• Inequality
• Urban
• Nation

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/38c128b4-b41d-4329-aed5-e15251e0182f/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.118970

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/385301