"Race" Conditioning Social Cohesion in the Post-Apartheid Cape Town Neighbourhood
This study explores whether and how race effects and shapes social integration in the post-apartheid Cape Town neighbourhood. The underlying questions are whether and how the racial classifications inherited from apartheid are meaningful when residents negotiate, determine and arrange their changing neighbourhood and neighbours. The object of this study is Thornton, a lower middle-class neighbourhood where the economic class of residents is homogeneous. Instead, racial diversification has been substantial during the post-apartheid decades. Thus, this study examines how race is processed and managed inside class. I built my research design on the concept of social cohesion which relates to the ideal of Rainbow Nation. Neighbourhood social cohesion presents Rainbow Nation on a small scale, a local and space-specific interpretation of the present stage of overcoming previous segregation structures. I analysed cohesion through two approaches, with the first considering collectivities and the second individuals. First, I ask how race is visible in neighbourhood social and spatial practices. This approach explores the forms of participation, community building and using public space. Second, I ask in which way residents of different race conceive their changing neighbours and neighbourhood. This approach explores residents´ attitudes towards people from another race group than their own. It also explores individual residents´ socializing patterns and interaction orientation. The underlying discipline is urban sociology; however, this study has drawn inspiration from several disciplines and research fields. Theoretically this study draws from socio-spatial integration research which examines whether physical residential proximity produces closer social interaction between people of diverse backgrounds. Methodologically this study follows ethnographic research methods and qualitative methodology. The main research material was gathered over a period of 11 months of fieldwork during 2016 and 2017 in Thornton, Cape Town. The analysis was based on interviews of the residents in Thornton, and observation of civic and religious communities and public places and spaces. The results of this study indicate that race is both significant and insignificant when explaining neighbourhood social cohesion. There is a complex relationship between post-apartheid reconciliation speech and lived mundane realities. The results of this study contribute to the discussion on the persistent nature of social classification and categorizing difference and can be drawn to wider than South African debates. In the South African context, this study adds to the discussion of the fairly new research field focusing on the new black African middle class. In addition, results of this study correlate with previous research on the patterns and success in dismantling apartheid´s spatial planning. Keywords: urban integration, South Africa, race, social cohesion, neighbourhood, middle class
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