Why Cape Town? This wasn't necessarily the path I had set out upon, originally. Through a series of twists and turns, coupled with some tears and moments of deep self doubt, I landed in the Mother City to do some preliminary research for my dissertation.
I originally began grad school in Texas, studying American Politics and International Relations. The program I was in only offered a terminal Masters degree (read: no PhD), which was initially okay with me, since I had no plans to pursue anything more than an MA. However, at the beginning of my second year, multiple professors pulled me aside and asked what schools I was applying to in order to pursue my PhD. I laughed at them, partially because I thought they were joking but mainly because I honestly did not believe I could do the work required to earn a doctorate. I didn't think I could do well in the classes, pass any of the comprehensive exams, or research and write a dissertation. This may seem as though it's a silly fear, given that I had done relatively well during my master's program; however, earning one of those and pursuing a doctorate are two really different experiences, in my opinion. There are different expectations, given the track you choose, and I wasn't quite sure that I could do well enough to make it through a doctorate program. However, the admissions committee at my current University felt I was up to the task, and allowed me to transfer into the program.
The wonderful thing about the Poli Sci program at my school is that many of the professors have a strong inclination toward urban and comparative politics. While there are quite a few schools that excel at the latter, I don't know of many schools that have such a concentrated focus on urban politics. Often that topic area is combined or subsumed by the larger topic of American Politics. But, by separating the two concentrations, it has allowed scholars in the department to focus on urban development in cities outside of the US. I originally wanted to focus on post-conflict countries, but the more I researched and prodded around this broad topic, the more I realized that I was really more interested in the institutional development of countries and cities. Concentrating more on the structure and design of a place has helped me to think more critically about my original interest- why, for instance, have some states been more stable in a post-war period than other states? For example, Sierra Leone, which experienced a lengthy conflict in which the capital city was sacked multiple times, has experienced a relatively long period of peace (10 years) compared to the DRC, which has seen really nothing but conflict since it gained independence in 1960. Apart from their different colonial pasts, why is one experiencing more peacetime than the other? Looking at the institutions (government, civil society, policy-making, history, etc) found in each country can yield valuable information that can be used to understand the differences and similarities that have allowed for different outcomes. The same comparative type of methodology can be utilized when talking about cities- but it hasn't really been, in the past.
All of that long-windedness brings me to why I am here. Scholars, such as Mike Davis (City of Quartz; Planet of Slums), have a tendency to take a term or an idea and then write entire books/articles/publications around the topic without ever really defining it and without really taking the time to separate out differential cases. I am picking on Mr. Davis without knowing him personally; I am certain that he is an exceptional man and scholar. However, my beef with him derives from his book on how cities in the developing world are becoming increasingly overrun with what he terms as "slums". He never defines the term, only describes what they might look like (which, to me, is speaking around and not directly to the term). The problem with not defining the term is more than just me being an uptight academic snob. Rather, the problem is that he describes slums as basically being the poor "informal" housing areas (sorry, working from memory here)- meaning that if you do not live in what those in the West see as a formal home (with four solid walls, running water, electric hookups, non-dirt floor, inside toilet), then you live in an informal home, and thus a slum. I do agree with him that poor area that lack these types of amenities do tend to breed disease and can lock people into a cycle of poverty that is difficult to break; however, not every poor area should be named a slum. This is mainly in part because not every poor person who lives in this type of housing community sees themselves as a "slum dweller".
In fact, in some areas of the African continent (mainly in the Gold Coast area), non-permanent dwellings are the norm in cities (see Gareth Myers, among others, for more on this argument). Not only do scholars make broad generalizations such as these about cities (and individuals!) in the developing world, but they tend to ignore historical contexts that might help to shape or even change their arguments. Cities in Africa have a tendency to be large not only because advances in technology have driven people from the rural to the urban areas, but also because in some areas, little of the land is livable, at all. We have a tendency to assume (as I have, in the past) that countries with large land masses have quite a bit of land that can be developed into housing options. However, this isn't always the case. The reason, then, that cities are growing at a rapid pace may be, in part, due to globalization and technological advances, but they may also simply be due to the fact that there are few places left to exist in a country.
None of this answers, exactly, why I am here. Simply put, I want to stop making assumptions about cities in the developing world and examine more closely the relationship between the municipal government and the people who live in the townships around the city (i.e., the poorest places in the city). By taking public tours of two townships, as well as examining city council documents and meeting notes, I can begin to gain a better picture of how the townships have developed over time, their political efficacy in the city, as well as how the growth of these areas has impacted the municipal government over the years. (Why couldn't I have just written all of that 1500 words ago?) I think that, once I begin to gain a better understanding of how things are functioning at the local level, it will help me to "scale up" to the national level, where I can begin to look at the disconnect between the two levels of government, especially where housing and land issues are concerned.
So there, in a very tiny nutshell, is what I have been working on for the last three years. I will leave you with a picture of my newly adopted home, which was unabashedly and unceremoniously stolen from the I Heart Cape Town Facebook page (along with the first photo, too- the second one was found online via Google).
Ta for now, loveys!
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