Doctoral Degrees (Geography and Environmental Studies)
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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Geography and Environmental Studies) by browse.metadata.advisor "Donaldson, Ronnie"
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- ItemA critical reflection on the formalisation of communal land rights in Namibia : why local contexts matter for bridging the dichotomies of tenure rights(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-11) Matthaei, Elke Astrid; Donaldson, Ronnie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography & Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Struggles over access to, and control of, land have a long history in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since precolonial times, land has material and symbolic significance, with rights to land having been exchanged, negotiated and fought over in the course of political, demographic and economic change. Based on the belief that access to land and the registration thereof leads to prosperity, land reforms have gained prominence on national and international development agendas in recent decades. It is estimated that more than 428 million rural poor depend on access to customary land in Sub-Saharan Africa. Secure property rights, economists and policymakers hope, will increase access to credits and allow reinvestment and upkeep of resources. Several international conventions and declarations underscore the importance of land rights for sustainable rural and urban development. Similarly in Namibia, the Government’s rationale behind securing tenure in communal areas is to encourage investment in land, thus increasing agricultural productivity and ultimately reduce poverty through improved income and access to credit. After Namibia gained independence in 1990, a comprehensive land reform programme was initiated which also focussed on the formalisation of communal land rights. The Communal Land Reform Act (Act No. 5 of 2002) (CLRA) creates the specific legal framework regarding communal land. The CLRA aims to improve the sustainable allocation, development and management of natural resources in communal areas. Yet there is hesitance from communal farmers in some regions of Namibia to register their land parcels, whilst others have adopted this process without contestation. Land has always played a very significant role in the livelihoods and identities of especially Namibia’s rural inhabitants. Within culturally different landscapes, there will be differences in the ways people identify with, manage and use their land. Attempts to replace customary law with statutory law have proven to be expensive and divisive in many countries. Land reform programmes and research on land rights are still based on two typical ‘schools of thought’- one that argues for land policies to be rooted in theories of social capital, and the other that individualised tenure systems are more desirable. Being able to gain an insight into how rural populations regard the formalisation of their tenure is an important step towards challenging the way tenure security is understood through various ideologies of property ownership. Gathering more comprehensive information on land rights and uses of land is important to be able to contribute towards debates about land governance. In the context of the above discussion, this research was carried out in Namibia to gain a better understanding of how the ultimate beneficiaries of communal land rights registration, the farmers living on communal land, use their land. This has an impact on how they understand tenure security and what their needs are regarding forms of ownership. The dissertation will concentrate on findings based on research conducted in selected case study villages in four regions of Namibia. The case study villages are located in the Kavango East, Omusati, Hardap and Otjozondjupa regions, thereby enabling a comparative analysis of the formalisation of land rights within different cultural and geographical contexts. By using such a comparative analysis, the impacts of formalising communal land rights can be better understood, since land use and the significance people attribute to land for their livelihoods can vary greatly. As will be illustrated in the Namibian case, rural livelihood strategies and their relationships to land are diverse. It is argued that even though there are several commonalities between communal areas in Namibia, there are also significant differences in land uses and the role that land plays for livelihoods. Therefore, the formalisation of land rights, as is currently being pursued in Namibia, is unable to address all these different needs. Thus, a singular ‘one size fits all’ approach to formalising land is not feasible. Providing tenure security is undoubtedly important, as it does secure access and use of land. However, the current approach does not support the multiple communal land uses and needs within a broader territory. By looking at a specific area through the lens of a territory, one is also not merely inhibited by looking at the borders around the land, as these do not always consider the multiple functions of the space or area. By doing this, researchers and policy-makers alike will gain a better insight into the pluriactivities of local production systems and the multifunctionalities of land uses, expressed in both the management of and the various production systems on the land. This in turn influences their land tenure needs, if using the typology as represented by the ‘continuum of land rights’. Therefore, this research adds a further dimension to the concept of the continuum of land rights, by linking this to factors of production and farm management styles; highlighting how important different land uses are to determine tenure needs. Such research can thus lead to a better understanding of the policy requirements needed to enable land reform programmes to better contribute towards poverty reduction and economic development in Africa.
- ItemInformal Capacities: Exploring grounded architectural practice in transitions to sustainable urbanism in Cape Town(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Perold, Philippus Rudolf; Donaldson, Ronnie; Devisch, Oswald; Verbeeck, Griet; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research presented in this dissertation pertains to the role of architectural practice in the in situ upgrading of informal settlements in Cape Town, with in situ upgrading being understood as a transition to sustainable urbanism in terms of socio-technical transition theory. Two ideas guide and structure the research: the notion of ‘in[formal]ity’ as a dialectic whole to replace the dichotomy of formal vs. informal (thereby enabling architectural professionals to develop the informal capacities required to engage constructively with residents in informal settlement upgrading interventions) and the phenomenon of grounded architectural practice (GAP) as unit of analysis. I embark on a hands-on exploration of GAP – engaging with residents through live project case studies undertaken in collaboration with local organisations – so as to arrive at a better understanding of this emergent mode of architectural practice, as well as the informal capacities that architectural professionals require in order to engage with residents in such practice. The empirical data obtained during the case studies is supplemented by an analysis of existing data derived from literature reviews. As a multi-disciplinary extension of third generation activity theory (AT) that enables empirical analyses of work activity, the method of developmental work research draws together the live project case studies and AT mapping, and in doing so provides a framework for the exploration of GAP. This framework incorporates the notion of ‘in[formal]ity’ into AT, mapping the activity systems of residents and local government as networked around the partially shared object of fostering transitions to sustainable urbanism. GAP is then positioned as an intermediate ‘empty stage’ between the live project case studies and the AT mapping, and is used to capture the ideas that emerge. The latter are understood to be the informal capacities that architectural professionals employ when engaging with residents in the co-production and collaborative design of upgrading interventions. These informal capacities offer architectural professionals (who it enables to comprehend the socio-technical regime of local government as well as the informal spatial practice of residents) the opportunity to foster spatial justice by advocating on behalf of these residents in support of the in situ upgrading of their settlements as a transition to sustainable urbanism. As such, this research does not aim to develop a new model for architectural practice – doing so would require a much larger data set than the three live project case studies that inform this research – but rather to explore the informal capacities that are required and developed when engaging in GAP in the specific context of Cape Town. In doing so, I wish to contribute to the influence of this emergent niche-level practice on the regime of conventional architectural practice, thereby encouraging more architectural professionals to engage with residents in supporting informal settlement upgrading as a transition to sustainable urbanism.
- ItemNegotiating grey spaces: A southernised relational analysis of customary land-use regulation mechanisms in peri-urban Informal mixed-use developments - A case study of the Helderberg District in Cape Town(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Geyer, H. S.; Donaldson, Ronnie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study investigates the phenomenon of mixed-use development in informalised public housing (Colloquially referred to as RDP housing) developments in the Helderberg region of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. This settlement is ironically termed the Location by its residents. There is an irony that these informal mixed-use developments have several attributes of smart growth, such as high densities, affordable housing, accessibility, employment opportunities, etc., in contrast to zoned formal settlements that mostly do not have these characteristics. Informal mixed- use developments occur without the influence of zoning, but is informally regulated through customary land management systems (CLMS). Another irony is that these ‘smartified’ settlements are by no means ideal spaces to live and are generally regarded as unsustainable modes of living due to its informal nature by formal actors. This study investigates these paradoxes in terms of Relational theory and Southern theory, analysing how space is actively produced, organised, and regulated in the everyday life politic of the actor. The study analysed three research problems: Is informal mixed-use development smart, i.e., sustainable? How are these settlements regulated in a CLMS? And how can we plan and zone for these settlements? The study used an ethnomethodological research method to analyse these problems using in-depth interviews. The research results indicate that the mixed-use informalisation of RDPs creates a juxtapositional and contradictory urbanism, a Heterotopia. Informality creates liveable, polymorphic spaces from the marginalised and segregated Location. It develops several smart growth characteristics, not for aesthetic reasons but to make space functional and personal for the subaltern. This creates a new mode of urbanism that gives the actor the freedom to produce their own urban, but it also disconnects the actor from the city as an informal with an uncertainty of rights and standing, it limits the accumulation of wealth, and it creates dangerous and unhealthy living conditions. The Street, a local CLMS self-regulates informal mixed land-uses in the Location. These highly organised, democratic, and transparent organisations record their transactions in ‘black’ books. The Street layers authorities and procedures to create an open and idiosyncratic method of negotiating informal land-use externalities. This system is based on the principles of Ubuntu, which customarily defines propertied relations and incentivises self-regulation of land-uses, enabling the Street committees to provide several voluntary magisterial functions. It provides de facto security for informal land uses, but also complements and reinforces the role of the state in certain limited functions. However, this is also an imperfect system that struggles to regulate non-privatised externalities and accommodate ethnic plurality. The Street committees are also often dysfunctional or corrupt. The combination of informal mixed-uses and CLMS creates a legal grey zone in the Location with alternate zonings, legislations and polycentric authorities and a hybridity of regulations. This peri-urbanisation of the Location unmaps space and protects tenure but does not provide enough legitimacy for novel policing through zoning. This delegitimises zoning but it also creates a new role for planning and zoning, away from traditional socio-technical management by specialists to a more pragmatic and selective enforcement of zoning based on common law and substantial relations tests, in close collaboration with the Streets. Although this is by no means without its challenges, continually operating within a criticality of instabilities and crises, it does, however, strengthen the role of the state as a final and objective authority and benevolent provider of services. The Location thus has the best of both worlds: a formally zoned substructure and a peri-urbanised informal top structure that provides citizenship and agency to the subaltern.
- ItemResidential mobility practices in low-income communities of Tamale, Ghana(2018-12) Yakubu, Ibrahim; Spocter, Manfred; Donaldson, Ronnie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Pro-poor housing research in cities of the global South tend to disproportionately focus on the profiling of stock deficits, inadequate quality housing and living conditions, illegal occupations, and the proliferation of informal housing developments. Very limited scholarly works have sought to understand housing practices and residential mobility dynamics in low-income housing systems. This study fills an important knowledge gap by investigating the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of residential mobility practices in the low-income communities of Tamale, Ghana. The study sets out to address four specific objectives, namely to formulate a typology of low-income housing and assess its influence on residential mobility practices; to investigate the underlying drivers of and motivations for residential mobility in low-income communities and to delineate residential mobility pathways; to examine the development strategies for and actions of the local state which influence residential mobility practices in low-income communities; and, finally, to analyse the implications of residential mobility for social exclusion in low-income communities. A mixed-methods research approach was adopted to address the research question. The approach draws heavily on pragmatism as an alternative philosophical framework to the traditional positivist, post-positivist and constructivist paradigms in social research. It offered a mutually illuminating framework for the collection of valid and reliable data for the study. Quantitative data was obtained in a survey of 395 households in nine low-income communities in Tamale. To enhance the heuristic value of the survey data, a diverse set of qualitative data was obtained from interviews conducted with individuals, households and officials of relevant government institutions. Behavioural theories of residential mobility, together with the rights to the city and housing pathway theories offered a broad-base foundation on which to foreground the study. These theories jointly offer a nuanced explanation of housing mobility practices in the pro-poor sector. It was found that the compound house form constitutes the dominant house type which uniquely accommodates low-income families in multihabitation. Compounds vary by size and material composition and by the kinship ties and tenure composition of residents. When using housing dissatisfaction as an incipient indicator of residential mobility, evidence from this research suggests that voluntary housing mobility practices do not have much to do with households’ dissatisfaction with observable features of the residential environments, despite poor housing and living conditions. Instead, residential mobility practices are partly rooted in the sanctity of sociocultural beliefs and practices which underlie housing consumption in the downstream sector. The study also found differences in the patterns of residential mobility exhibited by different ocio-economic groups in the housing system. This finding led to the delineation of a tripartite residential mobility pathway, namely pathway to homeownership; pathway out of homeownership; and a cyclical pathway in and out of rent-paying and rent-free tenancies. These pathways offer a focal lens with which to appreciate the agency of low-income families as well as the bundle of structural constraints under which relocation practices are exercised. Similarly, the incidence of forced residential mobility linked to processes of urban upgrading was very pronounced in Tamale. While this may be firmly rooted in colonial urban planning practices, it now manifests differently in the politics of pro-poor housing in the city. Pro-poor housing systems have come under constant threats of demolitions in the name of provision of access roads so that poor families are forced to relocate their housing even under an urban policy regime purported to support inclusive development. Grassroots local government structures are used in conjunction with the powers of traditional chieftaincies to facilitate housing demolition and forced eviction of low-income families in the name of providing access roads. By giving a detailed account of residential mobility practices in low-income communities of Tamale, this study contributes to the urban studies literature of the global South. The findings have broadened the scope and depth of knowledge in the field. It brings to the fore the everyday housing practices of the poor as well as the complex matrix of socio-economic and cultural factors which shape relocation decisions in the city. The findings also provide direct empirical evidence to support programmes and policies for pro-poor housing stability and inclusive urban development. As low-income communities become targets for urban redevelopment, the displacement effects of these programmes on pro-poor housing stability ought to be a matter of great concern for policy formulation. It is recommended that since the ideals of homeownership remain central to Ghana’s housing policy, fundamental aspects of the pathways to homeownership for the low-income population must be identified and enhanced by local authorities through proactive planning and controls. This will ensure that incremental house building by the poor is not only exercised within an acceptable framework for orderly physical development but also that homeownership by the poor does not become short lived due to threats or realities of housing demolitions and natural events. The findings of this study also open several avenues for future research on residential mobility. Hence, investigations are recommended to analyse the post-relocation experiences of households displaced by government development programmes.