Paper Short Abstract:

This paper discusses spatial formations in Cape Town from the analytical perspective of predictable unpredictabilities. It discusses constructions and the effects of Whiteness in space, exclusions, violence, and the art of survival with which PoC navigate spaces of predictable unpredictabilities.

Paper Abstract:

Three decades have passed since the official end of Apartheid, and the signs that read ‘Whites only’ or ‘White area’ have disappeared, but South Africa remains a country with racial segregation as the norm rather than the exception. Cape Town is amongst the South African cities with the most pronounced racial segregation, with the majority of the Black population living in poverty and undignified conditions. It is also known for its extensive Whitened spaces where Black people and PoC are made to feel unwelcome. To them, Cape Town remains a “city of exclusion” and of White domination. An implicit assumption persists that the city belongs to Whites whereas Black people are “temporary sojourners” whose place is in the townships. Thus, the struggle of Black people for a ‘right to the city’ – the right to live and work in Cape Town –, which started in the 1970s, is still ongoing. PoC navigate everyday forms of exclusions, structural violence, and Whitened spaces that re/produce multiple and complex forms of predictable unpredictabilities.

This paper discusses spatial formations in Post-Apartheid Cape Town, which is also referred to as a post-traumatic space, from the analytical perspective of predictable unpredictabilities. It discusses constructions and the effects of Whiteness in space, exclusions, trauma, racial spatial segregation, and structural violence, and how they re/produce predictable unpredictabilities and, vice versa, how predictable unpredictabilities re/produce the former. It also discusses the art of survival with which PoC navigate Whitened Cape Town, a space full of predictable unpredictabilities.