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Contribution short abstract:

In Cape Town, which is known as a ‘city of exclusion’, PoC still struggle for a ‘right to the city’ or, in other words, for citizenship. Citizenship is a practice rather than (only) a formal status. This paper discusses how forms of citizenship are constructed and challenged in Cape Town.

Contribution long abstract:

Almost three decades have passed since the official end of Apartheid, and 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 and is known for its extensive Whitened spaces where PoC are made to feel unwelcome. PoC describe Cape Town as a ‘city of exclusion’ and of White domination. Thus, the fight 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.

This fight for a right to the city can be equated with a fight for a right to citizenship and/or its exercise. Scholars like Engin Isin consider citizenship not merely as a (legal) status but as a practice and something that is brought into being through its exercise. Acts of citizenship are performative and constitute a struggle by citizens and non-citizens for their rights, for inclusion, participation, and recognition.

This paper explores the following questions: How are forms of citizenship constructed, perpetuated, challenged, and sustained in Cape Town? How are Black subjectivities de/constructed through the (non-)exercise of citizenship? How do Acts of Citizenship by PoC, e.g., in disrupting Whitened spaces, relate to or challenge the construction of citizenship of White people in Cape Town?