Paper short abstract:

Johannesburg’s inner-city is often portrayed as dangerous, based off stereotypes that reproduce anti-Black imaginations. This paper investigates the racial politics of walking and how tours utilise urban heritage, food, and art to attempt to engage people in spaces beyond class and race divides.

Paper long abstract:

Johannesburg’s inner city is often viewed as a “no-go zone” among suburban inhabitants and international tourists. However, In the last two decades, there has been an increase in inner-city walking tours. These tours generally aim to humanise the city, showing how it can be viewed as a space of excitement and potential rather than one of danger and fear. Tour guides use history and urban heritage, food, and art to draw local and international tourists to engage with the city. Many tour guides see themselves as activists, using their tours to combat historical anti-Black stereotypes through which the inner-city is viewed. The participation of local tourists in inner-city walking tours offers a lens through which one can attempt to understand the efficacy of transgressing racial and class divides still imprinted on the post-apartheid urban landscape. Drawing on longterm fieldwork undertaken with walking tour guides of the city, this paper shows how the practice of walking in racially conscious urban environments can affect and remake space for city inhabitants. The paper therefore investigates the broader question of race, walking and representation in African cities, questioning how international and local imaginations of citiness shape aspirations but also imaginations of what a city should and could be.