Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a literature review on TRAs and similar formations, exploring whether they support notions of permanent temporariness or a temporary-permanent continuum.

Paper long abstract:

There is an ambiguity concerning the temporary or permanent nature of socio-spatial formations articulated across different contexts. Temporary relocation areas (TRAs) and Refugee camps are critical nodes that affect the urban fabric. The temporary-permanent continuum presents one lens to view their form, function, change process and lived experiences. Read against South African TRAs, conceptual representation is anything straightforward but reveals contradictory functioning logic that forgoes binary assessment. Developed as temporary sites, TRAs become areas of long-term residence, interminable waiting and uncertainty. In this paper, TRAs are urban built environment features embedded in wider socio-spatial web relations and meaningful in people’s daily lives despite their deficiencies. Simultaneously, the continued TRA implementation is problematic, contested, and results in adverse and unintended consequences. This is not unique to South Africa. A rich literature reveals insights from diverse places such as Zimbabwe’s holding camps, India’s transit camps and Jordan’s Jabal al-Hussein refugee camp. A literature review on these and similar socio-spatial formations highlight that while planned as temporary features, they become seemingly permanent temporariness places that impose new living forms on residents who still hope for permanence. As part of a larger study which will include an empirical component, this paper presents a literature review on TRAs and similar formations, exploring whether they support notions of permanent temporariness or a temporary-permanent continuum. The paper differentiates how TRAs in South Africa are made sense of in the literature as opposed to their equivalents elsewhere, facilitating an opportunity for analysis across conceptual representations and varied experiences.