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Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses spatial formations in Cape Town. It focuses on the constructions and the effects of “Whiteness” in space, exclusions, in/securities, hierarchies, violence, and the art of survival with which PoC navigate Cape Town.

Paper long abstract:

Three decades have passed since the official demise 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 in/securities.

This paper discusses spatial formations in post-Apartheid Cape Town, which is also considered as a post-traumatic space. It analyses the constructions and the effects of Whiteness in space, exclusions, trauma, racial spatial segregation, and structural violence, how these re/produce (spaces of) in/securities and, vice versa, how in/securities re/produce the former. Lastly, the paper discusses the everyday art of survival with which PoC navigate Whitened Cape Town, a space full of in/securities.