Thesis Title:
Contested Ownership in Post-Apartheid Cape Town: Anti-Eviction Campaigners and the Countermapping of Land Struggles
Thesis Abstract:
This research aims to explore evolving and contested notions of ownership in post-apartheid Cape Town through collaboration with the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), amid escalating forced evictions in the Cape Flats and Tafelsig. Ownership is framed not as a return to pre-colonial models but as a dynamic concept rooted in present needs and future aspirations. The study seeks to amplify community-based visions that disrupt dominant paradigms.
Hauntology provides the proposed theoretical frame, drawing on Toni Morrison and Derrida to examine presence, absence, and the persistence of apartheid spatial violence. Haunting is used to trace how dispossession, forced removals, and planning legacies may continue to shape land struggles, while also revealing how these narratives could be reimagined. The research considers how the Global South might haunt the West not only through historical injustice but through knowledge that challenges colonial frameworks.
Countermapping and GIS Countermapping are planned as central methodologies, used alongside the AEC to creatively remap concepts and spaces. Rather than studying the AEC as a subject, the project aims to co-produce knowledge that highlights community-led responses to eviction.
Ultimately, the study aims to contribute to the AEC’s anti-eviction work and community-building efforts, helping imagine ownership models grounded in justice, care, and identity.
Primary Supervisor:
Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam