Anxious Joburg

Sarah Nuttall, Sisonke Msimang, Baeletsi Tsatsi, Antonia Steyn, Renugan Raidoo, Khangelani Moyo, Aidan Mosselson, Njogu Morgan, Sabelo Mlangeni, Joel Cabrita, Lebohang Masango, Mingwei Huang, B Camminga, Derek Hook, Cobus van Staden, Nicky Falkof

Description

Examines Johannesburg as a city of multitudinous and contradictory anxieties, showing how anxiety is an overlooked but vital structuring principle of contemporary life.
Global south cities are often imagined in terms of the global north’s anxieties about the south: migration, crime, terrorism, disease and environmental crisis. Anxious Joburg invites readers to consider an intimate perspective of living inside such a city. How does it feel to live in the metropolis of Johannesburg: what are the conditions, intersections, affects and experiences that mark the contemporary urban?

Scholars, visual artists and storytellers all look at unexamined aspects of Johannesburg life. From peripheral settlements to the inner city to the affluent northern suburbs, from precarious migrants and domestic workers to upwardly mobile young women and fearful elites, Anxious Joburg presents an absorbing engagement with this frustrating, dangerous, seductive city. It offers a rigorous, critical approach to Johannesburg revealing the way in which anxiety is a vital structuring principle of contemporary life.

The approach is strongly interdisciplinary, with contributions from media studies, anthropology, religious studies, urban geography, migration studies and psychology. It will appeal to students and teachers, as well as to academic researchers concerned with Johannesburg, South Africa, cities and the global south. The mix of approaches will also draw a non-academic audience.



Map of Johannesburg – Naadira Patel

Foreword – Sisonke Msimang

Introduction: Traversing the anxious metropolis – Nicky Falkof and Cobus van Staden

Taxi Diaries I What are you doing in Joburg? – Baeletsi Tsatsi

Chapter 1 ‘We are all in this together’: Global Citizen, violence and anxiety in Johannesburg – Cobus van Staden

Chapter 2 ‘It’s not nice to be poor in Joburg’: Compensated relationships as social survival in the city – Lebohang Masango

Chapter 3 Driving, cycling and identity in Johannesburg – Njogu Morgan

Taxi Diaries II Travelling while female – Baeletsi Tsatsi

Chapter 4 ‘The white centreline vanishes’: Fragility and anxiety in the elusive metropolis – Derek Hook

Chapter 5 Ugly noo-noos and suburban nightmares – Nicky Falkof

Chapter 6 The unruly in the anodyne: Nature in gated communities – Renugan Raidoo

Chapter 7 The Chinatown back room: The afterlife of apartheid architectures – Mingwei Huang

Chapter 8 Shifting topographies of the anxious city – Antonia Steyn

Chapter 9 Photography and religion in anxious Joburg – Joel Cabrita and Sabelo Mlangeni

Chapter 10 Marooned: Seeking asylum as a transgender person in Johannesburg – B. Camminga

Chapter 11 Everyday urbanisms of fear in Johannesburg’s periphery: The case of Sol Plaatje settlement – Khangelani Moyo

Chapter 12 Inner-city anxieties: Fear of crime, getting by and disconnected urban lives – Aidan Mosselson

Taxi Diaries III And now you are in Joburg – Baeletsi Tsatsi

Afterword: Urban atmospheres – Sarah Nuttall

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Public Policy
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Johannesburgo
• Cultural studies
• Anthropology
• Social
• Johannesburg
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776146307
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ANXIOUS JOBURG
ANXIOUS JOBURG
THE INNER LIVES OF A GLOBAL SOUTH CITY
EDITED BY NICKY FALKOF AND COBUS VAN STADEN PRELIMS.
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Compilation Editors 2020
Chapters Individual contributors 2020
Published edition Wits University Press 2020
Images and figures Copyright holders
Cover image Mark Lewis, Yeoville Market on Rockey Street
First published 2020
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/22020106284
978-1-77614-628-4 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-632-1 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-629-1 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-630-7 (EPUB)
978-1-77614-631-4 (Mobi)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in captions for the use of images. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.
Project manager: Catherine Damerell
Copyeditor: Russell Martin
Proofreader: Lisa Compton
Indexer:
Sanet le Roux
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typeset in 10 point Garamond Pro
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
List of figures
MAPPING ANXIETY IN GREATER Johanesburg
Naadira Patel
Foreword
Sisonke Msimang
Introduction: Traversing the anxious metropolis
Nicky Falkof and Cobus van Staden
Taxi Diaries I: What are you doing in Joburg?
Baeletsi Tsatsi
1 We are all in this together : Global Citizen, violence and anxiety in Johannesburg
Cobus van Staden
2 It s not nice to be poor in Joburg : Compensated relationships as social survival in the city
Lebohang Masango
3 Driving, cycling and identity in Johannesburg
Njogu Morgan
Taxi Diaries II: Travelling while female
Baeletsi Tsatsi
4 The white centreline vanishes : Fragility and anxiety in the elusive metropolis
Derek Hook
5 Ugly noo-noos and suburban nightmares
Nicky Falkof
6 The unruly in the anodyne: Nature in gated communities
Renugan Raidoo
7 The Chinatown back room: The afterlife of apartheid architectures
Mingwei Huang
8 Shifting topographies of the anxious city
Antonia Steyn
9 Photography and religion in anxious Joburg
Joel Cabrita and Sabelo Mlangeni
10 Marooned: Seeking asylum as a transgender person in Johannesburg
B Camminga
11 Everyday urbanisms of fear in Johannesburg s periphery: The case of Sol Plaatje settlement
Khangelani Moyo
12 Inner-city anxieties: Fear of crime, getting by and disconnected urban lives
Aidan Mosselson
Taxi Diaries III: And now you are in Joburg
Baeletsi Tsatsi
Afterword: Urban atmospheres
Sarah Nuttall
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgements
This book emerges from a project titled Urban Anxieties in the Global South , which has been generously supported by a Friedel Sellschop early career award from the University of the Witwatersrand and a National Research Foundation Thuthuka Early Career Fellowship, both awarded to Nicky Falkof in 2017-2019. The book itself has been further supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Governing Intimacies project, also based at Wits University. Most of the chapters included here were developed during an August 2017 workshop in Johannesburg, co-hosted by Wits Media Studies and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). Thanks to Roshan Cader at Wits University Press, to Srila Roy at Governing Intimacies, and to Sarah Nuttall and Najibha Deshmukh at WiSER. Thanks also to Anton Kannemeyer for the use of his images, to Eric Worby for advice on ethics, to Mehita Iqani for providing an intellectual sounding board, to Carli Coetzee for valuable conversations about anxiety, to Job Mwaura for his work on the original conference, to Valerie Killian for her administrative support, and to the two anonymous reviewers who read this book before publication, whose generous and insightful comments have made it far better. Cobus and Nicky would like to acknowledge the contributors for their continued willingness and enthusiasm through many rounds of revision, and for offering such powerful chapters to this volume. Special thanks to Baeletsi Tsatsi, Antonia Steyn and Naadira Patel for their creative contributions, and the associated conversations, without which the book would not be what it is. We are enormously grateful to our respective partners, Lebogang Mogashoa and Joe Walsh, for their patience with our unusual interests and their invaluable behind-the-scenes input into this book.
List of figures
CHAPTER 3 Driving, cycling and identity in Johanesburg
Figure 3.1 Members of a cycling club in late-nineteenth-century Johannesburg pose with their machines. Courtesy of Museum Africa Picture Archives
Figure 3.2 Car ownership according to the racial categories which were employed by the apartheid and transitional governments. Graph constructed by author from data available from Central Statistical Service (1992)
Figure 3.3 Main mode of transport by racial classification. Graph constructed by author from data available in Culwick (2014, 139)
Figure 3.4 A bicycle lane situated near the University of the Witwatersrand. Author s collection
CHAPTER 4 The white centreline vanishes : Fragility and anxiety in the elusive metropolis
Figures 4.1 and 4.2 N is for Nightmare , Anton Kannemeyer (2007). Courtesy of the artist
CHAPTER 7 The Chinatown back room: The afterlife of apartheid architectures
Figure 7.1 Razor wire protecting luxury cars and residences. Photograph by the author
Figure 7.2 Boundary walls and razor wire on Chinatown residence. Photograph by the author
Figure 7.3 Bad Boyz makes its mark on Derrick Avenue. Photograph by the author
Figure 7.4 The house from outside the boundary fence, with chairs for security guards and domestic workers. Photograph by the author, edited to remove house number
Figure 7.5 The outdoor kitchen and outbuilding wall viewed from the main house door. Photograph by the author
Figure 7.6 From left to right wall, the back room, toilet and washing sink in the outdoor Chinese-style kitchen. Photograph by the author
CHAPTER 8 Shifting topographies of the anxious city
Figure 8.1 Bertrams Rd, Troyeville
Figure 8.2 Niobe St, Kensington
Figure 8.3 Miller St, Ellis Park
Figure 8.4 Westminster Mansions, Highlands Rd, Yeoville
Figure 8.5 Hotel Oribi, Commissioner St, Jeppestown
Figure 8.6 Rosebank Mall, Baker St, Rosebank
Figure 8.7 Melville Koppies, Kloof Rd, Melville
Figure 8.8 Majestic Towers, Clarendon Place, Parktown
CHAPTER 9 Photography and religion in anxious Joburg
Figure 9.1 Lungile Mndebele , Sabelo Mlangeni, 2016
Figure 9.2 Sabelo Mlangeni at the Good Friday church service , Bong musa Dube, 1999. Courtesy of Sabelo Mlangeni
Figure 9.3 KwaMtsali, Bhekumthetho, Nongoma , SabeloMlangeni, 2016
Figure 9.4 Low prices daily , Sabelo Mlangeni, 2006
Figure 9.5 In time, a morning after Umlindelo , Sabelo Mlangeni, 2016
Figure 9.6 USipho Mathunjwa noScara , Sabelo Mlangeni, 2015
CHAPTER 12 Inner-city anxieties: Fear of crime, getting by and disconnected urban lives
Figure 12.1 Map of the inner city, indicating the locations of buildings in which interviews were conducted

Foreword
For black people Johannesburg has always been a place of toil and misery. Especially in the early years, as its mine dumps and tall buildings were just beginning to rise above the veld, Johannesburg gave its black denizens no choices. By the turn of the century Africans were pushed into the city from as far afield as Malawi and Mozambique. Soon they were trapped there, victims of taxes and labour systems designed precisely for that purpose; victims too of the vast distances between where they had come from and where they now found themselves.
Africans in Johannesburg were quickly squeezed into new urban selves, hemmed in by the city’s enormity even as they suffocated in the tight and narrow spaces of its dormitories and shacks. They had mainly grown up in kraals and on farms, and suddenly they were here in a place of summer lightning and winter frost. Country boys remade as miners were forced to spend their days underground with their backs bent, digging up this precious metal that made white men rich. As they walked the city on their days off, they quickly learned to bow their heads and duck their chins, to avert their eyes to stay safe when they crossed paths with men who had recently decided to call themselves ‘white’. Johannesburg was a place where black people learned to make themselves smaller than they had ever had to be.
In the United States of America, the Great Migration that unfolded after the Civil War spelled a new chapter of freedom for black people in that country. In the wake of the failed Reconstruction era, as freed slaves realised that their white compatriots would not easily share power with them, former cotton pickers and tobacco sharecroppers began to move off the land in great numbers. Cities like Atlanta, Chicago and New York represented liberty for black people. They were places where the dignity of former slaves and their descendants might be restored as they escaped the blood and memories that had thus far defined their experience of the New World. While there are many commonalities shared by the US and South Africa – two societies that exemplify stubborn and long-running experiments with white supremacy – the story of the city as a site of freedom is not one of them. In South Africa, cities were not a chosen future. Johannesburg in particular was part of a new era of enforced labour; cities were the very opposite of freedom. If all cities