Re-visioning space, justice and belonging in the capital city of Pretoria/Tshwane

• Date: 01 January 2014
• Pages: 163-174
• Published date: 01 January 2014
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC166197
• Author: Karin Van Marle

163

Re-visioning space, justice and belonging

in the capital city of Pretoria/Tshwane

Karin van Marle

LLB LLM LLD

Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria

OPSOMMING

’n Herbeskouing van Ruimte, Geregtigheid en Tuiste in Pretoria/Tshwane as

Hoofstad

Die hoofoogmerk van hierdie artikel is om tentatief te besin oor die

moontlikhede van ’n herbeskouiïng van ruimte, geregtigheid en tuiste in

Pretoria/Tshwane as hoofstad. Ten einde hierdie oogmerk aan te spreek

fokus ek op drie kwessies: eerstens die nodigheid vir ’n teoretiese omgaan

en intervensie in die proses van herskouiïng. Die opvatting soos

geformuleer deur Henri Lefebvre, naamlik die ‘reg op die stad’ is sentraal

tot meeste werk aangande die stad en onderlê al vier artikels wat volg op

hierdie een. Tweedens beskou ek die benaderings van Hannah Arendt en

Jacques Ranciere ten einde die reg op die stad te herbedink en derdens

betrek ek idees aangaande herbeskouiïng, herbetowering en die

verbeelding. Hierdie artikel asook die vier artikels wat hierop volg is

navorsing voortvloeiend uit die “Capital Cities” Institusionele Navorsings

Tema van die Universiteit van Pretoria.

Preface

During 2012 researchers in the Faculty of Humanities at the University

of Pretoria initiated a project aimed to interrogate and analyse Pretoria/

Tshwane as capital city from multiple perspectives. The project was

expanded to include capital cities as focus but also to broaden focus and

the team to researchers from disciplines like Architecture, City planning,

Theology and Law. An underlying aim is the development of an inter-

disciplinary project and strengthening inter-disciplinary research. It was

launched as an Institutional Research Theme at the University of Pretoria

in 2013.

The four contributions following the present one were delivered,

amongst others, at the launch conference in October 2013. In March

2014 the same researchers submitted a panel to the South African Cities

Conference held at Wits during which the present paper aimed to

respond to some of the themes that were raised in the other papers. At

both occasions the papers were linked to subtheme four of the Cap ital

Cities project namely “Cities re-visioned. Space, justice and belonging”.

The broad aim of the Capital Cities project as set out in the Business

Plan is as follows:

“Given the attention cities have received as places of human habitation and

cooperation, but also of exclusion and resistance, the project will focus on

capital cities as a specific area of interrogation. … An overall theme emerges