Latent potential? Searching for environmental justice in South African landscape architecture praxis

Abstract

Landscape architecture is not formally affiliated with environmental justice in South Africa. This is concerning given that the country is the most socio-economically unequal worldwide and that local cities contain dire urban realities and climate-related risks with degraded and unsafe green open spaces. We explored the potential within local professional praxis for addressing inequities related to green open spaces in the urban environment. Narratives were collected via 25 in-depth interviews from a diverse sample. We found that though landscape architects have yet to be exposed to ‘environmental justice’ as a term and as a movement, practitioners have an implicit awareness of environmental inequity as a lived reality. We argue that these professionals have the potential to actively promote environmental justice, evidenced by how practitioners currently address justice concerns and challenges. We call for more active and authentic engagement around environmental justice within the profession here and internationally.

Keywords:

• Environmental justice
• green public open space
• landscape architecture
• landscape justice
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical clearance

Ethical clearance was granted by the researcher’s institution. Reference number: EBIT/132/2017

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dayle L. Shand

Dr Dayle L. Shand lectures at the Department of Architecture, University of Pretoria, in South Africa. She teaches across the disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture in the Earth Studies stream, and runs various design studios. Dayle is also professionally registered with the South African Council for the Landscape Architectural Profession (SACLAP). Since 2009, she has gained practical experience working on various types of public open space projects, including local community parks. Dayle completed her PhD thesis (2023) on the topic of ‘Nature-based park making’, wherein she considered environmental justice related to local community parks in South Africa, incorporating perspectives from the local landscape architecture profession, the local government, and residents living adjacent to local community parks on the western periphery of the City of Tshwane. The research project was multi-scalar, including geovisualisation at the city-wide scale, and in-depth interviews and observations at the local scale.

Christina A. Breed

Dr Christina (Ida) Breed is a registered professional landscape architect and Associate professor at the Department of Architecture at the University of Pretoria. Her applied research spans her practice and academic experience and unites concepts of ecosystem services with human values. She contributes to the limited body of work focusing on landscape designers as actors in social-ecological systems through green infrastructure planning and design. She is a rated researcher through the National Research Foundation and has been collaborating in internationally funded green infrastructure research projects in the City of Tshwane, since 2021. Her projects aim to build greater capacity in young graduates, within communities, and across sectors, to mobilise urban socio-ecological well-being.