Mediated multinational urbanism: a Johannesburg exemplar

Abstract

With increased international immigration, South African cities have come to contend with the threat of a violent multinational urbanism. Xenophobia, in its violent and symbolic manifestations, signifies this challenge. From an empirical grounding in Johannesburg, this paper explores the possibility of living together in contexts of multinational urbanism. It argues that strategic action and communicative action, in the Habermasian sense, are essential to the everyday mediation of multinational urbanism.

Keywords:

• mediated multinational urbanism
• strategic action
• communicative action
• Johannesburg

Acknowledgements

This article was successively refined with due consideration of the critical advice received from anonymous peer reviewers, whose contributions we greatly appreciate.

Funding

This work was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation [grant number 88028].