Geographical Limitations of Neo-liberalism: Urban Planning and the Occluded Territoriality of Informal Survival in African Cape Town

Abstract

Urban political geography lacks theoretical work on the territoriality of the informal economy, notwithstanding the empirical significance of informal city-building all around the world. With reference to the hypothesis of growing neo-liberalism in post-apartheid cities, this paper explores the territoriality of informal-sector governance in Cape Town, using a theorisation that foregrounds place/space dialectics. An analysis is offered of informal-sector practices and the administrative strategies of the local state, particularly the urban planning system. While support for the neo-liberal hypothesis is presented, the paper argues for the geographical limitations of neo-liberalism as a territorial strategy of the post-apartheid state.

Notes

1. This definition excludes criminal activities that many authors include in informal economic studies. Examples are prostitution or international drug trafficking, both of which figure importantly in Cape Town's urban and social politics (Kinnes, 2000).

2. The interview material cited in this article is gleaned from a larger study that focused on the spatiality of informal-sector governance. This study included a total of 38 semi-structured interviews conducted between February and August 1999 (Dierwechter, 2001).

3. These two vignettes are drawn from a larger study of the time-geography of 28 food traders, reported fully elsewhere (see Dierwechter, 2001). Three or four interviews were conducted with each trader by the author over the course of several days in order to ascertain the daily routines discussed here.