Using Giddens's theory of ‘structuration’ and Freirean philosophy to understand participation in the Alexandra Renewal Project

Abstract

The main critique raised against participatory approaches to development is that they do not adequately address issues of politics and power. This paper contributes to the theory and practice of participation by introducing a framework drawn from Freirean philosophy and applying Giddens's theory of ‘structuration’ to that philosophy. Specifically, it focuses on the relocation of people from the banks of the Jukskei River as part of the Alexandra Renewal Project. It draws on the author's interviews with key local-level stakeholders, including government leaders, managers of the Alexandra Renewal Project, and those directly involved with facilitating the participation of intended beneficiaries in Alexandra. The study uses Giddens's theory to conclude that although participatory processes may be intended to (in Freire's words) domesticate, the domesticating or exclusionary nature of the intervention provides the basis upon which people liberate themselves.

1. INTRODUCTION

Alternative approaches to participation (especially Participatory Action Research) have been profoundly influenced by the work of the well-known Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire (Blackburn, 2000; Cornwall, 2000:24). Radical approaches to participation are often cited as having their ‘roots in Freirean philosophy’ (Cleaver, 2001:37). However, the literature has not adequately explained the implications of Freire's radical approach to the study of participation in development.

This paper contends that although applying a Freirean approach to the study of participation is necessary, it is insufficient. This approach speaks to what is arguably the main critique raised against participatory approaches to development: that they do not adequately address issues of politics and power (see Cooke & Kothari, 2001). However, unlike most approaches to the study of participation in development, this framework uses a more nuanced approach to study power and participation, drawing from Masaki, who applies Giddens's theory of ‘structuration’ to the participatory processes. In this sense, power is not simply oppressive, or in the hands of elites and leaders. Applying Giddens's (1984) theory of ‘structuration’, this paper suggests that even what may seem to be the most domesticating practices by leaders, to achieve their interest-based objectives, can lead to the liberation of those affected. Put another way, structures are the very basis upon which those affected by development interventions resist.

The paper is written in a context in which great emphasis has been placed on questions of participation in post-apartheid South Africa. The literature, however, has done little to show what kind of participation is actually being promoted and advocated, and there are few important South African texts that critique local practices and perceptions of the meaning of participation. The paper focuses specifically on the participatory processes involved in the displacement of people from the banks of the Jukskei River as part of the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP). The ARP is one of eight flagship urban renewal projects in South Africa where the participation of affected people has been of central importance. Given the history of forced removals during apartheid (Du Plessis, 2006), the author chose to perform a case study of the Jukskei removals in order to explore the extent to which those affected by a state intervention were included in decision-making. The data were generated through a series of in-depth interviews with various ARP leaders who were involved with this displacement. Quotations taken from respondents are included in the text to provide further insight into and understanding of local perceptions and experiences. The specific objectives of the paper are to contribute to the theory and practice of participation by:

• providing a radical and concrete theoretical frame by means of which to understand participatory approaches to development,

• using this framework to evaluate the various meanings and practices that leaders of the ARP associate with participation, and

• drawing upon Giddens's (1984) theory of ‘structuration’ to understand the inter-relationship between people's resistance and domesticating structures.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: FROM FREIRE TO GIDDENS

Practitioners and theorists who are interested in how people's participation might lead to tyranny (Cooke & Kothari, 2001) or transformation (Hickey & Mohan, 2004) have a great deal to learn from the work of Paulo Freire, who dedicated his life to implementing his ideas of how the oppressed, through popular agency, could liberate themselves from the social structures of oppression. In 1968 (four decades ago), Freire (one of the most radical and influential theorists in the field of education in the twentieth century) understood liberating participation as the process of becoming more fully human (or liberated). Freire's theory of participatory development – or what he terms ‘humanisation’ – is based on the importance of freedom for people everywhere and the capacity and right of all people to achieve freedom through self-emancipation. The process of achieving freedom – of truly participating in society – begins when people reflect on their experiences with oppression within the larger political and development framework and become the active subjects of their own destiny (rather than objects of someone else's).

While contemporary theorists of participation show how ‘methodological revisionism’ (Cooke & Kothari, 2001) avoids real issues of power and politics, and therefore binds the less powerful into a state of poverty, Freire anticipated these critiques over two generations ago by declaring that mere involvement in predetermined agendas ‘domesticates’ the oppressed by fitting them into the current system so that they remain trapped in the oppressors' world, thereby reinforcing the dehumanisation of both the oppressed and the oppressor (the oppressed also dehumanise themselves in the process of dehumanising others). As is the case with mainstream approaches to participation, the oppressed are able to adapt within prescribed boundaries but are unable to work outside the framework (i.e. of immanent development) that has been constructed by the oppressor or to create and transform their own reality.

Participation (in this sense) is not actually intended to enable people to (re)define their own development discourse (as advocated by Hickey & Mohan, 2004). Instead, people's participation is intended (at most) simply to determine the direction of projects within the government or development agency's preconceived (oppressive) frameworks of development (i.e. neoliberalism as a form of capitalism), and people's perspectives and experiences (with development) are ‘domesticated’ (Freire, 1972). This technical (means to an end) approach to participation is described as ‘domesticated’ because it occurs within the framework of the oppressors and imposes itself on the oppressed, who ‘internalise’ their oppression (Freire, 1972). The oppressed are led to view their oppression as the natural order of things, rather than something that is socially constructed through power relations and therefore able to be transformed.

From this perspective, reflecting on and contesting (through action) the nature of social reality and offering alternatives is transformative or ‘liberating’ participation (as an end in itself). ‘Liberating’ participation occurs through ‘concientizaco’ (the ability to look critically at the world). Freire says that, for the newly educated man, the world:

becomes radically transformed and he is no longer willing to be a mere object responding to changes occurring around him. He is more likely to take upon himself, with his fellow men, the struggle to change the structures of society that until now have served to oppress him. (Freire, 1972:back cover)

Unlike the situation where participation is used as a means to achieve an end (domesticating), the goal of the Freirean approach to participation is for people to shape and control their own histories and destinies, not within the world as it exists, but in order to transform that world. When participation is approached as a means to achieve an end, any benefit that the oppressed have received from the oppressors is ‘false generosity’ (Freire, 1972) because it occurs within the framework and dictates of the oppressor, serves to give false hope to the oppressed and further enshrines the current system of ‘domestication.’

Freire's analysis focuses on the political leaders and suggests it is essentially the educational process that occurs between the oppressed and the political leaders (those who are genuinely committed to the struggle of the oppressed) that determines whether participatory processes will be ‘liberating’ or ‘domesticating’. Without education for critical consciousness, there can be no engagement with the structures that bind people into a state of oppression.

Like the education process, there can be no neutral participatory process. It functions either to domesticate people into the current system or to liberate them from the structures that serve to oppress them. If participation is to lead to liberation, the educator (or political leader) must view people not as passive objects responding to the structures of society but as active agents who have the capacity to transform structures and society to suit them in their process of becoming more fully human. According to Freire, people are ‘transforming rather than adaptive beings’ (1972:114).

Using Freire alone to understand participatory processes ignores the complexity of power relations. Rather than being either domesticating or liberating spaces, the outcomes of participatory processes are reshaped and remoulded, since people are not passive objects but subjects that respond to the structural conditions around them. Giddens's (1984) theory of ‘structuration’ is useful for understanding the degree to which society (structure) constitutes human agents or human agents constitute society (structure). He takes a dual approach and argues that the two are inextricably intertwined.

In this sense, it is inaccurate for social scientists to view structure only as a constraint on human action. Giddens argues that structure is not (external) to human action, as a source of constraint on the free initiative of the independently constituted subject' (1984:16). He suggests rather that structure may actually enable agents to achieve their own objectives.

While spaces for participation may have been intended as domesticating by the leaders who prescribed them, these spaces are contested and reshaped by those affected. It is not useful, according to Masaki, to polarise tyranny and transformation, ‘since oppression and resistance are so interwoven that it is impossible to juxtapose them’ (2004:134). This paper argues that it is the exclusionary and domesticating nature of spaces that provides the basis upon which people, in Freire's words, liberate themselves.

3. SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE

While great emphasis has been placed on participation in post-apartheid South Africa, the literature has done little to show what kind of participation is actually being promoted. In addition, the South African literature suggests that development projects are experiencing weak forms of citizen participation in local-level decision-making, owing to a variety of interrelated factors including increased state bureaucratisation, the adoption of neoliberal policies, and a focus on quantitative service delivery targets (Heller, 2000; Khosa, 2003). Similarly, Lyons et al. (2001) have argued that the shift away from a people-driven process enshrined by the Reconstruction and Development Programme has been undermined by the market-oriented policy approach epitomised under Growth, Employment and Redistribution.

Others, such as Beall (2002), have been overly optimistic about participation in South Africa since they seem to have assumed that substantial participation will take place at the local level by a homogeneous community that is capable of affecting state decision-making. Additionally, Pieterse begins to identify the ambiguous nature of participation by pointing out that the participation of civil society may be sought after by the local government either to legitimate state actions or to empower civil society to control state resources. He is correct to point out that these two aims ‘would lead to very different approaches to promoting and establishing participatory governance’ (Pieterse, 2002:7). However, he leaves us to question the purpose of local government (in relation to participation) since he does not address how or under what conditions the South African local government actually intends to elicit either of the two types of participation that he has described.

Authors have not focused on the different meanings and practices that various actors associate with participation, let alone how oppressive or domesticating practices might lead to transformative or liberating action by those affected. Only recently has there been a growth in the body of international literature that addresses this matter. The present study uses a case study of the ARP to critique local practices and perceptions of participation in an attempt to contribute to the knowledge and practice of participation in development.

4. BACKGROUND

The discussion that follows stems from a case study of the ARP designed to shed light on the above conceptual issues involving participation. The ARP received funds of R1.3 billion from the South African Government, and the project was to be undertaken over a 7-year period (2001–2008) in order to develop the Alexandra community socially, economically and physically. The decision to develop Alexandra, however, was a relatively top-down process, since the provincial and national government selected Alexandra and defined it as being in need of renewal. The backing of the South African Government, to help address the historical and racial inequalities and poverty that were created during apartheid, is perhaps greatest in townships such as Alexandra. The ARP thus receives high-profile attention from the government and the demands of the citizenry are wide-ranging. The project involves local community members, civil society organisations and the national, provincial, and local government. The ARP is a management and consultancy entity designed to implement government projects.

A central goal of the ARP is for the people of Alexandra to participate in creating their own development. However, the Alexandra Development Forum (ADF), the main mechanism by which the ARP facilitates community participation, was formulated after the inception of the ARP. The extent to which participation may occur in the ARP may have certain limitations in this respect. Nevertheless, community members and civil society organisations meet on a monthly basis with the intention that the needs and aspirations of the people represented will be taken into account by the ARP.

The current director of the ARP, Julian Baskin, has highlighted the role of community participation in the ARP in restructuring Alexandra and positively affecting people's lives in Alexandra over the past 5 years (Baskin, 2005). In stark contrast, outside analysts such as McKinley (leader of the Anti-Privatisation Forum) have claimed that Baskin ‘is a liar’ (McKinley, 2005), that participation in the ARP is inadequate and that the ARP ‘is a classic example of how not to go about a state-led programme of basic service delivery and infrastructural upgrading in a poor community’ (2005: 20). Such clashes point to the fact that the ARP is a widely published and hotly debated project, one that has nevertheless received very little academic attention.

The relocation of poor people from slum areas is an international phenomenon (Davis, 2006). Millions of people are forcibly evicted from their homes each year, mostly in the name of development. The displaced often suffer as they are forced to integrate themselves socially into another community (experiencing, for example, job loss and the need for parents to leave behind children who must remain in the community for schooling purposes) as a result of a development decision that they, as a marginalised group, may not have taken part in at all (Cernea, 2000). According to Du Plessis, South Africa ‘offers an instructive illustration of the persistence of the problem of forced evictions, even in a country hailed for its progressive housing policies, laws, jurisprudence and programmes’ (2006:184–5). Alexandra is an example of an urban renewal project in South Africa where a large number of relocations have occurred. The Jukskei removals are important instances of this kind, and for this reason an enquiry into the processes and perceptions of relocation in Alexandra in the ARP and in post-apartheid South Africa in general is necessary.

The displacement of people from the banks of the Jukskei River in 2001 was the first initiative undertaken by the ARP. ARP officials have highlighted the importance of removing people from unsafe and extremely congested areas in Alexandra before other types of projects can take place (interview, N Letter, Housing Manager for ARP, 22 May 2006, Johannesburg). In February 2001, precipitated by the pollution and environmentally deteriorating conditions on the Jukskei River, a court order was given to urgently evict 6000 people and move them to other places within and outside of Alexandra. The government claimed that the river was contaminated with cholera and that flooding had swept away many homes the previous year. The Legal Resources Centre insisted, however, that these evictions were not as urgent as officials might have suggested, since they began only in the winter, four months later, when the risk of flooding is lowest (in Huchzermeyer, 2003). Moreover, the Director of the Gauteng Department of Communications, Dumisane Zulu, claimed that the Jukskei River was not contaminated with cholera at all (Scheepers, 2001).

Clearly, the perceptions of those actually affected by the displacement are very important. However, this paper analyses the ARP leaders' perceptions and practices of participation since they have great influence over the way people in Alexandra participate. While many authors (for example, Heller, 2000; Khosa, 2003) have suggested that community participation is not adequate in South Africa, little has been written about the leaders' perceptions and actual practices of participation in this context.

Since the central aim of this research was to understand perceptions, the author undertook in-depth interviews. Altogether, nine leaders were interviewed between August 2005 and April 2006. A number of themes were covered, including what each respondent perceived community participation to be, the processes and rationale of the removals, and whether or not the people who were removed participated adequately. Interviews were conducted on an individual basis and took approximately 20–45 minutes to complete. The leaders the author interviewed were various stakeholders, including African National Congress (ANC) leaders, ARP managers, consultants and community leaders who are in a position to influence the degree of participation of the people living in Alexandra.

5. AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES

Participation is viewed as one of the major goals in the implementation of the ARP. Paul Mashatile, the former Member of the Executive Committee for Housing, says – in an excerpt on the ARP official website from a speech about community involvement – ‘The community is represented in the ADF so that we don't do what we think is right for the community, but do what the community thinks is right for them’ (ARP, 2004). Mashatile is suggesting that ‘the community’ cannot work within a prescribed framework (because this will limit people's agency – ‘what the community thinks is right for them’), but must be able to dictate their own destinies.

Sizakele Nkosi, councillor and chairperson of housing for the ARP during the time of the Jukskei removals, unintentionally undermines the above point. When asked about whether the people removed from the Jukskei participated properly in the removal process, she commented that:

I think people were properly consulted. Um, the Sunday before the Tuesday that they were relocated there was a public meeting that had plus or minus 2000 people attending, you know? And that's where people were informed that look, on Tuesday definitely you are going to be relocated … people were actually informed of where they were going to be relocated to. (Interview, Nkosi, Councillor and Chair of the Housing Department, Gauteng Province, 8 November 2004, Johannesburg)

Here people are said to have participated since they were ‘informed’ by officials of how they would be affected by the predetermined development intervention. In Freire's (1972) words, this leader views the people as ‘empty vessels’ to be ‘filled’ with the knowledge of their counsellors.

Zodwa Tiale, a resident of Alexandra at the time of the Jukskei removals and secretary for the ANC, explains why the people living along the Jukskei needed to be displaced by the ARP:

The reasons were genuine and I think the reasons were correct that people should be removed. Because the conditions there were definitely not good for human beings to be living there. I mean sometimes when it rained there would be floods and kids and the furniture and everything would be taken by the water. So I think they were done a good favour, a very big one as well. (Interview, Tiale, Heritage Group, ARP, 21 October 2004, Johannesburg)

It would be difficult, Tiale suggests, to put forward any argument that these people should not have been relocated from the banks of the Jukskei River. Tiale therefore says that the people affected by the ARP development ‘were done a favour’. Disregarding any viewpoints expressed by those affected by the removals, Tiale and Nkosi seem to be asking: How could they (the displaced) not support the development that has been given to them by the ARP? For example, on the topic of whether the people who were removed from the Jukskei had a chance to speak out about where they should be moved to or what should happen to them, Tiale said:

Even if they had a choice to say whatever … Because I mean the conditions where they were in at the time compelled the government or the ARP to remove them from those conditions because they were not humane.

This comment gives the impression that the people's own knowledge and actions were not important. In fact, it was not necessary that the people should give their consent to leadership decisions.

6. MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVES

The director of the ARP at the time of the Jukskei removals, Keith Khoza, describes people's participation in the ARP from a managerial point of view:

All development projects in Alexandra must be based on the consent of the community because it is the community that is going to benefit from the development. So the structures, in terms of how they were put together, were designed in such a way that there is constant consultation within the community to make sure that there is approval to what will be presented as development projects … We have learned that it is important to consult at each phase of development so that people should consciously commit to abide by decisions brought about by the need for development. (Interview, Khoza, Director, ARP, 25 August 2004, Johannesburg)

According to Khoza, it is development per se that appears to be ‘deciding’ what projects in Alexandra should be implemented. Development thus becomes an abstract process that is independent of, and not driven by, agents. Such an approach depoliticises the decision-making processes, making it appear that it is neither the wider community that is making the decisions nor the leaders of the ARP. Within this framework, however, participation exists to turn people – who ‘should consciously commit to abide by decisions’ – into objects of a development process that has been determined from above.

Mike Morkel, a housing coordinator and consultant for the ARP, commented in a similar way about the removals of people from the Jukskei that:

I guess people don't always appreciate the necessity of the relocation. They don't appreciate the necessity that the local party is obligated to ensure that the flood plain is not separated. People sometimes don't appreciate that they in fact are endangered at all … I think once the people there appreciated the authority that was sitting in and the provincial authority and so forth, they say look, this is going to happen, and they would just accept what's happened. (Interview, Morkel, 8 September 2004, Johannesburg)

This quotation implies that the people affected do not really know what they need, that they are unaware of their condition, and that they do not have the right kind of knowledge about their situation. Morkel backs up this line of thinking when asked about whether the ARP made any attempt to elicit the participation of the people removed from the Jukskei:

We certainly didn't perform the relocation of people by calling everyone together and say[ing] on Monday morning we're going to relocate to a new location, how do you feel about it? I mean there was a court order, notices were given that it would be performed on such and such a day, and they would be relocated to an area with housing.

Morkel commented about the resistance of people who were being removed from the Jukskei, saying that ‘there were gun shots, there were [sic] some unpleasantness, there was one person who was shot and killed,’ and then remarked further that:

What happened, is that we found that once we resolved the relocation and once it had become clear, that this would continue, the people were actually complacent, they would pack up their belongings, in fact get everything ready, put it outside their shacks and literally wait, and when the trucks came along they would assist with the loading of stuff. We certainly didn't encounter any problem where you had massive resistance, where the people just were uncooperative … I mean there were pockets of that but I think it was more sort of criminality, where we would stumble across a tuck shop or a number of shacks which were being used for clear criminal purposes. Because the vast majority of people there were very cooperative and assisted tremendously, I mean that certainly sped up things.

Since Morkel believes that those displaced must ‘appreciate’ what he considers to be the favour of development that the ARP has done for them, it would make sense that he would be unlikely to conclude that there could be any possible resistance to the intervention. This appears to be the reason why he concludes that the incidents of people protesting and gunshots going off must have been based upon criminality rather than on legitimate resistance or disapproval. The ‘complacency,’ acceptance, or conformity of those affected ‘assisted tremendously’ in enabling leaders to achieve their predetermined goals. The creative energy and action of those living along the Jukskei was perceived as not only unnecessary, but also a hindrance to leadership objectives.

With a frankly pessimistic view of participation, Themba Maluleke – the overall project manager of the ARP at the time of the Jukskei removals – suggests that if development is to take place it is impracticable to embrace the knowledge and action of locals themselves:

Some will say ‘get the community to make those decisions’ but maybe you guys are still studying … In the real world, it doesn't work. It only worked … When was it? 14 AD in the Greek city states because we were only having less than 200 people making a decision on behalf of the city. In today's world, you never get community involvement and it works and it makes decisions and things move … Those are the practical realities. (Interview, Maluleke, Project Manager and Consultant, ARP, 27 September 2004, Johannesburg)

For Maluleke, the people cannot control their own destinies so it is unnecessary for him to try and achieve that. He comments that:

For me, you consult as far as it suits your objectives, if it doesn't suit you, why do you do it … The agent is government and the agent is myself who is acting on behalf of government.

This viewpoint is a powerful example of how leaders of the ARP use participation to ‘suit their own objectives’, not to enable people to define their own objectives and determine their own destinies. Managers and consultants of the ARP are hired by the government to implement government programmes. They are acting on behalf of the government, as Maluleke points out. As a result, at least in the minds of managers, this leaves little (if any) room for the people of Alexandra to actually decide what development should be. Since the government has its own projects that it wishes to have the ARP implement, participation is intended to amount only to those affected giving their consent to or being informed about predetermined interventions. Participation may be used to speed up consultant or state-driven development projects, but never to encourage active agency outside of the preconceived government parameters.

7. ALEXANDRA DEVELOPMENT FORUM PERSPECTIVES

The ADF is the main mechanism for community participation in Alexandra. It aims to be the mouthpiece of the community regarding development. At least in terms of the number of community organisations that are members of the ADF, the ADF is the most representative structure for enabling community participation in Alexandra. There are claims that it represents anywhere between 25 and 200 community organisations. Mashatile (2004) believes it has a significant role to play in soliciting the views of the people so that people's projects will be reflected in the ARP. But is it possible for the ADF to have significant control over decision-making in the ARP despite the positions taken by the ANC and the management of the ARP, as described above? Benito Lekalakala, chairperson of the ADF, discusses two different views of how participation is meant to work:

It would appear that there is a different understanding of what that [participation] means between the ADF and the ARP … What the ARP does is that community participation for them is the community reporting back. They [the ARP] will take decisions and then come back and report having implemented a programme. But for us, community participation and involvement is involvement at the beginning, from conception of a programme to implementation and joint monitoring with the community through community structures. (Interview, Lekalakala, 9 October 2004, Johannesburg)

Although the two types of participation described above may occur within the same organisational structures, they are potentially very different. Lekalakala said that, for the ARP community, participation amounts to the ARP reporting back to the community what kind of development they have decided to implement. The ARP viewpoint is clearly ‘domesticating’, since it implies that the community will be informed of development interventions that have been decided from above, and that the community will passively accept these interventions. The ADF's view that Lekalakala discusses, on the other hand, is less obvious.

When asked about the participation that took place when people were being relocated from the Jukskei, Lekalakala commented about the participatory processes undertaken by the ARP (without the help of the ADF):

Consultation will involve: how will we be moved, where will we be moved to and what will happen to us once we are there? But that was not done. As I say, people feel that they were just removed with their building materials and just dumped there. And they were then expected to build their own shacks there. They were given a piece of land to build on. But as to whether there would be sufficient schools, health care systems, all those things, they were not taken into account so people were just moved and then just put there. Actually, what would happen to them once they were there was not thoroughly discussed. And there was no proper planning [about what would happen] once they were there.

Lekalakala pointed out that they would not have had the Red Ants, a security company hired by the ARP, coming in to remove people forcibly if there had been sufficient consultation. He suggests that, had the ADF been involved, there would have been adequate participation of those affected by the Jukskei removals.

However, the degree of power that the ADF has over the ARP is a key factor that helps measure the extent to which the ADF's practices of participation are actually different from the ARP's. The ADF does not have full power over what the ARP can or must do. The ARP official website explains this matter by stating that ‘The ARP will not be bound by the decisions of the Alexandra Development Forum, but will take such decisions seriously and will make all efforts to meet such decisions’ (ARP, 2004). This last point is particularly significant. After all, what is the point of having a development forum that is meant to represent the interests of the community if it does not have any real decision-making power? The author raised this issue with two key leaders of the ADF. The ARP's relationship with the ANC appears to hinder potentially liberating forms of participation that leaders such as Lekalakala advocate. While Lekalakala says, ‘broader community participation and involvement in these projects is central and critical’, he recognises an apparent glitch in the current system. He states that ‘at the end of the day, government implements its programmes’. With this statement, he appears to be admitting that the state can and does exert its power over the community despite efforts to enable participation (including through the ADF) outside the state.

Regardless of the possible intentions of leaders of the ADF (these are obviously contested themselves), ‘full participation’, as discussed by Lekalakala above, does not happen. At best, community participation in the ARP means that the ADF can accept or reject development projects imposed by the state and ARP consultants. At worst, it is used as a way to co-opt powerful stakeholders within the community to undertake projects that have been designed from above. Lekalakala suggests that the latter is the case:

Without consultation with the people there would be problems. In the past they were building, developing a park there and there was insufficient consultation with the people, and consequently, there were problems. We had to come in as the ADF in order to intervene so that the programme can go ahead. So without community participation, if they insist that they can implement, that development can be stalled. So to avoid that, there has to be meaningful participation.

Linda Mamela reflected this view of why community participation is necessary:

Maybe you can find that there is a resistance from people because they will be feeling like they are undermined and all those things. So for every development to go smooth you must have participation from the ground. (Interview, Mamela, Secretary, ADF, 9 October 2004, Johannesburg)

These leaders have made it clear that participation is a means by which to implement development interventions that have been designed from above. Rather than participation enabling people to determine their own destinies – liberating them from systems of oppression – it ‘domesticates’ people so that they accept projects. Participation exists so that development will ‘go smooth.’

The Secretary's report for the ADF by Mamela shows a parallel outlook:

We hope that all of us will re-commit ourselves to ensure maximum participation of our community in development, we will do all this by making sure that information that we receive goes back to our constituencies because knowledge is power; if our people are well-informed about development there will be no room for opportunists to mislead them for their own personal gains. (Mamela, 2004:1)

The framework in which these leaders understand ‘maximum’ or ‘full’ participation does not go beyond sharing information with the entire community. People are empty vessels to be filled with information, and service delivery (as defined from above) is considered to be development. In the ARP, people are considered an obstacle to achieving preconceived development objectives rather than the key asset with which to define and achieve self-development.

8. DOMESTICATING LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES

Because the government employs consultants for the ARP, these consultants have to follow government plans if they want to keep their jobs. Moreover, members of the ADF are hired by the ARP and therefore must implement ARP-designed projects. Although these leaders have different and often contested ways of thinking about participation, they do not see using participation as a means to enable the community to think critically and control its own destiny as being in the realm of possibility when it comes to practice. Rather, the leaders' role is to implement predesigned development plans at the expense of popular agency. The author has shown that what may seem to be the stronger views of consultation (such as those held by leaders of the ADF) amount only to rhetoric since participation is used as a means to achieve a predetermined end – to domesticate people to fit into top-down plans. Participation exists to make top-down development ‘go smooth’. Participation thus appears to be a very political and centralised process intended to reinforce the status quo.

Rather than participation offering the possibility of self-emancipation, as advocated by Freire, it is intended to do quite the opposite. It is intended to disable people's reflection and agency, by ‘domesticating’ them to fit into top-down plans. When ARP and ADF officials domesticate the people of Alexandra, the government-led projects and programmes can be successful and ARP and ADF officials are rewarded by getting paid (at the very least).

The leaders suggest that, for government development plans to be implemented (for the current system of decision-making to be maintained), participation will be used to the extent that it will sensitise, bring about conformity and acceptance and domesticate people, and, in so doing, domesticate time and history. Any participation that does not fit into the prescribed framework of the ARP or does not maintain ARP hegemony is therefore seen as a threat to those in power. Leaders leave virtually no space to spark the creative potential of the people of Alexandra. In fact, this would probably go against government objectives. The government has quantitative service delivery targets (i.e. the number of houses, roads, or clinics to be built) and it must deliver a certain number to maintain its legitimacy.

Lekalakala's statement that ‘for any development to take place the community has to buy in’ enables one to understand the way participation is intended to occur in the ARP. Participation helps people to believe that ARP projects are legitimate and to accept them as ‘good.’ The role of participation is not neutral. In the case of the ARP, rather than functioning to liberate people from systems of oppression, participation turns them into ‘empty vessels’ into which development plans and services are poured.

Since the leaders do not go beyond viewing community participation as a means to achieve an end, they view liberating participation as something that is a hindrance to, rather than a central component of, development. Freire warned about this approach:

The elite defend a sui generis democracy, in which the people are ‘unwell’ and require ‘medicine’ – whereas in fact their ailment is the wish to speak up and participate. Each time the people try to express themselves freely and to act, it is a sign they continue to be ill and thus need more medicine. In this strange interpretation of democracy, health is synonymous with popular silence and inaction. (1974:11)

Popular agency is viewed as a sickness rather than an asset or resource. The ADF provides medicine to the people so that development can ‘go smooth’. Within this framework of participation, a healthy Alexandra is not one that reflects and creates, but rather one that sits back and lets the government deliver.

9. CONCLUSION: APPLYING GIDDENS'S THEORY OF STRUCTURATION

It would appear that participation functions as a tool to maintain the status quo – to bring about conformity – to turn people into objects of the oppressor's destiny rather than agents of their own. However, following Giddens's (1984) theory of ‘structuration’, the author suggests that agents may undertake a process of their own liberation when there have been attempts at domesticating them.

This has been evidenced in the protest activity of those being forced from the Jukskei River (Huchzermeyer, 2003), as well as from various other sites in greater Alexandra, including Wynberg (Cherney, 2006), Marlboro (Malefane & Cox, 2005), Strjla (Thakali, 2006), and the Iphuteng School Clusters (Ellis & Tau, 2005). In the main, people have resisted removals because they did not want to leave the Greater Alexandra area. The exclusionary nature of decision-making by the ARP provided the basis upon which people resisted. People have begun to liberate themselves from the structures of decision-making that could, if their demands were not addressed, serve to oppress them.

They did this through various means, such as opening court cases to plead for their rights to housing and protest activity to get attention from councillors and to have their interests and demands heard by the public. The sum of this resistance activity, in which people were engaged in at least some degree of liberating participation, has affected the ARP policy on densification over time. According to the ARP website:

The new housing strategy (October 2005) was greatly influenced by the lessons learnt from the early years of the project … The original Alex housing strategy aimed to relocate households living within floodplains, tributaries and road reserves to large housing projects outside the Alexandra sub-region. The policy was extremely unpopular with those relocated even though they were substantially better off with regards to access to urban services. Indeed evidence exists that many have simply returned to Alexandra to live in shacks once again. (ARP, 2004)

Removing people to places far away from Alexandra was the basis (i.e. structure, in Giddens's terms) upon which people resisted in order to express their dissatisfaction. In response to this resistance, the government has changed its strategy (i.e. structure) by conceding to some of the basic demands of the people. This represents, according to Giddens (1984), ‘the duality of structure’ since resistance (or agency) happens on the basis of structure, while at the same time structure is shaped by agents. The author suggests that applying Giddens's theory to Freirean philosophy leads one to conclude that liberation occurs on the basis of what would be, without people's agency, domesticating structures.

While the literature suggests that South Africa is experiencing weak forms of participation owing to the government's watered-down approach to participatory democracy, people's movements have been springing up as a result. People's protests against the perceived crisis of service delivery are increasingly being seen as demands for more appropriate forms of participatory democracy. The patterns of ANC centralisation that have put South Africa on the path towards representative democracy may be the same patterns that lead to a greater demand for more participatory democracy. As people feel increasingly excluded and as the participatory processes in South Africa domesticate particular groups and interests, the masses will continue to draw upon methods of resistance in an attempt to liberate themselves from those same processes.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Noor Nieftagodien (his advisor at Wits University), Sue Van Zyl (head of the Students' Publication Project at Wits) and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on this paper.