Refugees and migration: Local governance, challenges and responses in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Wandile Zwane
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The City

The Chinese Century and the City of Gold: Rethinking Race and Capitalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-217
Author(s):  
Mingwei Huang
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Shopping Centers ◽  
Black Labor ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The City

Abstract This article tells a story about the unfolding “Chinese Century” in South Africa centered on China Malls, wholesale shopping centers for Chinese goods that have cropped up along Johannesburg's old mining belt since the early 2000s. Based in ethnographic and historical analysis, the essay takes a palimpsestic approach to imagine how Chinese capital enters into a terrain profoundly shaped by race, labor, and migration and is entangled with the afterlives of gold. Chinese migrant traders in South Africa draw on legacies of migrant mine labor and refashion processes that devalue Black labor. Whereas these histories are lost upon Chinese newcomers, African workers experience working for “the Chinese” through the memory of the mines. With the aim of theorizing emergent formations of race and capital in the Chinese Century, the essay threads this new epoch through the history of colonial and racial capitalism of the City of Gold.

Transnational Habitus and Sociability in the City: Zimbabwean Migrants’ Experiences in Johannesburg, South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khangelani Moyo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Field Research ◽  
The South ◽  
Economic Networks ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Telephone Calls ◽  
The City

Drawing on field research and a survey of 150 Zimbabwean migrants in Johannesburg, this paper explores the dimensions of migrants’ transnational experiences in the urban space. I discuss the use of communication platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook as well as other means such as telephone calls in fostering the embedding of transnational migrants within both the Johannesburg and the Zimbabwean socio-economic environments. I engage this migrant-embedding using Bourdieusian concepts of “transnational habitus” and “transnational social field,” which are migration specific variations of Bourdieu’s original concepts of “habitus” and “social field.” In deploying these Bourdieusian conceptual tools, I observe that the dynamics of South–South migration as observed in the Zimbabwean migrants are different to those in the South–North migration streams and it is important to move away from using the same lens in interpreting different realities. For Johannesburg-based migrants to operate within the socio-economic networks produced in South Africa and in Zimbabwe, they need to actively acquire a transnational habitus. I argue that migrants’ cultivation of networks in Johannesburg is instrumental, purposive, and geared towards achieving specific and immediate goals, and latently leads to the development and sustenance of flexible forms of permanency in the transnational urban space.

Global Justice at the Municipal Scale

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fonna Forman ◽  
Teddy Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Global City ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

Cities or municipalities are often the most immediate institutional facilitators of global justice. Thus, it is important for cosmopolitans and other theorists interested in global justice to consider the importance of the correspondence between global theories and local actions. In this chapter, the authors explore the role that municipalities can play in interpreting and executing principles of global justice. They offer a way of thinking about the cosmopolitan or global city not as a gentrified and commodified urban space, but as a site of local governance consistent with egalitarian cosmopolitan moral aims. They work to show some ways in which the city of Medellín, Colombia, has taken significant steps in that direction. The chapter focuses especially on how it did so and how it might serve as a model in some important ways for the transformation of other cities globally in a direction more consistent with egalitarian cosmopolitanism.

scholarly journals The Evolution of City-as-a-Platform: Smart Urban Development Governance with Collective Knowledge-Based Platform Urbanism

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Palmyra Repette ◽  
Jamile Sabatini-Marques ◽  
Tan Yigitcanlar ◽  
Denilson Sell ◽  
Eduardo Costa
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

Since the advent of the second digital revolution, the exponential advancement of technology is shaping a world with new social, economic, political, technological, and legal circumstances. The consequential disruptions force governments and societies to seek ways for their cities to become more humane, ethical, inclusive, intelligent, and sustainable. In recent years, the concept of City-as-a-Platform was coined with the hope of providing an innovative approach for addressing the aforementioned disruptions. Today, this concept is rapidly gaining popularity, as more and more platform thinking applications become available to the city context—so-called platform urbanism. These platforms used for identifying and addressing various urbanization problems with the assistance of open data, participatory innovation opportunity, and collective knowledge. With these developments in mind, this study aims to tackle the question of “How can platform urbanism support local governance efforts in the development of smarter cities?” Through an integrative review of journal articles published during the last decade, the evolution of City-as-a-Platform was analyzed. The findings revealed the prospects and constraints for the realization of transformative and disruptive impacts on the government and society through the platform urbanism, along with disclosing the opportunities and challenges for smarter urban development governance with collective knowledge through platform urbanism.

scholarly journals Neoliberal State Intervention and the Power of Community in Urban Regeneration: An Empirical Study of Three Village Redevelopment Projects in Guangzhou, China

2021 ◽  
pp. 0739456X2199466
Author(s):  
Siu Wai Wong ◽  
Xingguang Chen ◽  
Bo-sin Tang ◽  
Jinlong Liu
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The State ◽  
Village Communities ◽  
The City

A key theme in urban governance research is how neoliberalism reshapes the state–society relationship. Our study on Guangzhou, where urban regeneration through massive redevelopment of “villages-in-the-city” uncovered interactions between the state, market, and community in local governance, contributes to this debate. Based on intensive field research to analyze three projects, we find that what really controls neoliberal growth in China is not simply the authoritarian tradition of the socialist state but also the power of the indigenous village communities. Our findings suggest that state intervention for community building is vital for rebalancing power relations between the state, market, and community.

scholarly journals Invasive Plant Species Distribution Is Structured by Soil and Habitat Type in the City Landscape

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 773
Author(s):  
Ilona Szumańska ◽  
Sandra Lubińska-Mielińska ◽  
Dariusz Kamiński ◽  
Lucjan Rutkowski ◽  
Andrzej Nienartowicz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Pattern ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Invasive Plant ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Permanent Plots ◽  
Human Land Use ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Pathways ◽  
The City

Invasive alien species (IAS) is a global problem that largely relates to human activities and human settlements. To prevent the further spread of IAS, we first need to know their pattern of distribution, to determine which constitutes the greatest threat, and understand which habitats and migration pathways they prefer. Our research aimed to identify the main vectors and distribution pattern of IAS of plants in the city environment. We checked the relations between species distribution and such environmental factors as urban soil type and habitat type. We applied data on IAS occurrence (collected in the period 1973–2015) in 515 permanent plots with dimensions of 0.5 × 0.5 km and analyzed by direct ordination methods. In total, we recorded 66 IAS. We found a 27% variance in the IAS distribution pattern, which can be explained by statistically significant soil and habitat types. The most important for species distribution were: river and alluvial soils, forests and related rusty soils, and places of intensive human activities, including areas of urbisols and industriosols. Our results provide details that can inform local efforts for the management and control of invasive species, and they provide evidence of the different associations between natural patterns and human land use.

Women’s Struggle for a Voice in Local Governance: Challenges for Veiled Women in Haryana, India

2021 ◽  
pp. 097152152110305
Author(s):  
Saroj Rani
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
Experiences Of Women

This study explores the experiences of women as voters and political representatives at the local level. It includes women’s stories which capture the challenges they faced, their resistance and aspiration for change. The study also looks at men’s perception of women’s political participation. The study uses a feminist perspective with qualitative methods. Tools such as in-depth interview, focus group discussions and observations were used to gather data and information.

scholarly journals The effects of greening the supplier and innovation on environmental performance and competitive advantage

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Unine Van den Berg ◽  
Jean-Pierre Labuschagne ◽  
Hugo Van den Berg
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Competitive Advantages ◽  
Latent Constructs ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Environmental Goals ◽  
The City ◽  
Strength Of Association ◽  
Managerial Innovation

Companies in South Africa should realise the important influence of greening their suppliers and of innovation to achieve environmental goals and competitive advantages. In order to prove this, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 75 companies from 11 industries in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality region, South Africa. A confirmatory factor analysis was done, followed by bivariate correlations to determine the strength of association between the latent constructs. Correlations between greening the supplier, innovation, environmental performance and competitive advantages were done. The research found that a green innovative process had a significant effect on environmental performance. Green managerial innovation further had a significant correlation with competitive advantage. The primary result of the study indicated that all the constructs positively related to each other, meaning that greening suppliers, by means of green innovation, leads to an enhanced environmental performance and to competitive advantages.

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