This article laments the exclusion of small, local communities, voices and visions,
from participating in making the city. It makes a case for ‘small communities’ practising
resistance and reconstruction in multiple ways and places. Instead of viewing such
actions as naïve or a-political, it calls for an understanding of such practices as
alternatives to ‘top-down’ urban processes, and, as such, representing a different
and necessary, critical political imagination. In doing so, it fuses insights from equity
planning theories, praxis-based liberation theological approaches, and emancipatory
community development approaches. It argues that communities, aware of the forces
that would seek to tear them apart, can play a significant role in making cities ‘from
below’. This, it is argued, would be even more possible through such communities
finding each other, and nurturing deep solidarities, until broad-based, interconnected
movements take shape, embodying concrete signs of wholeness.
Die artikel betreur die uitsluiting van klein plaaslike gemeenskappe, stemme en visies van deelname in stadsbouprosesse. ’n Saak word gemaak vir ‘klein gemeenskappe’ wat op verskeie maniere en in verskillende plekke weerstand bied en heropbou. In plaas daarvan om sulke praktyke as naïef of a-polities te sien, maak die artikel ’n oproep tot die verstaan van sulke praktyke as alternatiewe tot stedelike prosesse ‘van bo af’, en as verteenwoordigend van ’n ander en noodsaaklike, kritiese politieke verbeelding. In die proses vermeng dit insigte van ekwiteitsbeplanningsteorieë, praxis-gebaseerde bevrydingsteologieë, en emansiperende gemeenskapsontwikkelingsprosesse. Daar word gesuggereer dat gemeenskappe, bewus van die kragte wat hulle wil verdeel, ’n betekenisvolle rol kan speel in stadsbouprossese ‘van onder af’. Die bewering word gemaak dat dit selfs meer moontlik sou wees as sulke gemeenskappe mekaar sou vind en ’n diep solidariteit met mekaar sou kweek, totdat breë-gebaseerde, verbinde bewegings vorm begin aanneem, en konkrete tekens van heelheid beliggaam.
Atikele ena e lla/tletleba ka ho tlohellwa
kantle ha ditjhaba tse nnyane tsa
selehae, mantswe a tsona le pono ya
tsona, ho nkeng karolo bakeng sa ho
etsa/thea toropo. Atikele e etsa nyewe
bakeng sa “ditjhaba tse nnyane” tse
etsang kganyetso le kaho botjha ka
mekgwa e mengata le dibakeng tse
ngata. Ntle le ho sheba di ketsahalo tse
tjena jwalo ka tse se nang boiphihlelo
kapa tsa sepolotiki, ho batlahala
kutlwisiso diketsahalong tse tjena,
jwalo ka dikgetho bakeng sa mekgwa
ya setoropo ya ho tloha hodimo ho ya
tlase (top-down urban processes), mme
ka mokgwa oo, e tlisa dipono ho tswa
ho ditheori tsa thero tekano, mekgwa
ya theori ya tokoloho e itshetlehileng
hodima praxis (praxis-based liberation
theoretical approaches), le mekgwa ya
ntshetsopele ya setjhaba sa tokoloho
(emancipatory community development
approaches). Atikele ena e hlalosa
hore ditjhaba, tse elang hloko matla a
ka batlang ho di kgaola ka lehare, di
ka bapala karolo ya bohlokwa bakeng
sa ho etsa ditoropo “ho tswa tlase”.
Ho ngangisanwa ka hore sena se ka
kgonahala haholo ka hore ditjhaba di
fumanane/fihlellane, hape le ho hodisa
kopano e tiileng, ho fihlella mekgatlo
e kopaneng e nka sebaka; e bontsha
matshwao a tsitsitseng a kopano.
