(An)other space is possible : an exploration of the conflicts and contestations in the realisation of a “democratising” Public Space in the City of Tshwane

Abstract

This thesis explores societal and municipal perceptions and meanings of urban public spaces in the City of Tshwane (CoT). Focus is placed on how these perceptions and meanings contribute to the conflict and contestations over the realisation of democratic urban public spaces. Focussing on three case studies of different urban public space typologies in the City of Tshwane, namely; Jubilee square, Magnolia Dell Park, and Rietondale Park, the study interrogates how society’s perceptions of urban public spaces on the one hand, and municipal official’s ideas and conceptualisations of space on the other hand, contribute to the contestations and conflicts over the realisation of democratic urban public spaces in the City of Tshwane. Predicated on the qualitative research methodology and thematic data analysis, the thesis relies on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, documentation reviews and on site observations as data collection strategies. The thesis is premised upon the argument that urban planning seeks to produce, shape, and control urban public spaces through its legal and institutional apparatus. At the same time, society seeks to resist such controls through its uses of and practices in space as part of its efforts to realise its socio-economic, religious, cultural, and political needs. In other words, there is a contestation for the production of democratic urban public space by both urban planning as an institution and society to meet their respective needs, and to engage with space in ways that are meaningful to their everyday experiences. Using Henri Lefebvre's theory of space production and his spatial triad, alongside David Harvey’s conceptualisation of space, the thesis found that the parks under study are made and remade by societies contentious processes of physical and psychological appropriation of space on the one hand, and municipal efforts of sanitisation and domination on the other. These processes are embedded in notions of belonging, resistance, citizenship, planning aspiration and societal needs. As such, the thesis proposes a conceptual framework for understanding how democratic urban public spaces are made and remade through the inter- and intra-play between these different notions and the implications for future planning. The thesis offers a shifting of perspectives from democratic urban public space as a means to an end, but rather positions it as a continued process of democratising space through conflict and contest. Therefore, the thesis argues for a “democratising public space” instead of a “democratic public space” as an(other) space possible in a democratic dispensation. This is a shift from the noun to the verb reinforcing the idea that democracy in space should mean continued actions (doing) and evolving meanings and experiences that conflict and contest, not a state of absolute existence which suggests a semantic category as the noun proposes.