Abstract:
In his thesis, Mother bird hovering over the city: space, spirituality
and a community-based urban praxis, the promovendus adopted a
trans-disciplinary, praxis-approach to consider participatory, critical and
liberationist planning and city-building processes. His journey was about the
soul of the city, embodied in its spaces and its people. It reflected on unfolding
urban spaces, tracing dynamics in the Berea-Burgers Park neighbourhood of
Tshwane’s inner city between 1993 and 2016. The narratives emerging from
this neighbourhood was brought into conversation with a range of other
narratives, hoping to discern and propose a vision for a community-based
urban praxis.
The journey originated from a deliberate option for the city’s most vulnerable
people, hoping to contribute towards a city characterised by radical forms of
inclusion, sustainability and justice. It recognised that space is not neutral and
spatial constructs are shaped by deep value frameworks that are prejudiced,
exclusive and oppressive, or equalising, inclusive, and life-affirming. What the
promovendus sought to discern and outline was a spirituality that can infuse
planning praxis and spatial thinking: making spaces that will mediate dignity,
justice and well-being.
Part I of the study considered a new epistemology, identity and methodology,
expressed in the metaphor of “becoming like children”, requiring a new selfunderstanding
for those involved in planning, city-building or place-making,
but also amongst urban citizens and vulnerable urban dwellers: to reclaim
their own voice and agency in processes of city-making.
In Part II of the study, after describing and deconstructing urban spaces and
discourses in a contextual-narrative way, a spirituality and ethic of urban space
are developed. It argues for a radical shift from planning as bureaucracy and
technocracy, to planning as immersed, participatory artistry: opening up to
the “genius” or (S)pirit of space – the Mother bird – hovering over urban
spaces, responsive to urban cries, of humans and earth alike, and inviting us to
be co-constructors of new and surprising spaces, mending and making whole.
