| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article, written in response to recent arguments about whether or not shack dwellers can exercise historical agency, outlines the history of shack dwellers' struggles in the South African city of Durban. The sections looking at struggles under colonialism and apartheid and the nature of the post-apartheid deal with regard to housing draw on the extensive literature on these questions. The final section, which gives an outline of the emergence, nature and experience of the shack dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, is written from a first-hand engagement. The article concludes that in contemporary Durban organized shack dwellers are constituting a major challenge to technocratic conceptions of democracy
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