Experiencing space and place in Grahamstown's informal settlements

Coetzee, Jan K; Houssay-Holzschuch, Myriam; O'Reilly, Caroline

Title: Experiencing space and place in Grahamstown's informal settlements
Title: Research report series, no. 1
Creator: Coetzee, Jan K
Creator: Houssay-Holzschuch, Myriam
Creator: O'Reilly, Caroline
Subject: Black people -- housing -- South Africa -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Squatters -- South Africa -- Grahamstown -- interviews
Date Issued: 1999
Date: 1999
Type: Book
Type: Text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2623
Identifier: vital:20310
Identifier: ISBN 0868103616
Description: In this research the relationship between people and the space they occupy will be looked at. In doing so, we shall see how people enter into a relationship with their environment in order to create out of material at their disposal, a shelter wherein they can live. By erecting a structure which serves as a house, the people involved in this project do essentially the same as other people in other parts of the world, who create a dwelling that provides protection against the climate and the elements in nature. A question to be raised, is extent their (i.e. the people involved in this project) entering into a relationship with their environment, was forced into a particular direction because of a set of political and economic factors. What are the political and economic factors which impact on the manner of building houses in the informal residential areas of Grahamstown? Traditional housing in France, for example, differs from region to region and has been shaped over long periods of time by the climate, family structures, the availability of land, modes of production, etc. One finds that large vine-growing families from the Mediterranean South of France live in fairly big villages; individual farmers of Brittany dwell in small, slate-roofed houses which are isolated among enclosed fields; pastoral communities in the Alps undertake seasonal moves up or down the slopes of the mountains and share their space during winter with their cattle. The way in which these families and/or communities have come to shape their lifeworlds, was not exposed to the same kind of determining factors as, for instance, in South Africa in general and in Grahamstown in particular. Notwithstanding political and economic determinants, it is clear that residents of informal houses in the Grahamstown area draw to a large extent from tradition with regards to the kind of shelters which they build (cf. the many mud-and-stick constructions). Similarly the settlement of people impacts on nature. Elements of the environment inform certain choices, but people interpret their natural environment and will erect shelters in terms of these interpretations. In addition there are the issues of how people orientate themselves in terms of important landmarks, what kind of representation they have of the future they are moving towards and which values do they draw from or attribute to their physical environment. The landscape surrounding people, contains and reflects cultural information. Important landmarks express aspects of life: the past, the present and the future.
Description: Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Format: 50 pages
Format: pdf
Publisher: Rhodes University, Institute of Social and Economic Research
Language: English
Relation: Research report series, no. 1
Rights: Rhodes University
Rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

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