Urban slums in Durban, South Africa

Speaker: Kamna Patel, UCL

The in situ upgrade of slums is widely considered global best practice in approaches to urban poverty management. This talk presents some of the findings of an investigation into the effects of in situ upgrade on the vulnerability and resilience of residents in three slum settlements in Durban. The study examined the relationships between tenure and vulnerability by identifying and exploring how changes to tenure security, introduced by the upgrade process, affect individuals’ exposure to risk and ability to cope, and the ways in which identity and social relations influence those effects. The data are drawn from twenty-four thnographies of residents living in three settlements each at different stages of upgrade. The presentation will focus on two central findings of the research that challenge convention on upgrading: the first concerns the conceptualisation of tenure security, and the second, the influence of upgrading on intrasettlement power relations

Part of the Fifty Years of African Studies series