ESF/N-AERUS International Workshop Leuven and Brussels, Belgium, 23-26 May 2001 COPING WITH INFORMALITY AND ILLEGALITY IN HUMAN SETTLEMENTS IN DEVELOPING CITIES WORKSHOP PAPERS

Marie Huchzermeyer

From "contravention of laws" to "lack of rights":
redefining the problem of informal settlements in South Africa

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ABSTRACT

The problem of informal settlements in South Africa has been defined from a technocratic perspective, with a focus on the illegality of the land occupation and the nature of the building.
This definition, which has promoted the disruptive replacement of such settlements with formal, standardised units, is based on assumptions that have long been proven incorrect by academic studies. However, the academic discourse on this topic, while highlighting incompatibilities in the intervention, has not presented an alternative definition of informality. Consequently, it has not impacted on the political discourse on informal settlements in South Africa, which has maintained continuity with the bureaucratic approach that was mainstreamed in the 1980s, though having roots in pre-apartheid practice. A redefinition of informality in human settlements, and its promotion, is urgently required in order for politicians and their bureaucrats in South Africa to recognise and adequately respond to the reality of land invasions and informal settlements.

This paper begins by discussing the technocratic definition of informality in urban settlements in South Africa, and describes the key consequence for informal settlement intervention, namely the standardised and product-oriented nature of the intervention approach. More broadly, it discusses how the urban management system has attempted (and continues to attempt) coping with informality. With reference to documented cases, the paper highlights some of the problems that are entrenched through this approach, including social division, displacement, increased segregation and new economic burdens.

The paper then asks how informal settlements would be more appropriately defined, as a basis for a more adequate approach for coping with this phenomenon. The attempt in this paper is to define informality not from the experience of the bureaucracy, but from the experience of those living in informality. The legal focus then is not on the contravention of laws, but on the lack of formal rights, including the lack of protection from the infringement of rights by others, including the state. This focus would not lead to a condemnation of the practice of informally occupying land (in the contravention of laws), but to a condemnation of the exploitative and repressive practices that such informality enables. It is the relationship between the lack of formal rights and the lack of empowerment, that allow for exploitation by politicians, by irresponsible or even repressive bureaucracies, and by informally operating groups or individuals (in the control over land, access to services, commercial activities etc.).

This definition of informality then goes beyond the concept, first promoted internationally in the 1960s, that squatter settlements are not a problem but a solution. It recognises that informality in itself is no real solution, unless the appropriate protection of rights is ensured. This definition also recognises that an informal settlement is not simply a collection of individual households that have found a solution to their housing need. Informal settlements are invariably a collective effort to secure access to land and shelter. Collectively, they continue seeking the protection of their rights. It is through the individualisation imposed through the current intervention approach in South Africa, that such collective endeavours are weakened if not destroyed. Indeed, the assumption in the standardised intervention approach is that housing needs are adequately met through the standardised intervention, and that collective endeavours are no longer required.

In the final section, the paper asks whether an alternative intervention approach may lead from the recognition of informality as the lack of rights, rather than the contravention of laws. Can this definition lead to more adequate ways of coping with informality in human settlements? At the scale of the individual settlement, responsive politicians and their bureaucracies would seek to support the collective endeavours of informal settlement residents to regulate access to land, shelter and services, and thereby to ensure the protection of rights. In South Africa, the powerful entitlement of poor citizens to an individualised housing product (through the national housing policy) is an obstacle to responsive politicians and bureaucracies. Therefore, it is only through a separation of informal settlement intervention from the mechanisms of housing delivery in South Africa, that a more responsive approach may be achieved.

N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net