Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town
In South Africa there is no national mandate or coherent policy framework around the issue of homelessness. Therefore no budget, laws or policies can be used to mobilize and unify the actors involved in the governance of homelessness. This, accompanied by an out of date City of Cape Town Street Peop...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Sociology
2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613241330368512 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Cousins, Danica |
| author2 | Selmeczi, Anna |
| author_browse | Cousins, Danica Selmeczi, Anna |
| author_facet | Selmeczi, Anna Cousins, Danica |
| author_sort | Cousins, Danica |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | In South Africa there is no national mandate or coherent policy framework around the issue of homelessness. Therefore no budget, laws or policies can be used to mobilize and unify the actors involved in the governance of homelessness. This, accompanied by an out of date City of Cape Town Street People Policy, has left the question of "who is responsible for service provision to street-based people'' ambiguous and politically inflammatory. This study explores the value of understanding the problem of homelessness and the way it is governed at a local level. Therefore, it examines how the multiple and varied understandings of street-based people affect governance of the issue of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town. To do so, an ethnographic case study approach was combined with Watson's theory of Conflicting Rationalities and used to examine the sociological experiences of street-based people. What resulted was a framework which allowed the “logics and imperatives” of homelessness to be understood through a rationality of survival. Approaching an investigation of homelessness through this rationality validates and reasons with the experiences and survivalist activities of street-based people. To investigate the governance of homelessness in the Ward, data from multiple in-depth interviews and fieldwork observations was analysed through a nodal governance framework. The results indicate that nodes whose engagement with street-based people is motivated by the complaints of, and their responsibility to City and Ward residents, deploy reactive technologies. Alternatively, nodes whose primary responsibility is to street-based people employ a variety of developmental responses. The success of a developmental response is largely reliant on effective partnerships. However, organisational pride and competition for funding present significant challenges to these partnerships and, therefore to the effective governance of homelessness. The case study presented in this thesis highlights the value of Ward level research and interventions into homelessness. Accepting that street-based people are not a homogenous group leads to an understanding that homelessness will not present the same in different areas. Therefore, the facilitation of realistic and meaningful strategies to govern homelessness requires a local understanding of the interaction between the multiple rationalities of both street-based people and governance stakeholders. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37847 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:01.081Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | Department of Sociology |
| publisherStr | Department of Sociology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37847 Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town Cousins, Danica Selmeczi, Anna Smit, Warren sociology In South Africa there is no national mandate or coherent policy framework around the issue of homelessness. Therefore no budget, laws or policies can be used to mobilize and unify the actors involved in the governance of homelessness. This, accompanied by an out of date City of Cape Town Street People Policy, has left the question of "who is responsible for service provision to street-based people'' ambiguous and politically inflammatory. This study explores the value of understanding the problem of homelessness and the way it is governed at a local level. Therefore, it examines how the multiple and varied understandings of street-based people affect governance of the issue of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town. To do so, an ethnographic case study approach was combined with Watson's theory of Conflicting Rationalities and used to examine the sociological experiences of street-based people. What resulted was a framework which allowed the “logics and imperatives” of homelessness to be understood through a rationality of survival. Approaching an investigation of homelessness through this rationality validates and reasons with the experiences and survivalist activities of street-based people. To investigate the governance of homelessness in the Ward, data from multiple in-depth interviews and fieldwork observations was analysed through a nodal governance framework. The results indicate that nodes whose engagement with street-based people is motivated by the complaints of, and their responsibility to City and Ward residents, deploy reactive technologies. Alternatively, nodes whose primary responsibility is to street-based people employ a variety of developmental responses. The success of a developmental response is largely reliant on effective partnerships. However, organisational pride and competition for funding present significant challenges to these partnerships and, therefore to the effective governance of homelessness. The case study presented in this thesis highlights the value of Ward level research and interventions into homelessness. Accepting that street-based people are not a homogenous group leads to an understanding that homelessness will not present the same in different areas. Therefore, the facilitation of realistic and meaningful strategies to govern homelessness requires a local understanding of the interaction between the multiple rationalities of both street-based people and governance stakeholders. 2023-04-28T10:13:21Z 2023-04-28T10:13:21Z 2022 2023-04-28T10:13:03Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37847 eng application/pdf Department of Sociology Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | sociology Cousins, Danica Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| title_full | Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| title_fullStr | Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| title_full_unstemmed | Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| title_short | Conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in Ward 64, Cape Town |
| title_sort | conflicting rationalities and the governance of homelessness in ward 64 cape town |
| topic | sociology |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37847 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT cousinsdanica conflictingrationalitiesandthegovernanceofhomelessnessinward64capetown |