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Another political ecology of civil society
reexiveness against urban industrial risks for
environmental justice: The case of the Bisasar
landll, Durban, South Africa
Llewellyn Leonard
Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Correspondence: Llewellyn Leonard (email: pdf4@uj.ac.za)
The concerns of political ecology since its beginnings as a eld have been predominantly set in rural
areas with limited focus on urban industrial risks. Further, debates on the global South (often from
Anglo-American perspectives) have not fully appreciated the divergent and differentiated percep-
tions of urban risks and, therefore, everyday forms of resistance within civil society. Instead, work
has mainly focused on civil society power relations against the state and industry that are driven
by coherent populist political agendas. Against this setting, this papers contribution aims to better
contextualize other third world localities in political ecology through a case study of urban
industrial risks in the upper/middle income (as opposed to rural, low/lower middle income)
country, South Africa. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the derelict aspect of civil society
contestation, especially along class and ethnic lines, over urban landll infrastructure as a liveli-
hood resource or a health hazard. The paper draws upon frameworks of self-reexivity and
reexive localism as complementary to the mainstream political ecology to illuminate differenti-
ated civil society reexiveness and therefore, aims to advance the discussion of other political
ecologies. The case study of the largest formal landll site in Africa, the Bisasar landll situated in
Durban, highlights differences underlying power relations and constraints within civil society (in
leadership, social networking, resources and mistrust) that have implications for mainstream
political ecology notions of civil society coherence.
Keywords: Bisasar landll, civil society, Durban, environmental justice, political ecology, risk
society
Introduction
Despite the wide-ranging debates in political ecology since the 1980s, there has been
limited focus on urban risks, with much of that literature concentrated on the developed
world (Heynen, 2003; Schubert, 2005). The traditional literature has generally been
biased towards the rural agrarian sector (Bryant & Jarosz, 2004; Neumann, 2005) and
concerns of population growth (Bryant, 1997), poverty and poor peasants (Peet &
Watts, 2004) and biodiversity and indigenous knowledge (Escobar, 1999). Despite
political ecology recently moving beyond the focus on rural landscapes in developing
countries to involve the study of societyenvironment interactions in urban contexts
(the subeld of urban political ecology), research has mostly been on natural resources,
with limited applicability to explicate urban environmental risks
1
(Veron, 2006). This is
notwithstanding an evolving urban political ecology exploring the interconnected pro-
cesses within the urbanization progression as one of the driving forces behind environ-
mental issues and a place where socioenvironmental problems are experienced
more acutely (see Heynen et al., 2006). Despite rapid urbanization (and increased
exposure to social and environmental risks), however, political ecology studies on Africa
have remained mostly rural (Moffat & Finnis, 2005). The eld thus requires increased
bs_bs_banner
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9493.2012.00448.x
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 33 (2012) 7792
2012 The Author
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 2012 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and
Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
consideration of geographic scale to reach neglected sites and advance new avenues of
research since environmental and social processes intertwine creating different scales of
relations producing distinctive (other) political ecologies (Zimmerer & Bassett, 2003).
In addition to the restricted scoping of urban industrial risks in the global South, the
eld has limitedly explored the divergent perceptions of environmental risks by different
civil society groupings. The lacuna in turn hinders better understanding of Southern
civil society in which differentiated perceptions and discourses inuence the
in/coherence of civil society actions and contextualize other geographic urban localities.
Grove (2009) highlights that (urban) political ecology ignores the contested meaning of
the nonhuman in urban areas (e.g. landll waste sites). Vayda and Walters (1999)
observe political ecologys treatment of human communities as fairly homogeneous,
while Brown and Purcell (2005) highlight the local trap in political ecologys narrow
assumption that action at the local level will produce desirable outcomes. According to
Neumann (2005), the eld has marginally explored the micro politics within commu-
nities and everyday forms of resistance that shape the political ecology of localities.
Indeed, the traditional focus has been on the political agency of social movements and
struggles of poor people against alliances of industry and state capitalist developments
(Forsyth, 2004; Bryant & Jarosz, 2004), and driven by coherent populist political
agendas (Paulson et al., 2003) while neglecting links with livelihood struggles and class
conict (Forsyth, 2004). Forsyth (2008) notes that the focus on a social movement
approach overlooks how less powerful voices within civil society may be swept into
hegemonic conceptions associated with the middle class losing sight of the material and
industrial risks faced by the poor. Within this context, Peet and Watts (1996) question
how populist language articulates between the people and those who rule.
Addressed to such epistemological gaps in mainstream political ecology, I challenge
the widely perceived notion of civil society as a coherent entity and the lack of focus on
urban industrial risks. In so doing, civil society reexiveness is examined through the
case study of the largest formal landll site in Africa, the Bisasar landll in Durban,
South Africa (Figure 1) by exploring differentiated contexts of other political ecologies.
In particular, the notion of reexivity offers a useful tool to highlight other civil society
reexiveness in the local actions against urban risks emanating from the landll.
Opened in 1980 during the apartheid era, in the largely Indian suburb of Clare Estate in
Durban, Bisasars closure in 1987 was postponed by nine years by the local government
agency managing the dumpsite, Durban Solid Waste (DSW). Yet, even in 1996, during
the post-apartheid democracy, local government not only renewed the landll permit
but did so without local community consultation, thereby sustaining the racist political
ecology of apartheid that had shaped Clare Estate by the placing of a landll in a
nonwhite area (GAIA, 2011: 2).
After apartheid laws were relaxed, African residents moved into Clare Estate and
set up informal shacks beside Kennedy Road around the landll. Many of these informal
residents
2
had been displaced without compensation from their ancestral homes by
the land acquisition in 1986 for the Inanda Dam to supply Durban with water. These
informal residents turned to picking off the landll for material resources given the
high unemployment prevailing (GAIA, 2011: 2). While the Indian middle class residents
have continued to push for landll closure for health concerns, the African residents
have resisted this. The intersection of ethnicity and class at the local civil society
level and interactions with external civil society is explored to highlight how a lack of
civil society coherence over urban landll infrastructure as a livelihood resource or a
health hazard shapes reexiveness and collective action during engagements with
78 Llewellyn Leonard
government, and hence the political ecology of other localities. This paper contributes to
the differentiated notion/contestation of landlls, which has been insufciently studied
in both the South and the North.
I proceed rst with a brief discussion of South African urban risks and civil society
literature in relation to political ecology, before discussing political ecology and civil
society contestations. Additionally, self-reexivity and reexive localism theories are
discussed to provide insight into political ecologys narrow focus on civil society coher-
ence and to contribute to an understanding of other political ecologies. This will serve
as a framework for examining civil society engagements to organize and respond to risks
created by the landll in Durban. The case study is presented, followed by discussions
and some concluding reections on the implications of mainstream political ecologys
authorship and interpretive predominance in denitions and truths surrounding civil
society (and urban industrial risks) in the global South.
South African political ecology, industrial risks and civil society differentiation
Contemporary political ecology in South Africa is inuenced by the racial politics of
colonial and apartheid rule, and subsequent democratic transition. The apartheid state
segregated the layout of the urban environment by placing black townships next to
polluting industries (Sparks, 2006). Industries were also placed next to townships to
facilitate access to cheap labour (Maylam, 1990; Peek, 2002). Durban served as a model
for urban segregation practices given its developed administrative control over the
African population. The transition from apartheid to democratic rule saw the newly
elected African National Congress (ANC) leadership embrace free market macroeco-
nomic policies that sustained a legacy of unsteady political economy and unequal
distribution of social and environmental risks (Ballard et al., 2005). This perpetuated the
existence of what Moore et al. (2003) term the geographies of exclusion entailing racial
segregation in both natural and deled space. Smith and Ruiters (2006) refer to the
governmentality of the South African states turning to privatization of common
resources via a depoliticized external provider. Here the practice of the everyday is
normalized to conform to a particular political ecology framework, where local
authorities transform poor citizens into self-managed consumers and serve up
Figure 1. Showing the location of the Bisasar landll site, and the formal and informal settlements in Clare
Estate, Durban, South Africa.
Source: Adapted from GAIA (2011: 1).
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 79
technological solutions such as unaffordable prepaid water meters. Distributional
inequalities mean that many communities still lack basic needs (Ndlovu, 2007), with
class and race inequalities exacerbated and poverty in urban areas amplied (Bond,
2004). This puts the coherence of civil society actions especially along race and class
lines into question as political ecological struggles unfold against a risk society.
3
The ANCs embrace of commerce encouraged the policy of demobilizing the civil
society organizations that had propelled them into power (Bryant, 2008). With many
civil society leaders moving into government, the relationship between the state and
organizations in civil society became characterized by collaboration (Glaser, 1997). Civic
leaders became self-serving and alienated constituencies (Mayekiso, 1996). Even the
South African National Civic Organization, launched in 1992, lost many leaders to
government (Seekings, 1997). As the civic movement became fragmented, lacking
coherence and a sense of direction and purpose (Glaser, 1997), civil society organization
and opposition against industrial risks became stymied (Mackay & Mathoho, 2001).
Moreover, ANC-dominated African civics and loyalists have failed to resist government
neoliberal policies causing environmental injustice (Matlala, 2009).
Although popular black engagement with environmental politics (although limited)
began with the radical change in political climate, there has been no coherent ideology
between the diversity of struggles in positioning social and environmental concerns: in
short, there is no framework that links environment and race, class, gender and social
justice concerns (McDonald, 2002; Cock, 2007). Social justice concerns closest to inter-
ests of people, such as water, electricity and housing, have been the dominant focus,
with inadequate engagement on urban industrial risks (Leonard & Pelling, 2010;
Leonard, 2011; Naidoo & Veriava, 2003). As Bond and Dugard (2008) highlight, the
majority of the 5900 or so protests recorded by the South African Police between 2004
and 2005 were about basic needs. Furthermore, according to Bond (2008) committed
academics of the apartheid era, who connected struggles during the 1980s, moved far
to the right in the post-apartheid 1990s, and no longer mobilized across the left during
the 2000s. Apart from shifting positions in a changing political climate, the political
violence in KwaZulu-Natal townships also led to a decline of Durban civic organizations
from the late 1980s to early 1990s (Mamdani, 1996; Bond, 2004). This violence was in
part an outcome of the structural defects of organized civil society that remained
conned to urban townships without extending into constituencies in the countryside
(Mamdani, 1996). As a result, some organizations compromised by the violence such as
in Mpumalanga Township in Durban disappeared or lost their political will and are only
recently starting to re-emerge (Mosoetsa, 2005). Taken together, these diverse chal-
lenges have limited civil society coherence and reexiveness against urban industrial
risks.
Despite community challenges, the industrial South Durban Basin home to two
major industries and several hazardous waste dumps (Peek, 2002) has a history of civic
struggle addressing urban pollution issues (Chari, 2008; Scott & Barnett, 2009). One of
the earliest civil society actions in south Durban since the dismantling of apartheid rule
in 1994 was in mid 1995 when approximately 1000 residents protested for closure of the
Umlazi hazardous waste landll, which was built in 1986 to accommodate toxic indus-
trial waste from Durban (Wiley et al., 2002). Various civil society strategic actions nally
saw it closed on 28 February 1997. Civil society actions were also successful in 1997
against the attempt by Mondi, the international paper and packaging company, to
expand its hazardous waste dumpsite in the direction of a residential area: the dump
was closed by 31 July 1999 (Peek, 2002).
80 Llewellyn Leonard
Despite these successful historical campaigns, however, south Durban civil society
has been too fragmented to respond coherently to urban industrial risks. For example,
the leadership of Merebank Residents Association, a mainly middle class Indian
community-based organization formed in the 1960s to tackle social and environmental
issues of concern, got entangled with the leadership of the Merebank Indian Ratepayers
Association over the right to speak for all Indians in south Durban. The coloured
community subsequently formed the Wentworth Development Forum in the 1990s to
respond to social and environmental local concerns, but to no avail (Sparks, 2006).
Recognizing the fragmentation within and between ethnic community groups in south
Durban, the community-based South Durban Community Environmental Alliance was
established in 1996 to link local concerns across racial boundaries and respond system-
atically to pollution issues. However, the alliance has failed to connect with the ANC-
afliated African township leaders from Lamontville and Umlazi (Barnett & Scott,
2007). Disparities also exist between community organizations that accepted corporate
funding and the alliance, which does not (Leonard, 2011). Thus civic organizations vary
when responding to industrial risks.
Unfortunately, compounding the neglect by mainstream political ecologists of urban
originating social and environmental risks in the South (Heynen et al., 2006) are the
inuences of specic historical processes such as apartheid in South Africa that contrib-
ute to differentiated understandings of political ecology (see Bryant, 1997). According to
Moore et al. (2003), apartheid is interwoven from the threads of race and nature, and as
Davis (2009) notes, political ecology requires historical depth to explain contemporary
situations. A political ecology of environmental justice investigates how geographies are
encoded with or stripped of racial markers, including what would be the social meanings
and political consequences of this process (Di Chiro, 2003).
Mainstream political ecology and civil society differentiation
Civil society institutions, distinct from those of the state, question the relations between
civil society and the environment that political ecology has not considered sufciently,
including varying discourses and ideologies between competing and conicting cultural,
racial, gender, class and regional differences
4
(Peet & Watts, 1996). Referring to main-
stream political ecologys applicability to third world environmental research and the
typical rst world problem-solving role it assumes, Bryant (1997) points to the limited
attentionpaid to race and class indifferentiating the poor. Eventhe recent corpus of urban
political ecology neglects detailed analysis of class, race and sociopolitical marginality
(Byrne et al., 2007). Yet, within specic ethnic and cultural groups, there may be
competing discourses over meanings that inuence how struggles unfold (Bebbington,
1996). Political power involves contestation between social actors for control of discourse
on the urban environment (Bryant & Bailey, 1997; Heynen et al., 2006), exemplied in
this paper by the argument over solid waste as a livelihood resource or a health hazard
(Pelling, 1999) and consequent divergent perceptions of risks (Campbell &Currie, 2006).
As such, the need for political ecology to engage fully with issues of urban risks must also
include resource access and control including the material resources derived from waste
(Moffat & Finnis, 2005). Nevertheless, contestation within civil society can take multiple
political, social and discursive forms little explored by political ecology (Peet & Watts,
2004). Although urban political ecology is beginning to explore the interconnected
processes within urban centres, it is largely conned to conicts between civil society, the
state and the private sector (see Heynen et al., 2006).
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 81
In addition, risks produced are distributed disproportionately between social actors
and ethnic groups, reinforcing or ameliorating social and economic inequalities (Newell,
2005; Veron, 2006) as some social groups benet and others lose from environmental
changes, and some may or not be offered solutions to risks because of diverse ethnic and
class biases (Newell, 2005). Thus, Bebbington et al. (2008) and Di Chiro (2003) question
the celebratory and nonimperializing formulations of the gathering together impulse of
common people that obscure real differences in race and class, livelihood and surviv-
ability, and, pertinently, power and environmental consequences that may be undemo-
cratic or authoritarian. Therefore, there is a need to understand the ways that social
actors are situated and how this inuences their rationalities, which is a step forward in
analyzing the practical association between political ecology and civil society for a
reconguration of political ecology (Bebbington, 1996). Thus, questions of the robust-
ness of civil society itself must be raised by political ecology to theorize other political
ecologies and for the research eld to grow systemically.
Civil society, self-reexivity and reexive localism in a network society
There are different ways to respond effectively to political ecologys lack of focus on
urban industrial risks and ensuing struggles within civil society over these risks.
Neumann (2005) and Moore et al. (2003) contend that despite its mostly rural (but
evolving urban) focus, political ecologys theorizing of the linkages among local social
and environmental change and large-scale political-economic processes on environ-
mental inequalities are conducive to urban research. Political ecology can assess envi-
ronmental risks in social, economic and political terms and associated power relations
(Bryant & Bailey, 1997). According to Pelling (1999), political and socioeconomic
analysis is placed at the centre of a political ecological framework for the study of urban
environmental risks. Environmental justice shares with rural political ecology an inter-
est in explanations for the distribution of environmental risks and benets of develop-
ment. However, Robbins (2004) argues that urban political ecology must expand
beyond simply risk distribution (including civil society as a coherent force against
hegemonic interests). Ekers et al. (2009) point to how Gramscis concept of hegemony
can assist in understanding how discursive power is constructed, with hegemony focus-
ing on the forms that power takes, and the terrain of constraint and opportunity it helps
determine. Gramsci could bring to political ecology an awareness of how hegemony is
achieved through particular spaces and natures, including how different social groups
construct their hegemony through altering the ecologies of different landscapes.
For the focus of this paper, it is suggested that political ecologys lack of emphasis on
civil society reecting on itself can gain insight from the frameworks of self-reexivity
and reexive localism as a form of other political ecological contextual analysis. An
examination of the basic premises of these frameworks will help to explore civil society
differentiation against urban risks. Civil society reexiveness in a risk society means
dealing with reective action (strategic and planned decision making) and reexive
action (action orientated spontaneous protest action; see Beck, 1992), with reective
and reexive actions tied together in a complex relationship (Eliott, 2002). Although
risk society theory like political ecology is not without limitations (Bulkeley, 2001),
reexivity can usefully assist to explore another political ecology of civil society reex-
iveness for actions against urban industrial risk. Besides structural reexivity (civil
society reecting on government and industry practices), which political ecology has
largely examined, self-reexivity (civil society reecting on itself) can help political
82 Llewellyn Leonard
ecology expand its research agenda to include other political ecological contexts. Self-
reexivity deals with analyzing knowledgeably from ones own situation and semantic
backgrounds, relationships and lifestyle afnity groups (Lash, 1994). It is a confronta-
tion with the self and others (Gaylard, 2002) potentially improving the quality of
relationships (Nagata, 2004).
Relating to self-reexivity, DuPuis and Goodman (2005) refer to a reexive localism,
drawing attention to social relations and the politics of power at the local level. Unre-
exive localism, however, leads to a potentially undemocratic and unrepresentative
inequality, and defensive militant particularism. Reexive localism can potentially
gather diverse groups to investigate and discuss ways of changing their society whilst
dealing with conicts and differences between people. Reexive localism not only
emphasizes social relations and power asymmetries between civil society, the state and
industry, but also sheds light on a reexive conceptualization of localism and social
classes (Goodman & Goodman, 2007). According to DuPuis and Block (2008) localiza-
tion is tied to notions of participation and community empowerment. Bebbington
(1996) also calls for a reconguration of political ecology for analyzing the association
between political ecology and civil society (especially at the micro level). The lens of
self-reexivity and reective localism theories can assist mainstream political ecology,
through other political ecology perspectives, to move its research agenda beyond
romanticizing civil society coherence (against urban industrial risks).
Case study ndings
The data used is from eldwork conducted over several months in 2007 as part of my
doctoral research (Leonard, 2009). Semistructured interviews on the Bisasar landll
were conducted with civil society actors, including the 10 key informants cited here: a
local community leader/representative, nongovernmental organization (NGO) leaders/
representatives (n=2), academics (n=4), media representatives (n=2), and a local gov-
ernment representative. A purposive sampling design allowed me to judge who were
likely to provide the best information for the research, while snowballing referred me to
other informants. My previous work as an activist in Durban and with residents of both
the formal and informal settlements of Clare Estate surrounding the Bisasar landll gave
me access to civil society actors. Sometimes interviews could not take place, such as that
with a grassroots resident who preferred that I speak to the informal leader who
understood concerns of the informal settlement. Also, the formal residents leader
initially had been too ill to speak and subsequently passed away from cancer. Data
collection was aimed at gathering the views of key social actors, including those residing
within the grassroots community. In order to enhance understanding of the other
political ecology of civil society reexiveness against urban industrial (landll) risk, data
analysis employed grounded theory and open coding to identify themes. Six key themes
cutting across the various relationships of civil society engagements were identied:
leadership, social networking, resources, mobilization/protests, trust/transparency and
participation.
Leadership
Indian activist and formal settlement representative Sajida Khan, who passed away on
15 July 2007, had no doubt that her cancer was caused by exposure to the landll
(Leonard, 2011). Khan was at the frontline in calling for closure of the dump and
opposing a proposed World Bank clean development mechanism (CDM) project to
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 83
extract methane gas at Bisasar under the 1999 Kyoto Protocol.
5
Khans detailed tech-
nical submission of the projects environmental impact for international legal proceed-
ings temporarily scared off the World Bank from investing (Reddy, 2005). In 2002 Khan
initiated a lawsuit against the city authorities for failure to close the dump. Despite these
actions, some informants suggested that Khan was not tactical in forging links and
sharing information about the landll and the proposed CDM project with formal and
informal residents for reexive localism. Some attributed this to Khan wanting to be at
the forefront of the struggle, or to the sensitive nature of the legal case as Khan herself
had claimed in past informal conversations with me. Speaking of Khan, journalist
Rehana Dada said:
There is one person who . . . is ghting [the landll] . . . and claims to be representing the
community, and every time you speak to these people . . . is she representing us is a different
issue. . . . They [formal and informal residents] all hate the dump, they dont understand the
whole CDM issue. Sajida does and is withholding a lot of information (pers. comm.).
Nevertheless, formal and informal leaders did not engage jointly on strategies to address
the landll and CDM project. Informal settlement leader Sbu Zikonde had not taken the
initiative to work with Khan on a plan that would benet all residents because of the
informal livelihoods the dumpsite supported, as he explained:
we have not done much . . . to engage them [formal residents] around this [landll], simply
because we are still beneting. . . . Although we know that we can get even more benets as
long as there is . . . unity amongst ourselves (pers. comm.).
Class inequalities resulted in differentiated approaches to urban landll risks.
Social networking
Communication between local residents is shaped by networking and communication
within the local community (both within the formal community, and between formal
and informal communities), and networking between the local community and external
civil society actors. Although Indian residents supported landll closure, they did not
collaborate: whilst some Indian residents approached Durban Solid Waste to halt the
CDM project, other Indian and African residents reectively engaged with government
to implement it, albeit separately. This hindered intraethnic collective action, as
observed by John Parken (pers. comm.), deputy head of Plant and Engineering at DSW:
there is a big split in the Indian community. The Africans were basically with us, saying
they support [the CDM project].
Indian residents also exhibited a middle class bias for wanting to remove the landll
including the informal settlements, without considering their livelihood concerns.
Richard Ballard (pers. comm.), academic coordinator at the School of Development
Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) said:
more middle class Indian people dont like having a shack settlement nearby. So in getting the
dump closed, there might be complicated narratives about the continued presence of a shack
settlement there.
Class and livelihood differences inuenced how Indian and African residents networked
differently for reexive localism against landll risks. Informal community leader Sbu
Zikonde (pers. comm.) also noted the resulting lack of communication:
84 Llewellyn Leonard
Their [Indian community] point is close the dump, we have suffered a lot . . . from cancers
. . . because even if . . . I had a lot of money . . . then why should I have the smell close to
me. . . . The informal settlers, [are] saying, we want it. . . . Its the poverty that keeps us apart.
Networking and solidarity between informal residents and external civil society
actors mostly concerned securing social needs (housing and service delivery), though
engagement on environmental justice issues with NGOs also occurred when possible.
National nonprot environmental justice organization groundWork (http://www.
groundwork.org.za/) supported the informal settlement on basic needs and services as
well as communicating on landll risks. As Bobby Peek (pers. comm.), director of
groundWork, said:
Abahlali [shack dwellers] say to groundWork, you asking me to ght a landll site when Im
smelling my shit when Im going to the toilet. I want assistance; I dont care about the landll
site. It didnt stop groundWork from working there . . . after a couple of years were in a
position . . . to deal with the landll.
This shows that although the African informal community was aware of landll risks,
these were secondary to basic survival needs.
Networking also took place between residents and academics. An academic centre
based within UKZN provided expertise on the disadvantages of carbon trading for Sajida
Khans campaign and supported the informal settlement on addressing basic needs.
However, in 2006, personality clashes within the unit led to the informal settlement
disengaging from networking with them, as an academic community outreach ofcer
with the centre told me:
We as academics . . . have our own politics. . . . When [a former academic within the depart-
ment working with the informal settlement] left, and that whole relationship [with the
informal community] started to crumble . . . I am saying why, when somebody leaves.
For some academics, a focus on retaining ownership of informal contacts and the
knowledge obtained from working within the community, including career gains, may
have been more important than supporting the continuation of ongoing work in the
informal community: academics were ghting amongst themselves, [and] ghting for
control of our struggle . . . People want to be doctors and professors out of this poverty
(pers. comm., Zikonde). Another academic informant within UKZN expressed a similar
view: we nd that those academics writing, they know nothing about how to live in a
shack . . . but they talk for the people living in an informal settlement (pers. comm.).
Clearly, then, conicts within external civil society groups temporarily constrained their
support for the local civil society facing up to landll risks.
Beyond those within the academic centre, UKZN academics generally did not engage
in networking with the Clare Estate residents, nor undertake research with community
participation to educate and support residential concerns. Responding to the lack of
involvement over the landll issue, Rajen Naidoo, Deputy Director and Associate
Professor of UKZNs Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine said:
I dont get any rewards for that unless I am able to establish a research project and able to
produce papers, or I am able to set up an academic training program for undergraduates. Those
are the two things we get evaluated on. The incentives from the institutions [to engage with
communities] are limited (pers. comm.).
It seems that academics mostly engaged with the grassroots when required by the terms
and conditions of their career.
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 85
In 2005, DSW proposed to set up a Waste Transfer Station at Bisasar, a facility to bulk
transport compacted landll refuse. DSW received mixed reactions from Indian and
African residents, as articulated by informal community leader Zikonde:
There has been this environmental impact assessment around the [compacting] issue
and . . . the Indian community objected [to] it. But we still believe the reality is the living
politics if that would mean more people would be employed, why not . . . We not interested
in terms of noise pollution and so on (pers. comm.).
However, Zikonde did note the importance of community collaboration across class and
race for reexive localism and reectively agreeing on a single position before approach-
ing DSW to inuence decision making.
Resources
External civil society was hindered by limited resources to assist the local community in
addressing landll risks. The lack of nancial and human resources support for local
studies to determine landll health effects was conrmed by Rajen Naidoo from the
NRMSM School of Medicine:
if you look at the landll site at Bisasar, we dont know what effects these are having on the
community in a scientic way . . . [even] if somebody came and gave us 10 million rand [over
USD 1 million] to look at a problem associated with the Bisasar Road site, we may not
necessary have the human resources (pers. comm.).
Other external actors such as the Diakonia Council of Churches, which works to
promote justice and prophetic action for people, and groundWork did provide some
educational and technical resources to help informal residents. According to Karen Read
(pers. comm.), an economic and environmental justice capacity building ofcer at the
Diakonia Council of Churches, informal residents were invited to workshops on social
justice issues and landll risks. During my previous employment as waste manager at
groundWork, I worked with informal residents on a proposal to present to DSW on the
benets of a resources recovery facility (RRF) aimed to maximize recycling and waste
minimization (as opposed to creating a landll). Bobby Peek, director of groundWork,
endorsed such a facility, which creates jobs and where people are employed formally
(pers. comm.)
Mobilization/protests
Limited mobilization was noted to result from class differentiation inuencing percep-
tions of risks. Informal residents had in the past marched in protest against formal
residents wanting to close the landll, not just to keep the landll site open but also
because they make [their] living off the landll (pers comm., John Parken, DSW). This
was in spite of the dangers of scavenging and working on the landll, as informal
community leader Sbu Zikonde (pers. comm.) stressed:
[the landll] is not safe . . . its contributing a lot [to] low life expectancy . . . they are working
under unprotected conditions. . . . But people are able to have their earnings . . . [When] the
shacks were on re, and it is accessible and nearby for people to get material and rebuild . . . if
you understand poverty, we can say it is something.
Trust/transparency
There was little trust or transparency between formal and informal residents. Three
main contributing elements were the class and ethnic distinctions, the Indians percep-
86 Llewellyn Leonard
tions of Africans as criminals, and the local government role in indirectly heightening
class differences by misleading the African residents to enlist support for the proposed
CDM project.
Class and ethnic distinctions resulted in middle class Indian residents not wanting
African residents in Clare Estate:
the formal settlement . . . see race before they see anything else . . . For example, the pension-
ers grouping in Clare Estate . . . have actively attempted to keep out pensioners from the
informal site. So it is those sorts of things that obviously create mistrust (pers. comm., Rajen
Naidoo, UKZN Medical School).
John Parken (pers. comm.) from DSW revealed the divisions that emerged at public
meetings: Nasty stuff gets said . . . one [Indian] guy stood up and said you [Africans are]
not part of our community. Furthermore, negative stereotyping of Africans as criminals
entrenched relationships along class and race lines: for the Indian community . . . think
there are criminals there [in the informal settlement] so all of them must be criminals
(pers. comm., journalist Rehana Dada). This fractured the political ecology of local civil
society reexiveness against risks for reexive localism. DSW also contributed to this
fracturing of the political ecology of local civil society reexiveness against risks between
Indians and Africans to nd joint solutions by presenting false promises of benets
derived from the CDM project:
they [informal settlement] . . . believed that the CDM was going to give them 50 bursaries
. . . [and] 200 jobs. The reality is 6 jobs, 5 bursaries over 21 years for residents of eThekweni
[Durban] (pers. comm., journalist Rehana Dada).
Thus, the inuence of external forces (government and international nance institu-
tions) shaped trust/transparency within civil society for collective actions:
There is dissatisfaction that the formal community had been betrayed that it was going to be
closed . . . Seems now that the life of that site is for [the] CDM to capture methane gas, the
community suffers and its presented as an environmental project (pers. comm., Tom Carnie,
environmental journalist, The Mercury).
Participation
Collective participation between formal and informal residents, even within the formal
settlement, was limited. In addition to the different perceptions and priorities of risk
arising from ethnic and class differences, and the lack of human resources that discour-
aged external civil society actors from helping residents understand landll risks, there
was no united position on the CDM project within the formal community. Whilst some
Indian residents reectively engaged with DSWs CDM proposal, others tried to halt the
DSW public participation processes, which they viewed as tokenistic. DSWs John
Parken (pers. comm.) observed the dynamics at a meeting: some members wanted to
participate, the others didnt . . . [but] didnt want to walk out because they knew some
people would participate and, in their view, legitimise the process. Formal residents also
tried to halt government meetings with the informal community on implementing the
Waste Transfer Station: We had a meeting at the hall at the top [near the informal
community] . . . They [Indian community] came across and stopped the meeting, saying
you [DSW] are trying to hide (pers. comm., John Parken, DSW).
One option to deal with the landll risks effectively would have been for DSW to
engage residents and implement a RRF as suggested by African residents. As informal
community leader Sbu Zikonde (pers. comm.) highlighted, an RRF facility could bridge
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 87
Indian health concerns and African socioeconomic concerns because it can be driven by
the community, and have some formal employment and effective recycling methodol-
ogy. The divergent positions on the landll within the formal community and between
formal and informal communities are instructional for political ecologys narrow
assumption of civil society coherence, which overlooks differentiated discourses
between competing and conicting class and race groupings that inuence participation
(and perceptions) against urban risk.
Discussion
The case of the Bisasar landll highlights the limitations of mainstream (and urban)
political ecology focus on urban industrial risks, including civil society coherent actions
against landll risks (especially in the South). Across the case themes, the associational
life in Clare Estate was based on protecting the respective interests of class (and ethnic)
groups, rather than facilitating cross community engagements for coherent actions. In
addition to the transition to democracy that demobilized civil society, the post-apartheid
governments engagement in macroeconomic policies that sustained the political
ecology of its apartheid predecessor also deepened class inequalities and impacted the
coherence of civil society actions. The Bisasar case highlights the failure in political
ecology theorizing to unearth differences in race and class, associated power dynamics,
and contested livelihoods and survivability, whilst uncritically romanticizing civil society
unity. The eld requires increased reection of the Southern geographic scale to reach
neglected sites and grow new avenues of investigation (via self-reexivity and reexive
localism), especially within urban industrial risk society.
Field evidence highlighted how issues of class and race, differing perceptions and
priorities of risk, individualised leadership, resource constraints, and intraethnic and
class conicts undermined coherent civil society action. Also, it was seen that the
motivations of external civil society interventions at the grassroots may at times be
counterproductive in assisting vulnerable groups address local concerns. The complexi-
ties of local and external civil society positionalities created differentiated political
ecologies. Therefore, political ecology needs to explore the politics of scale within civil
society, bringing multilevel interests to the fore in analyses of other political ecology
localities addressing industrial risk. As Forsyth (2008) notes, a challenge for political
ecology is how social actor positionalities (within civil society) might not be predictable
in reecting less obvious positions of power. For example, although formal residents
were against the landll, intraethnic conict within this group resulted in some sup-
porting the CDM and inuencing power dynamics. Thus, it is important to understand
competing contestations within civil society and how strategies against perceived risks
(or lack of) and constructions of reality are coproduced to enhance a socioenvironmen-
tal understanding of risk perceptions.
The Bisasar landll case also showed how a topdown approach to climate change
mitigation the proposed market-based CDM project further undermined local col-
lective actions. Empirical results highlighted government manipulation (promises of
bursaries and jobs from the CDM project) to further inuence local social relations
between formal and informal residents. The research suggests a need for political
ecology to understand the inuence and goals of external nation-state actors that may
indirectly hinder local civil society collective actions and serve international political
interests. Political ecology must take into cognizance such wider political dynamics and
opportunities hindering civil society coherence, including being more sensitive to issues
88 Llewellyn Leonard
that actually shape civil society actions in nonwestern and nonrural communities. This
will strengthen analysis of interactions and discourses within civil society and resultant
actions against hegemonic forces, including urban risks generally, contributing to the
differentiated understanding of the political ecology of the global South. Furthermore,
the historical legacy of apartheid and the consequent siting of the Bisasar landll suggest
a need for political ecology to explore the origins of urban risks for a deeper under-
standing of other political ecologies and civil society reexiveness.
Conclusion
This paper explored limitations of mainstream (and urban) political ecology in terms of
understanding urban risks and civil society coherence against the state (and interna-
tional institutions) without homogenizing other or Southern political ecological con-
texts. As such, the paper drew upon frameworks of self-reexivity and reexive localism
as complementary with political ecology to illuminate a political ecology of civil society
reexiveness and contribute towards addressing the diversifying contexts of other
political ecologies. The South African urban landll case highlighted how preconcep-
tions regarding civil society coherency can lead to an insufciently critical populist
stance. The paper made an enquiry of this relatively little studied aspect of political
ecology, including the necessity for an urban and industrial focus, in order to better
appreciate contextual conicts of other political ecologies across class and ethnic groups
namely, livelihood and resource constraints inuencing civil society reexiveness for
coherent action. Thus, exploring another political ecology of civil society reexiveness
against urban industrial risks can assist in reorienting mainstream (and urban) political
ecology thinking away from romanticizing civil society as a coherent entity.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the reviewers and the SJTG editorial board for their constructive comments.
Acknowledgement must also be extended to Raymond Bryant, Kings College London and Soyeun
Kim, University of Leeds and Re-shaping Development Institute, Seoul for their comments and
feedback on the draft papers in coordinating this special section. Financial assistance for my
research was received by the National Research Foundation, via the South African Research Chair
in Social Change, University of Johannesburg.
Endnotes
1 Although urban environmental risks have been relegated mostly to the environmental justice
literature (Veron, 2006), the focus has mainly been on the West, more specically the US
(Njeru, 2006), and narrowly concerned with distributional perspectives on justice (Holield,
2009).
2 The term informal residents in the paper refers to the African residents living around the
Bisasar dumpsite who lack access to formal housing and basic services (water, electricity, waste
disposal/collection and postal).
3 Risk society refers to industrial practices in urban areas that are physically reconstituting the
environment in ways that escape their control (Beck, 1992).
4 Although these social identities have been examined for new social movements related to
nature, as opposed to a more micro level and focus on urban risks (Neumann, 2005).
5 The Kyoto Protocol allows developed countries to invest in CDM projects in developing
countries to reduce green house gas emissions, but without reductions in their own countries.
Civil society, urban industrial risks, Durban 89
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