Living in townships - South Africa in Focus - Brief Article

town*ship ("taun-"ship)n. 15th century. An ancient unit of administration in England identical in area with or a division of a parish. A division or territory in surveys of U.S. public land containing 36 sections or 36 square miles. An area in the Republic of South Africa segregated for occupation by persons of non-European descent.

Cape Town

Khayelitsha, 20 miles outside of Cape Town, South Africa. Thousands were moved here in the 1960s when the apartheid regime demolished the racially mixed District Six neighborhood in the heart of Cape Town to make room for whites. Residents of Khayelitsha are prohibited from building permanent structures on the sandy plots, so houses are patched together with undersized beams, laminate wood, and rusty corrugated metal sheets. On the dusty streets outside, a second generation of Khayelitsha children play with miniature Pokemon disks and wait for the next tourist van to arrive from Cape Town.

Oakland

Flatlands of Oakland, California. They came to work the shipyards in World War II, then planted roots in the neighborhoods of West, East and North Oakland. Others and their progeny have made it to the suburbs and the hills, but many more just move from one grid of the township to another, barely enough time for the roots to grip the ground. Children play jump rope on the concrete sidewalk, waiting for the announcement of supper through the iron-grated kitchen window from the apartment above. The flatlands of Oakland, jammed between the costly hills and the cold ocean's water, rear another generation in its grids.

Francis Calpotura, "Living in Townships." Francis was co-director of the Center for Third World Organizing from 1984-2000. He is currently in the Philippines doing research on movement formations.