The ruinous vitalism of the urban form: ontological orientations in inner-city Johannesburg. Issue 2 (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wilhelm-Solomon, Matthew
• Is Part Of: Critical African studies. Volume 9:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 174
• Page End: 191
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: vitalism -- ontology -- Johannesburg -- migration -- Ruination; Vitalisme -- Ontologie -- Johannesbourg -- Migration -- Ruine; Africa -- Social aspects -- Research -- Periodicals; Africa -- Economic aspects -- Research -- Periodicals; Africa -- Political aspects -- Research -- Periodicals; 960.05
• DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2017.1337520
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2168-1392

Abstract

Abstract : This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork, conducted between 2011 and 2016, in unlawfully appropriated buildings, or the 'dark buildings', of inner-city Johannesburg in which thousands of the city's marginalized black populations live, including many cross-border migrants. It argues that responses to traumatic and debilitating events, including fires and building collapse, invoke an unstable ontological multiplicity oriented around the fragility of the urban form. 'Ruinous vitalism' refers to this instability and malleability of urban infrastructures, the scars and traces these leave and the capacities for social relations and regeneration they provoke. Ontologies here are not thought of in terms of sets of pre-existent beliefs or essences, but rather modes of orientation . Ontological orientations involve attempts to interpret, stabilize and reconfigure relations of existence through embodied and material practice; they also encompass wider social and metaphysical relations through which meaningful personhood can endure. In particular, the boundaries between insiders and outsiders are formed around the unstable materialities of the city. Furthermore, these orientations are not ahistorical, but emerge in relation to the historical and contemporary conditions and inequalities of the post-apartheid city; they traverse the attempts by municipal agents and private developers to contain and control urban space.