Categorization and Normalization of the (In)Formal Settlements in the Contested Greenbelts of the Greater Durban Area (South Africa)

Abstract

The South African housing and human settlements policy prescribes and categorizes housing standards for urban areas. Thus, the EThekwini (Durban) metropolitan municipality provides housing to its residents, in terms of the mandate and guidelines of the housing and human settlements policy. But, owing to rapid urbanization, the municipality has not been able to keep abreast of the housing demands. Hence, the (in)formal housing movements and activists have mobilized access to housing of their standards, in the highly contested green belts in the Greater Durban area. This pressure of (in)formal housing has resulted in the municipality relaxing the standards and categories of suitable housing. So, (in)formal settlements have mushroomed in Durban. Hence, this paper explored the processes of categorization and normalization of the (in)formal settlements in the contested greenbelts of the Greater Durban area. The results established that the development of (in)formal settlement in the Ethekwini municipality represented a nexus of actors with highly conflicting interests. Therefore, dealing with the (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality requires genuine, innovative, and ingenious leadership.

1. Introduction

In South Africa, (in)formal settlements and shanty towns have their genesis in policies of segregation and the subsequent apartheid form of economic, social, and spatial organization. The apartheid system illegalized the permanent settlement of Black people in cities. But some Black people found ways to remain in cities. This gave rise to the development of (in)formal settlements and shanty towns on the outskirts and peripheries of cities. Dwellers of the (in)formal settlements used any materials available to build the shacks in which they lived. These settlements traditionally lacked basic services and amenities. But the ascendency of the government of the majority, in South Africa, in 1994, put an end to the institutionalization of the apartheid system of social and spatial organization. As a consequence of the release of the pent-up drive to urbanize, major cities and towns experienced rapid growth of new urban dwellers. These comprised South African rural-urban migrants, and immigrants, mostly, from Southern Africa and some from across the continent of Africa. The institutional failures rendered local municipalities unable to cope with the sudden influx of new urban residents who needed economic opportunities, housing, services, and amenities. In this way, (in)formal settlements and shacks found their way within and around major cities and towns. The greenbelt areas and other undeveloped areas of cities quickly filled up with (in)formal settlements and shacks.

The greenbelts in the South African urban planning scene, evolved from the influence of the British and American town-planning approaches and practices of the twentieth century. During the early British and American town-planning system, the town developed as a place where people lived and worked, and the countryside by contrast was a place of nature, agriculture, and recreation. This conceptualization informed the development of greenbelts. This planning concept is also easily associated with Ebenezer Howard’s ideas of Garden City [1]. Evolving from the town planning principles of the UK, the concept of greenbelts was first used in the then Natal (a province in South Africa) in the regional plans for Durban and Pietermaritzburg, where this concept was termed “the Urban Fence”, in the early twentieth century [1]. Thus, with the advent of apartheid in the 1950s city, planning became modeled on Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City concept. Cities became self-contained communities surrounded by green belts. The apartheid form of planning used greenbelts to create discrete and racially defined communities [2]. According to Bigon [3], the garden city concept and a zoning system in colonial Africa enabled colonial authorities to maintain strict control over indigenous laborers. The system was meant to prevent permanent African urban residence. Thus, greenbelts have served to promote and sustain racial segregation.

The green belts have since served as sites of major contestation and tensions in the landscape of major cities and towns in South Africa. It is here that (in)formal settlements and shacks have mushroomed. They have emerged to be the nexus of clashing interests. This paper uses the construct (in)formal settlements and not the normal informal settlements. This is done to avoid entanglement in the subjectivities that could be associated with the informal settlements construct. Thus, this paper explores the processes of categorization and normalization of the (in)formal settlements in the contested greenbelts of the Greater Durban area.

The next two sections of this paper review the relevant literature. This is followed by the methods and materials. Then, the discussion turns to the dynamics and processes of (in)formal settlements in the Greater Durban area. This paper concludes by unpacking all the elements in the development of (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality.

2. Conceptual framework: categorization, contestations, and normalization

The categorization concept provides an appropriate framework for the analysis of contestations over space. But different disciplines explore this concept according to their perspectives. Management scholarship has used categorization to understand a firm’s external environment and the position of the firm therein [4]. In psychology, the categorization concept has been theorized differently in different traditions. There are conventional approaches, for example, the social categorization approaches and the discursive approaches [5]. Since this paper explores the contestations over space, it is inclined toward the critical and discursive perspective on categorization and normalization. This is discussed in the next paragraphs.

Categorization is not value-free. But it serves to impose some measure of coherence on the social world by partitioning items into groups [4]. The phrase imposes some coherence would imply that the world or social processes are not coherent. While social processes are dynamic and contingent, categorization assumes a stable, singular, and universal form of their representation [6]. Categorization forms the basis of stereotyping and subsequently profiling. Stereotyping together with profiling influences how people from the same group behave toward other people who belong to other groups [7]. Further, some categories systematically privilege others, and in the process stratify members based on certain attributes [4].

Related to categorization is the normalization concept. Normalization concerns the introduction of new normative order or new norms. These norms constitute a set of discursive strategies that perpetuate patterns of representing social actors, processes, and issues [8]. So, people use discursive practices to render something a norm. For example, positivism tends to reduce processes to numbers and tables, which could be used to stereotype or marginalize certain social actors [9]. Thus, the marginalization of certain social actors could eventually become a norm. The concept of normalization has its roots in the work of Michel Foucault [10]. Thus, drawing from Foucault, Krzyżanowski ([8], p. 437), argue that normalization operates in a top-down way and aims to subsume others to its logic and strategic aims. Central to normalization is the process that deals with the power of classification. This uses existing societal categories such as age, gender, ethnicity, and religion to normalize certain societal practices [9]. This inadvertently or purposefully renders self/others visible/invisible. Taylor ([11], p. 45), also, draws from Foucault to argue that the idea of the norm is a modern concept and is associated with the modern relations of power. According to Taylor ([11], p. 46), the process of normalizing norms works by masking their effects of power. Through the normalization process subjects are divided into two mutually exclusive groups with predetermined appropriate behaviors that they are encouraged to repeat over and over again. These eventually become “normal”, inevitable, and therefore immune to critical analysis. The rise of modernity came with a situation, where sovereign power found itself unable to effectively control all aspects of increasingly complex societies. The result was that certain techniques of power which up to that point had been employed only within the religious context were generalized to society more broadly. According to Taylor ([11], p. 49), Foucault sees the norm as being at the heart of these techniques of modern power.

Thus, the above literature has explored the categorization and normalization concepts. It has shown that categorization and normalization have the othering effect. These concepts frame the analysis of this paper. But the next section discusses scholarly work that has been based on these concepts.

3. Related research

The concepts of categorization and normalization, which are associated with critical discourse analysis and in Foucauldian informed inquiry, provide very useful frames for analyzing the complexity of social processes. Scholarships have used these concepts in a variety of disciplines. O’Doherty and Lecouteur [5] have employed the categorization concept to understand the representation of people entering Australia as asylum seekers. This study focuses on the discursive practices that could constitute the legitimizing of the oppressive or marginalizing practices in Australia. Murto [12] has explored gender categorization in the representational market. This study contributed to gender research in marketing and consumer behavior in that it shifted attention from advertising representations to representational market practices. Regarding the normalization concept, MacDonald and Gibson [13] studied normalization and stigma on parents of children requiring complex care.

In South Africa, Monyeki et al. [14], have used the categorization concept in health care. But they note the possible ambivalence of this concept. It could have some undertones, where the rural category is associated with Black people and the urban associated with white people. Nell [15] draws the concept of categorization from cognitive psychology, of which social identity theory is its part, to explore self-categorization in religion. The psychological framework also touches on the concepts of depersonalization and self-stereotyping. Hermanson [16] uses categorization from the religious framework. This concept is essential for the understanding of biblical metaphors. Buchholz [17] deals with the tension associated with categorizing the Christian religions given global vis-a-vis local realities. Global categories could ignore the self-understanding of local Christian peculiarities. Categorization is open to the imposition of certain beliefs and thinking on the local realities.

The above discussion has briefly reviewed literature that has used the categorization and normalization concepts in the understanding of different processes. The next discussion is on the methods and materials of this paper.

4. Methods and materials

This paper explores processes of categorization and normalization of the (in)formal settlements in the contested greenbelts of the Greater Durban area. Figure 1 shows the location of the study area.

Figure 1.

(In)formal settlements—Greater Durban area. Source: Author.

Objectives of this paper are to:

• How (in)formal settlements have spread in the Greater Durban area over the years.

• Find out if (in)formal settlements in the greenbelts are discursively constituted by the socio-economic system that is supposed to facilitate their eradication.

• Establish if the (in)formal settlements category (discursive construct) is not marginalizing.

• Find out if (in)formal settlements are not a naturalized category that is supportive and a reflection of the networks of power within the municipality.

• Find out if the (in)formal settlements category does not preserve their essentialism, and disavows reading them as mutually constituted in power networks.

This section reviews literature that has a bearing on the research methods of this paper. This paper used qualitative data. According to Moalusi [18], qualitative research uses text and not numerical data and analyzes those data in their textual form rather than in statistics to convert them to numbers. Most of the data sources of this paper were government policy documents and newspaper articles. Several studies have used newspapers as the sources of their data. Most of the studies that have used or analyzed newspapers tended to focus on issues that relate to social ills. For example, Guler et al. [19] used national newspaper articles to study the critical views of students about news items included in the media. Tausczik et al. [20] used weblogs (blogs), newspaper articles, and Wikipedia visits to study how public anxiety about H1N1 developed over the first 2 weeks following its outbreak. Cherbonneau and Copes [21] examined the types of carjacking that are reported in newspapers, the stress was on the emphasis on the amount of coverage newspapers gave to each case. Luisi et al. [22] conducted a content analysis of newspaper articles to understand how the U.S. media framed the Ebola epidemic. Welch et al. [23] administered content analysis on newspaper articles on crime appearing in major newspapers. Werner et al. [24] examined how the Hebrew and Arabic online newspapers portrayed Alzheimer’s disease and persons with Alzheimer’s disease. This study recognized the value of using online newspapers and media in improving knowledge and awareness about AD and dementia. Some research has examined trends and directions in online newspaper publications. Boczkowski [25] reviews the development and use of online newspapers for research. This study, also, argues that there needed to be more reviews because both the object of inquiry and the inquiry itself are far from being stable. Peng et al. [26] have surveyed the trends in web newspaper publishing, by looking into various aspects of operations such as advertising, readership, content, and services.

In the use of newspapers as sources of data, the study was mindful of the following: they are prone to bias; secondly, they may be sensational as they look for news mostly of a negative sort to ramp up their circulation numbers [27]. It is for this reason that this paper tried to represent the claims and views of different actors and how they are reconstructed in the (in)formal settlements discourse [28]. Therefore, apart from presenting the side of authority, this paper also considered the views and the argument of the (in)formal settlement dwellers.

This section has briefly reviewed the methods of research that similar studies have used. It showed that government documents and newspaper articles have been widely used as sources of data in research. It further showed that newspapers have tended to be used in researching issues that relate to social ills. So, the discussion continues to present the findings of this study.

5. Findings of the study

5.1 Housing norms and standards in South Africa

The department of human settlements (formerly, the Department of Housing) has set guidelines for habitable housing in South Africa. Some of these are discussed herein. There needed to be bulk and connector services that are located outside the boundaries of the project site. Further, the guidelines specify the type of material to be used in the house construction and the geotechnical aspects, which include stormwater drains, that the appropriate site should meet. These are provided by the municipalities. The size of the house is 40 square meters two-bedroom house, a living room that combines with a kitchen, it has to have a toilet and a shower. The municipality of the area supplies the board for electrical installation. All other aspects of the house, such as plumbing and water pressure, are accommodated in the guidelines (Department of Human Settlements [29]. So, in this way, these guidelines categorize housing that is considered to be normal in urban areas.

The next section is about the development of (in)formal settlements and shacks in the Greater Durban area.

5.2 Growth of (in)formal settlements in the greater Durban area

(In)formal settlements have grown considerably in the major South African cities since the end of apartheid. So, by mid-2022, there were 2700 (in)formal settlement sites in South Africa. This represented 15% of dwellings in major cities, thus about 83.4% of households in the metropolitan areas lived in what is considered formal dwellings. The majority of the (in)formal settlements were located in unsuitable land that is prone to disasters [30]. There were 580 (in)formal settlement sites that comprised approximately 287,000 households in the Durban area [31]. Fifty percent of the Durban dwellers of (in)formal settlements originate from the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The second and third contributors to (in)formal settlements of the city are the Eastern Cape and the Gauteng provinces respectively. And 15 percent of the residents of the city are migrants from outside South Africa [32]. Most migrants to the (in)formal settlements originate from rural areas, which are perceived not to be offering any job prospects or any other economic opportunities [33]. Residents of (in)formal settlements tolerate their precarious conditions as they have to be closer to jobs, hospitals, schools, and other amenities [34]. As Figure 1 shows, most (in)formal settlements occur in the northern part of the city. This could be attributed to two factors, that is, the availability of open spaces in the form of green belts, and, also, land which was considered not suitable for development, but which shack dwellers have put to use.

The (in)formal settlements have grown rapidly in the Durban area (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Some (in)formal settlements—Greater Durban area. Source: Author.

The Foreman Road has about 3000 (in)formal settlements in an area of 0.08 km2. According to the Durban metro, it would take 90 years to eradicate (in)formal settlements in this metro [35]. Most (in)formal settlements develop out of land invasion. According to the metro, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act, and the Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998 as amended in 2008 has loopholes that lead to mushrooming of (in)formal settlements in cities [36]. This Act legalizes building structures, for example, shacks, huts, or tents, and prohibits eviction of people who occupy such structures [37].

5.3 Dynamics of the (in)formal settlements

5.3.1 Informal settlements as undesirable

Dwellers of (in)formal settlements tend to give names that are emotive to their settlements. There is the Lusaka (in)formal settlement. This name conjures feelings and emotions of fighting for freedom. During the height of the apartheid repression, freedom fighters were exiled to Lusaka in Zambia. There is Chris Hani (in)formal settlement. Chris Hani is one to foremost freedom fighters during the apartheid era. Other notable (in)formal settlement names include Dakota, Kennedy Road, Reservor Hills, and many others. (In)formal settlements in Durban like others in big cities occasionally suffer massive fires, which sweep through the settlement leading to devastation in their wake. These settlements have recently experienced devastation as a result of raging fires at the Dakota informal settlement, south of Durban [38]; a fire broke up at the Kennedy Road informal settlement [39]. Other (in)formal settlements with less emotive names include the Bottlebrush Settlement in Chatsworth, Durban [40] and Reservor Hills (In)formal Settlement [41].

Sometimes, the relationship between shack dwellers, the residents of established suburbs, and the state is fraught with tension. The ratepayers view shacks in their vicinity as causing property valuations to drop drastically, raise the rate of crime, and increase competition for water and electricity [40]. The ratepayers’ associations have, in the other case, opposed the plan by the Ethekwini municipality to erect temporary housing and transit camps for shack dwellers displaced by floods in Durban. The ratepayers argue that by allowing the erection of temporary camps there would be complicit in denying the people their right to health, stable, and sanitary conditions [42]. Ratepayers’ associations have also clashed with the dwellers of (in)formal settlements on several other issues. Illegal electricity connections by shack dwellers have damaged electricity supplies to formal residential areas, leaving these areas without electricity for days at other times. Shack dwellers appear to act without any regard for the concerns of the ratepayers about the impact of shacks in their neighborhood:

“…We get insulted by the shack dwellers and they say we can do nothing to them. We must pay rates and be abused” (Source: Dawood [41]).

Another ratepayer had this to say:

“The (in)formals have thrown so much dirt on the road… and nobody from the municipality gives a damn to clear it but happily takes our rates every month. Is this how ratepayers are going to live with the new temporary squatter camps?” (Source: Dawood [41]).

But shack dwellers maintain that circumstances force them to live in shacks. These lack servicessuch as ablution facilities, water, and electricity. Circumstances force them to resort to illegal electricity connections as the Ethekwini municipality does not connect the shacks to the grid [40]. The credit market also does not consider shack dwellers as they earn very little to qualify for housing and other loans [40]. The municipal housing program, the reconstruction and development program, commonly called the RDP last built houses in the (in)formal settlement in 2009 [40].

Some members of the ratepayer’s community are sympathetic to the plight of the shack dweller:

“…If you remove the shacks, where are they going to go? It is too big of an issue and needs to be sorted out by the government…I, therefore, believe that we should embrace the people of the settlement…Not everyone is a criminal, and it is incorrect to tarnish these people…” (Source: Pillay [40]).

The discourses on (in)formal settlements have evolved. The Ethekwini municipality appears to treat (in)formal settlements as undesirable. The program of installation of electricity in the (in)formal settlements seems to serve the purpose to control their spread. The deputy chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo (A shack dweller’s social movement: Translated in English as Those who live in shacks) has noted that his shack has, since the year 2018, not been electrified even though some shacks in their (in)formal settlement have received electricity. The deputy chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo stated that:

“There was no transparency (by the municipality) on…how many shacks were to benefit (from electricity). What happened is that electricity was installed in one shack, then they skipped the next two, and so on” (Source: Damba-Hendrik [35]).

The deputy chairperson interpreted this as an act of punishment by the municipality as he was a leading activist for shack dwellers. Another shack dweller stated:

“…I am one of the people who started this informal settlement but electricity was not installed in my shack” (Source: Damba-Hendrik [35]).

Shack dwellers also considered their (in)formal settlements to be subjected to poor sanitation. Though dwellers of (in)formal settlements qualified for RDP houses (government-funded low-cost housing) not a single person in the informal settlements has been allocated to such a house [35].

According to the mayor of the Ethekwini municipality, the municipality had not considered informal settlements, “part of the plan” for the development of the city. The influx of people and the subsequent mushrooming of (in)formal settlements in the city harmed the plans of operation of the city. The mayor of the Ethekwini municipality had an appeal to what is termed lawmakers to amend the Prevention of Illegal Eviction and the Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998 as amended in 2008. This Act had loopholes that lead to the mushrooming of the (in)formal settlements [36].

5.3.2 Shack lords and the spread of (in)formal settlements

Another element in the development of (in)formal settlements is that of the so-called shack lords. These organized the invasion of empty land and built shacks that they rented out to desperate tenants. Depending on the structure of the shack, the rentals ranged between R200 to R800 ($10 to $42) per month [43, 44]. One shack lord had 17 dwellings on which they rely. This shack lord had taken over “the business” of letting-out shack from his mother [43]. The demand for shacks was high. On top of this, there was also the challenge of an ever-growing demand for housing. Some people who had been allocated houses rented out those houses and moved to another settlement with the hope of getting another house [45].

5.3.3 (In)formal settlements and the natural and man-made elements

(In)formal settlements experience frequent outbreaks of fire. These sweep through the settlements causing havoc in human lives and property. The fire outbreaks are acute during the winter months. Humanitarian organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Gift of the Givers Foundation, are usually the first to offer humanitarian assistance. Notwithstanding the loss of property and the lives of the residents during the fire outbreaks, dwellers of these places through resilience or perhaps because of a desperate situation continue to rebuild their dwellings in those disaster-prone areas [46, 47].

5.3.4 (In)formal settlements and a nexus of nefarious interests

Sometimes, the conflict between the shack dwellers and the Durban municipality is deeply rooted. The (in)formal settlements could also be intertwined in a nexus of conflicting interests. There are shack lords who live in wealthy areas of Durban. These mobilize land invasion of unoccupied land which they sell illegally to those who are desperate for housing [33].

Another element is that of the taxi operators who are eager to develop new routes. And there are also drug dealers who are believed to see the expansion of their customer base. Sometimes organizers of land invasions use politically charged language, such as no one would evict land invaders as the land they were invading was their forefathers’ [33]. Also, they resort to emotional blackmail:

“When we deal with Abahlali baseMjondolo or any other organized force, they try to paint us being anti-poor and using force to resist a legitimate and genuine social course…” (KwaZulu-Natal, Government Human Settlements MEC Ravi Pillay) (Source: Nsele [44]).

Differing interests come to collide in land and greenbelt invasions in the Greater Durban Area. The organized manner in which land invasions occur is indicative of the elements that operate behind the scenes in these activities. Politics intersects with greed. Land invasions and the rapid pace at which the rapid spread of (in)formal settlements have political overtones. Politicians built their constituency through the (in)formal settlement dweller. Sometimes, councilors and politicians from the ruling party eye a piece of land for a lucrative housing development in which they stand to benefit. Thus, access to levers of power goes together with patronage [34]. As soon as Shack lords learn that a certain piece of land is earmarked for development, they mobilize an invasion of that piece of land.

The Abahlali baseMjondolo (in)formal settlements social movement also raised funds from international donors to challenge in court acts of eviction from invaded land [33]. As outspoken critics of the ANC (the governing party), the Abahlali baseMjindolo has suffered for it [34]. Since the year 2014, there have been numerous assassinations of high-profile members of this social movement.

This section has presented the process and dynamics of the development of (in)formal settlements in the study area. The next section condenses the findings into identifiable areas and factors of the development of (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality.

6. Discussion and conclusion

The National Department of Human Settlements [29] through the National Housing Code tries to normalize and regulate the processes of government-provided housing in South Africa. This is done by prescribing norms and standards of appropriate housing. Hence, ideally, all South Africans have the right to proper housing. South Africa’s constitution also guarantees this right. But reality paints a different picture. Since the advent of democracy in 1994, South African cities have endured high demands for housing and related services and amenities which outstrips the supply. Several factors explain this high demand for housing in cities. But the context of material scarcity coupled with the failure of formal institutions, not only in the towns and cities in South Africa but also in other parts of the continent of Africa, has fuelled the unmet demand for housing and services. Thus, the (in)formal housing and shacks, in major cities of South Africa, have arisen out of these processes. The greenbelts, the legacy of modernist forms of urban planning have provided a fertile environment for the location and mushrooming of (in)formal housing.

The category of (in)formal settlements is not value-free. It creates binary oppositions and categories of formal and informal settlements. In the process, it marginalizes a certain category while privileging the other. In this case, the marginalized category would be that of informal settlements as this category is represented as a deviation from the form. So, the way the Ethekwini municipality relates to (in)formal settlements would also depend on how the (in)formal settlements are socially constructed and represented. Related to this, Cronley [48] has explained the processes of the social construction of homelessness. There are two conceptualizations of homelessness. The individual interpretations of homelessness posit that it is the result of personal deficiencies, such as substance abuse. While structural interpretations, on the other hand, suggest that homelessness results from systemic factors such as lack of affordable housing and employment opportunities. In a simar vein, Somerville [49] argues that an adequate theory of the meaning of a home is needed to explain it as a complex, multileveled or multidimensional construct. Somerville [49] further draws from Després [50] and identifies 10 categories of the meaning of a home. These range from physical security and control and material characteristics of the dwelling to cultural and symbolic meanings associated with self-expression, emotional security, and social status. There are also meanings of a home that have connotations of family and friends and social activities. Thus, extending this understanding to the (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality and everywhere else, it becomes apparent that there needed to be more nuanced concepts for their understanding.

The response of the Ethekwini municipality to (in)formal settlements appears to be reactive. There is no plan to deal with rapid urbanization and the subsequent mushrooming of (in)formal settlements. The municipality has even on record that (in)formal settlements are not part of urban planning in the municipality. To the municipality, (in)formal settlements appear to be discrete and homogeneous occurrences. There appears to be no relationship between other social, economic, and political processes far and near and the breakout of (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality. The Ethekwini municipality tends to deal with the (in)formal settlements in distinct sequential phases. The would-be (in)formal settlement dwellers, upon invading and occupying the empty land, organize protest actions to demand services. The municipality responds by clamping down on them. As (in)formal settlement dwellers apply more pressure and defiance, the municipality gives in and provides some measure of services and amenities. This is repeated in all cases, where there are (in) formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality.

But processes of the development of (in)formal settlements are mutually constitutive, in that they shape each other. Social, economic, and political processes where (in)formal settlement dwellers originate have a bearing on their development in the Ethekwini municipality. At the Ethekwini municipality, the network of actors in this municipality plays an important role in the development of (in)formal settlements. The network of actors in the development of (in)formal settlements, that this paper identified above, includes the so-called shack lords, who mobilize land invasion. Once land has been invaded, they extort rent from desperate shack dwellers. Secondly, some politicians thrive on patronage. These disrupt proposed economic development projects. Once they learn that a development project is planned for a particular land, these politicians, mobilize that the particular land be invaded. The intention would be to have that piece of land developed for low-cost housing. Low-cost housing enables them to access big tenders that are worth a lot of money. Thirdly, there are illicit drug dealers. These see (in)formal settlements as opportunities for new illicit drugs market. Fourthly, there are taxi operators. Like the illicit drug dealers, these (in)formal settlements as an opportunity to expand into new transport and passenger routes. Fifthly, there are leaders of the social movement. Some of the leaders might not have genuine interests of the dweller of (in)formal settlements. The sixth party in the (in)formal settlements is the suburban ratepayers. Shacks have a significant impact on property prices. Lastly, there is the Ethekwini municipality, which seems not to have a plan to deal with the complexity of the situation.

The above discussion shows that the development of (in)formal settlements involves a series of processes and activities. It has been shown how (in)formal settlements are reproduced and institutionalized. The concept of mutual constitution provides a powerful frame of analysis in this regard. Silverstre [51] has deployed this concept to show that framing the development of contemporary urban megaprojects—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—as a serial reproduction landscape obscures how circulating planning models are produced and institutionalized. Also, Söderlund and Sydow [52] explain that the linkages between projects and institutions. The argument is that institutions shape the conditions for projects, and in turn, projects may, also, influence institutions and institutionalization processes. Thus, this throws more light on the understanding of the self-reinforcing processes of the development of (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality.

This paper has shown that the issue of (in)formal settlements is much more complex than it appears. Conflicting interests, which are sometimes deadly, are intertwined in the (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality. Therefore, dealing with the (in)formal settlements in the Ethekwini municipality requires genuine, innovative, and ingenious leadership.