The Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) was constructed as a ‘new deal’ for South African cities and towns. It outlines a vision with four overarching goals and eight priorities or policy levers meant to overcome the apartheid legacy through comprehensive spatial restructuring and strategic urban–rural linkages. This article is a contextual theological reflection ‘from below’,..
Read moreReading Psalms, and other urban poems, in a fractured city
This article was an attempt to (re-)read Psalms in the context of fractured cities, marked by socio-economic inequalities, woundedness, migration and exclusion. It explored urban motifs in selected psalms and considered their possible meanings in relation to both the socio-cultural contexts in which they were written but also how they could be read and understood..
Read moreUbuntu is homeless: An urban theological reflection
This article is reading ubuntu in the light of homelessness in the cities and towns of South Africa. It suggests that ubuntu itself is homeless and displaced as a way of being human together. Instead of the mediation of dignity and justice through an ubuntu-solidarity, street homeless people and others living vulnerably and in precarious..
Read moreTowards a fusion of horizons: Thematic contours for an urban public theological praxis-agenda in South Africa
This article proposes a ‘fusion of horizons’ in constructing urban public theologies in South Africa. This is done through the introduction of five interrelated themes that have emerged from the on-going knowledge and idea production by a distinguishable counterpoint in contemporary scholarly, intellectual and activist engagement with the urban, in the authors’ own South African..
Read moreDoing urban public theology in South Africa: Introducing a new agenda
This article serves as the introductory, first contribution to a special collection of articles on the theme, ‘Doing urban public theology in South Africa: Visions, approaches, themes and practices towards a new agenda’. The aim of the article is to set the conceptual and hermeneutical framework for undertaking urban public theology as a very intentional,..
Read moreJesus in the Dumping Sites: Doing theology in the overlaps of human and material waste
Jesus’ option for the poor should be reclaimed in a clear theological and ecclesial option for the dumping sites of our cities and towns. That is the basic proposal of this article. Reflecting upon three different dumping sites – different in size, age and history – this article will explore the central thread of material and human..
Read moreDemythologising social cohesion: Towards a practical theological vision
This article considers the topical issue of social cohesion. It seeks to demythologise the issue bringing it into critical conversation with eight related categories. It proposes that a vision of a socially cohesive society should employ all eight categories as parallel and complementary strategies. Secondly, it proposes a practical theological vision of social cohesion that..
Read more‘Between life and death’: On land, silence and liberation in the capital city
This article reflects on the unfinished task of liberation – as expressed in issues of land – and drawing from the work of Franz Fanon and the Durban-based social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission statement..
Read moreWhose knowledges shape our city? Advancing a community-based urban praxis
Wie se Kennis(se) Vorm ons Stad? Op Soek na ’n Gemeenskapsgedrewe Stedelike PraxisIn die artikel word verskillende plekke van kontestasie en hoop in die middestad van Pretoria/Tshwane geidentifiseer, en die moontlike unieke kennis(se) wat vanuit hierdie kontekste gegenereer word, word oorweeg. Ek neem ’n spesifiekeposisie in en argumenteer dat sodanige plaaslike kennis(se) meestal uitgesluit word..
Read moreAbsence, presence, remembrance: A theological essay on frailty, the university and the city
This essay is reflecting on frailty, the university and the city, in relation to each other. It seeks to transcend the binary concepts of presence and absence, proposing remembrance as the frail work of making absence present, of reweaving what is dismembered, and of a politics of hospitality. It considers the task of remembrance in..
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