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 more‘Between life and death’: On land, silence and Liberation in the captal 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 base Mjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission..
Read moreDoing theology with children: Exploring emancipatory methodologies
This article serves as an introduction to a collection of articles that explores emancipatorymethodologies for doing theology and research with children. We focus on both the agency and the participation of children as an ethics and children’s rights imperative as well as the potential impact and outcomes of theology and research that focus on children...
Read moreChange-making in a (post)apartheid city: An auto-ethnographical essay
We reflect on living and doing ministry in a (post)apartheid South African city, negotiating ongoing demographic and sociopolitical transitions and discerning appropriate faith responses. We speak about the inevitability of these transitions, but then suggest that a view of theology and ministry as change-making is not inevitable but a vocation and art to be acknowledged,..
Read moreRecovering a Gospel of Love Through Children: Shattering Faith, Knowledge and Justice
This paper seeks to consider the themes of justice, faith and knowledge using the South African context as its backdrop. South Africa provides acontext fraught with a multiplicity of challenges, many of which were inherited from the exceptional injustices which characterised the apartheid era, dating back to the days of British and Dutch colonisation. Since..
Read moreDemythologising social cohesion: Towards a practical
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 moreESR REVIEW: Economic & Social Rights Review in Africa
Welcome to the first issue of ESR Review of 2021, which is part of an ongoing special series on access to justice. At the time of this writing, the world bears witness to brutal attacks by the Nigerian government on #EndSARS protesters over the past three weeks. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a police unit,..
Read moreUrban Africa 2050: Imagining Theological Education/Formation for Flourishing African Cities
Africa’s staggering rate of urbanization and the silence of religion or theology in response form the backdrop of this article. Africa’s urban futures, up through 2050, are considered through the lenses of fifteen African cities and theological institutions in these cities. I employ a set of research questions, seeking to contribute theologically to a body..
Read moreStudent Housing and Homelessness: A Paradox of Urban Gentrification in Pretoria’s Old East, South Africa
The urgency of providing affordable student housing influenced government and higher education institutions to consider urban renewal as a possible avenue to alleviate this demand, with the result that private–public partnerships were promoted to address this. Issues discussed in this article are drawn from qualitative interviews with University of Pretoria’s Student Representative Council (2018–2019), a..
Read morePortrayal of Housing Issues of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Two South African Newspapers
Newspapers are important sources of information related to the issues of refugees and asylum seekers. Seeking asylum in South Africa is challenging because of a hostile sentiment towards non-citizens. The study focused on answering the following research question: How were housing and homelessness related to asylum seekers and refugees portrayed in two South African newspapers..
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