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The role of civil society in promoting greater social justice for forced migrants living in the inner city of Johannesburg

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par Dieudonné Bikoko Mbombo
University of the Witwatersrand of Johannesburg, South Africa - Master of Science in Development Planning 2006
  

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5.4. Conclusion

This report examined how Johannesburg's CSOs could facilitate a greater social justice for FMs, following several challenges they face in the inner city which include the denial of access to the health care and also relate to education, unemployment, lack of accommodation, xenophobia, exclusion, and discrimination. Fainstein's (2005) conceptualisation of the `Just City' was used as the guiding theory for this study, followed by Sandercock's (2005 and

2006) approach to the multicultural and intercultural cities, and Healey's (1996) politics of difference. The just city approach, the theories of multicultural and intercultural cities, and the politics of difference, were urban planning theories and approaches used to review, examine,

argue, and analyse the findings of the fieldwork that I conducted for the purpose of this study.

Broadly, this report was divided into five chapters. The first chapter was introductory,

presenting the aim, rationale, methodology and the study's limitations. Johannesburg experiences a flow of FMs coming from all over the world, fleeing their countries for various reasons, including civil wars, political pressures, and persecutions. However, in the inner city, where most of FMs are concentrated, there is a lack of social justice (in a administrative way,

as mentioned in Chapter One) whose the consequences are the challenges previously mentioned. These challenges have a severe impact on their human rights and dignities, and prevent them from accessing the opportunities that the city offers to all its residents.

For this reason, a case-study on Africa's FMs living in the inner city (particularly in Hillbrow and Yeoville) was carried out; and in-depth interviews were conducted with the FMs, CSOs, a police officer, an official from the DHA, and an official from the city council of Johannesburg, in order to examine the challenges facing FMs in the inner city, and their relationships with the cit y's CSOs. The outcomes of these findings served also to evaluate the impacts of the CSOs' actions regarding their efforts to promote social justice for FMs and make Johannesburg a just city.

To see how this objective could be achieved, a number of works on civil society, social justice, forced migration, and `just-city', were reviewed in Chapter Two. The aim of these literatures reviewed was to understand the meaning and role of civil society, the importance of promoting a greater social justice in cities, the content of international regulations on FMs, as well as to highlight the meaning of the just city from a planning perspective. Most of these works reviewed defined the civil society as an agent of social transformation (Friedmann,

1998) and as a `way of thinking about power and the state' (Friedmann and Marris, 1998); while others defined social justice in terms of fairness, equity, equality, democracy, social integration, and respect for the differences (Rawls, 1997; Harvey, 1973; Campbell, 1988; and Oelofse, 2003). Regarding the concept of the `just city', it has been defined in terms of democracy, equality, diversity, growth, sustainability (Fainstein, 2005; Sandercock, 1998; and Young, 1990), and participation (Fisher, 1990).

The Chapter Three focused on the methodology used in the study, and presented the findings

of the fieldwork conducted for its purpose. Regarding the methodology, this stud y used the case study research as this method may help to examine social phenomena such as xenophobia and discrimination (Yin, 1993; McNeil, 1985Tellis, 1997), which are some of the

causes of the lack of social justice in the inner city of Johannesburg. In-depth interviews and

participant observation were the two sources of information that were used to collect the data presented in this study. Through in-depth interviews, FMs expressed their views on challenges they face, and the members of the CSOs explained how they tackle issues facing FMs, challenge the government policies and the City's exclusionary decisions, and how they facilitate greater social justice for FMs.

The strengths and weaknesses of CSOs were analysed and evaluated in Chapter Four, as well

as the voices of FMs. The review of the civil society activities and efforts confirmed that the inner city CSOs have the potential to bring social and economic transformation in the city and help it to become a just city, according to Fainstein's vision.

And finally, in Chapter Five, some recommendations were formulated for the purpose of Johannesburg's CSOs, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and for the national government. With regarding to the national government, it was recommended that it should include the interests

of FMs among its priorities to create a more just city; while from the civil society's side, recommendations that were formulated included: encouraging greater participation, mobilisation and inclusion of South Africans in their struggle for greater social justice for FMs; adopting sometimes radical or `rebellious' procedures to tackle or challenge government policies and exclusionary decisions towards FMs; encouraging strong collaboration between CSOs and the city's planners on matters relating to the FMs; increasing the awareness campaign through the use of the media for the social and economic transformation of the city; reinforcing partnerships with international financial institutions in order to avoid the government subsidiaries which may impact negatively on their autonomy vis-à-vis the state; and increasing a greater collaboration with research centres as well as academic institutions, such the Forced Migration Department of the University of the Witwatersrand for them to stay informed frequently enough on the conditions of the FMs. Some directions for future study were also given in this chapter to encourage development planning students to continue

the research on the subject of social justice for the Johannesburg FMs.

In relation to the main research question (see Chapter One), this study showed that the CSOs could facilitate a greater social justice for FMs by adopting a collaborative, participative, and educative (constructive) attitudes in their relationships with the city council, South Africans,

and FMs. It would be collaborative, in the sense that, to change the FM's conditions, they

should collaborate with the city council (especially with city's planners); and participative,

because they should invite local people to support efforts to challenge government policies and decisions. Finally, it would be educative, because their efforts to promote social justice should be constructive, as it is about teaching people who are different to live together,

despite their differences.

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