4 research outputs found
Big sugar in southern Africa : rural development and the perverted potential of sugar/ethanol exports
This paper asks how investment in large-scale sugar cane production has contributed, and will contribute, to rural development in southern Africa. Taking a case study of the South African company Illovo in Zambia, the argument is made that the potential for greater tax revenue, domestic competition, access to resources and wealth distribution from sugar/ethanol production have all been perverted and with relatively little payoff in wage labour opportunities in return. If the benefits of agro-exports cannot be so easily assumed, then the prospective 'balance sheet' of biofuels needs to be re-examined. In this light, the paper advocates smaller-scale agrarian initiatives
Missing the point? Urban planning and the normalisation of âpathologicalâ spaces in southern Africa
In this paper I consider ânormalisationâ as a response to urban informal livelihoods in urban southern Africa. I demonstrate that urban planning systems have been mobilised to correct or eliminate âspatial pathologiesâ. Using illustrative cases from southern Africa, I argue that the authoritiesâ obsession with ânormalisingâ urban spaces they have designated as âpathologiesâ is misplaced because it glaringly defies the reality on the ground. Interrogated in the paper is the reasoning behind, and effectiveness of, âcorrectiveâ measures that exclude and marginalise informality through technicalisation, âexpertisationâ and depoliticisation. I evaluate the basis, workings and deleterious outcomes of normalising technologies and question the relevance and efficacy of normalisation at a time when it is increasingly becoming clear that African urbanisation is â and will possibly continue to be â simultaneously driven and cushioned by informalisation