Rights struggles over “development”: land, shelter and citizenship in urban South Africa

Constitutional housing rights in South Africa provide the impetus for mass delivery of standardised housing units, but are also taken up in popular mobilisations for land, shelter and access to social services. In Cato Manor, South Africa’s largest urban renewal scheme, housing was implemented to the exclusion of land restitution claimants and informal settlers. The latter have resisted eviction, and demanded informal settlement upgrading and substantive participation in the development process. Rights are not simply instruments for achieving concordance in the service of “development”; as the rights of some are upheld over those of others, struggle for basic social citizenship ensues.