Revisiting Imaginaries of Housing through Occupation: The Case of Reclaim the City

Antje Daniel

doi:10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-41-2-36

Revisiting Imaginaries of Housing through Occupation: The Case of Reclaim the City

Autor*innen: Antje Daniel

https://doi.org/10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-41-2-36

Volume XXXXI • Issue 2 • 2025

Seiten 36-57

Keywords: Social movements; future; imagination; prefiguration; occupation

Abstract

Against the backdrop of increasing gentrification, the Capetonian social movement Reclaim the City (RTC) struggles for social housing in the inner circle of the city. Citizens cannot afford the rising cost of living and have had to move. Once again, the most vulnerable citizens, black and coloured people, are affected by evictions. The article investigates the future imaginaries and their prefiguration of Reclaim the City activists. By occupying three houses, Reclaim the City activists are creating a space for those who have been evicted. The occupation offers a space not only to imagine the future, because they do not face the stressful life on the street that would otherwise have been the consequence, but also to prefigure the future by turning their wishes into reality in everyday life. Hence, this article combines theories of future imaginaries of social movements and of prefiguration with a biographical approach. Based on a qualitative study, the article analyses how biographical experiences shape future imaginaries and their prefigurations of Reclaim the City activists. At the same time, the biographical lens also reveals the contradictions and limitations of prefiguration, which result from the structural experiences of growing up in South Africa.

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