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Essay / 1.1 PRESENTATION OF SERVICE DELIVERY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN KHAYELITSHA This study presents an assessment of the links between service delivery – water services in particular – and participatory strategies adopted by different communities. This study was conceived in a context of increased activism within local government, as evidenced by the widespread so-called service delivery protests in 2005-2006. There is already an extensive literature (e.g. Benit-Gbaffou 2008a, 2008b, Piper and Nadvi 2010, Tapscott 2010, 2005, Ballard et al 2006, Miraftab 2006 and Zeurn 2001) on the link between the state and civil society in post-apartheid era. . The majority of these studies highlight the failure of the institutionalized participatory governance system such as neighborhood committees and integrated development planning. Such failures of traditional participatory channels have inevitably triggered a shift toward unconventional methods such as protests and lawsuits, which have been relatively more successful in attracting an audience and making voices heard. Protest itself, however, is not a new phenomenon in South Africa. , while protest constituted a key element of the anti-apartheid struggle. There is, however, a crucial distinction. During the colonial and apartheid era, black people's participation in governance was limited by a series of laws aimed at alienating their South African citizenship. This teeming obsession and desire to subject Africans to a permanent underclass for their entire existence outside their homeland did not deter black Africans from migrating to “white” urban South Africa. Migration in search of employment opportunities, mainly in urban areas and mining complexes, was a means of ...... middle of paper ...... capable of extracting trade-offs from the State through its ability to harness the resources necessary to engage in complex activities. conflicts using various spaces such as mass media, Internet and through recourse to courts. In urban areas, the transformation of citizenship requires the removal of race as a central basis for planning. While the ongoing transformation has resulted in the legal exclusion of the foundations of apartheid and the emergence of social class as a central divide, the quality of urban services and socio-economic access arguably retain the roots of the old one. For many poor people, the huge inequalities between their lot and the rich and predominantly white population, of which the Boers are the declared enemy, focus on the quality of houses and associated services available to the privileged class and constitute the basis for measuring full citizenship.
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