GCRO supports Wits / UCL Masters course on extended urbanisation

In early May 2023, a number of GCRO staff provided support to a Masters course focused on the topic of extended urbanisation, jointly convened by Prof. Jennifer Robinson from the Department of Geography at University College London (UCL), and Professors Philip Harrison and Alison Todes from the Wits School of Architecture and Planning at Wits. The course is defined in UCL as the Global Theory Lab (the link to the course material is currently set as public access), and made substantial use of GCRO work, including the Provocation on displaced urbanisation/urbanism published in 2022, and an interview with Executive Director Rashid Seedat.

Twelve UCL students flew out to Gauteng in early May to join a cohort of eight Wits Masters Students in exploring dimensions of extended urbanisation in the South African context. A number of GCRO staff assisted with the programme of events:

• On 2 May, Richard Ballard presented 'The Production of Space in Johannesburg, Gauteng' to an introductory session with the students.
• In anticipation of the work the students would be doing on their assignment – to produce a Map of the Month style output on an aspect of extended urbanisation in the GCR – Graeme Götz presented an 'Overview of GCRO’s data outputs and data sources' to the same group on 2 May.
• Ngaka Mosiane and Graeme Götz joined other UCL and WITS academics in accompanying the students to the Wits Rural Facility from 8-11 May. Here the focus was on extended urbanisation processes in Bushbuckridge, an extended swathe of settlements holding hundreds of thousands of people on the edge of the Kruger National Park. While ostensibly rural, in part because most of the land continues to be held under traditional tenure arrangements with still irregularly arranged land use patterns and communal grazing areas, Bushbuckridge is also dramatically 'urbanising', with the construction of thousands of large, urban-style homes (see pictures below). The group of students and academics explored the area, interviewed municipal officials about its development, and talked to residents about their lives and livelihoods.
• Richard Ballard and Graeme Götz participated in presentations by the WITS and UCL students on their assignments. They also subsequently assisted a few of the students to deepen their data analysis and mapping work in preparation for the final submission of their assignments in early June.

GCRO's contribution to the course is likely to continue in the future, with discussions started between Jenny Robinson, Phil Harrison and GCRO about further developing the course material into a fully fledged massive open online course (MOOC).

The UCL and WITS student cohorts in front of the entrance to the Wits Rural Facility

The building of large 'suburban' style homes in Bushbuckridge, an ostensibly 'rural' area