Unemployment, service delivery and practices of waiting in South Africa’s informal settlements

Abstract

Informal mining settlements in Rustenburg, South Africa, grew exponentially due to the removal of apartheid-era spatial controls in the late 1980s and the boom in platinum mining in the early 2000s. These informal settlements lack official recognition, and this generates collective uncertainty and engenders different forms of waiting. Residents wait for employment, services, and ultimately official recognition of their settlement and its integration into the Rustenburg Local Municipality. As residents wait, they also fashion various strategies to alleviate their situation. Drawing on ethnographic data collected from the Ikemeleng informal settlement on the outskirts of Rustenburg town, this article combines an analysis of experiences of waiting with the conditions and structures that generate waiting. It argues that waiting in informal settlements is not characterized by passive acquiesce but is an engaged activity that is informed by residents’ reflexive responses to the different structures and regimes of waiting. The article argues that informal settlements should be viewed as zones of waiting, not only because they are spaces that generate waiting, but most importantly because residents engage in active waiting.