Description

In this lecture, distinguished anthropologist Jean Comaroff will present recent work on the politics of housing in post-apartheid South Africa. Through the curious case of the “Wendy house,” a ubiquitous form of informal dwelling in the country’s major urban centres, she examines the central paradox of the house and home in postcolonial, neoliberal cities. Caught between its dual roles as the interior domain of domestic life and the fixed abode of the civil subject, and as the quintessential form of property and capital, the private home has become an increasingly elusive icon of human dignity. Within this contradiction, the Wendy house emerges as a symbol of both precarity and resilience in the face of deepening inequality and speculation.