Information and the Mediation of Power in Delft, Cape Town

Abstract

In this paper I explore the role of information in disputes over temporary relocations and housing allocation in Delft, Cape Town. Delft is a community with several temporary relocation areas (TRAs), and where massive housing construction takes place. Demands for information and grievances over limited transparency around the future of TRAs and the allocation of housing have become key issues in local politics. Using Mazzarella’s work on mediation as an entry point, I explore how information works as a mediator of power in everyday politics. Information can be a resource for exercises of power, while also being something that is mediated in and through local political identities, social relations, and experiences. Depoliticized notions of information as a tool for frictionless development freed from interest-based politics can be perceived as a mode of regulation through which state actors aim to govern communities and regulate citizenship. But in the everyday politics of citizenship, claim-making based on the right to information also underlie political agency and influence multiple political practices in response to such disciplinary powers.