Public Infrastructures of Inclusion and Exclusion

The seminar week explores the contemporary city through the lens of public infrastructures of inclusion and exclusion. More than purely technical systems, infrastructures in Cape Town—such as transport networks, public spaces, and housing—have historically structured social and racial separation, while simultaneously holding the potential to reconnect a deeply fragmented urban society. The seminar critically engages with the colonial, apartheid, post-apartheid, and contemporary histories of the city by visiting a range of sites where these layered urban narratives materialize.
Students will experience the city through everyday practices of public mobility and the use of public space, reflecting on how infrastructures enhance or limit accessibility, visibility, and belonging. In doing so, they will confront the contrasts and continuities that characterize Cape Town’s urban condition today.
The seminar moves across different parts of the city, including apartheid-era townships, the inner city (City Bowl), and the modern and rapidly transforming areas of the Foreshore and Sea Point. Encounters with local practitioners and academics further situate these observations within ongoing debates on urban justice, governance, and spatial transformation.
A central component of the seminar is engagement with the work of the municipality as a collective actor in the making of the city. A visit to the City Archive provides insight into the planning and administrative instruments through which urban space has been regulated and transformed over time. Through this archival visit, students will engage with the processes behind the infrastructures they experience first-hand during the week.

This seminar week took place in Spring 2026