Spatial justice: accountability through collaboration and confrontation

Author(s): 
Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI)

ESCR-Net Member, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI), contributed a to the Good Governance Learning Network (GGLN)’s annual report, Navigating Accountability and Collaboration in Local Governance. The chapter reflects on SERI's work to improve social and spatial justice through a combination of confrontational, cooperative and complementary strategies. It discusses different methods of engaging the state in order to advance accountability through the lens of a “4C” (Confrontational, Complementary, Cooperative and Co-opted) model. The chapter also has examples of SERI's use of different methods: the Chung Hua Mansions case as an example of a confrontational method; the application of the findings of SERI's Edged Out research report as a complementary method, and SERI’s Submission on the City of Johannesburg’s Special Process for the Relocation of Evictees (SPRE) as a cooperative method. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on lessons learnt, and the implications and risks of these approaches.

Please read the full chapter here.