Delivery as Dispossession: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City

A sweeping historical and political analysis with detailed ethnographic fieldwork of the politics of everyday life in postcolonial Africa.

In post-apartheid South Africa, nearly a fifth of the urban population lives in shacks. Unable to wait any longer for government housing, people occupy land, typically seeking to fly under the state's radar. Yet in most cases, occupiers wind up in dialogue with the state. In Delivery as Dispossession, Zachary Levenson follows this journey from avoidance t...