Alex Wafer
Biographic Data
| ID | 120316 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Wafer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Wafer |
| SIGNATURE | WAFER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5059-1852 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Social Networks Within the City: Remaking the City Through Movement and Collecting Materials in Johannesburg, South Africa
This study examines the social networks of informal recyclers in Fietas, Johannesburg, South Africa, and how these networks function as socio-spatial practices through which informal recyclers assert their Right to the City. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted across multiple Johannesburg suburbs, the study indicates that informal recycling provides livelihoods for marginalised populations and enables informal recyclers to negotiate access…
Can Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) be a sustainable strategy to address the skills development gap and community sustainability challenges in Just Energy Transition (JET) policy decision-making? Evi…
South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) from coal to renewable energy in response to climate change mitigation policies comes packaged with social costs that these mitigation policies tend to overlook, considering their focus on carbon emission reduction. The paper argues that Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), a component of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) focused on social impact mitigation, can be a long-term approach to closing the…
Retracted Article: Social Networks within the City: Remaking the City through Movement and Collecting Materials in Johannesburg, South Africa
This study examines the dynamics of networks among informal recyclers in Fietas, Johannesburg, South Africa, focussing on how these networks embody their struggle for the "Right to the City." By observing informal recycling activities across various Johannesburg suburbs, the study highlights how recycling not only provides livelihoods for the unemployed but also allows marginalised groups to assert their presence and rights within the cityscape. …
Top-down sustainable urban development? Urban governance transformation in Saudi Arabia
Documentary evidence: Navigating identity and credibility in Africa's urban estuaries
In this article we argue for closer intellectual attention to the intersection between the unstable materiality of urban spaces on the one hand, and anxieties about the materiality of official documents on the other. Based on initial evidence from two cities in Africa, namely Nairobi and Johannesburg, we have observed that official documents as material objects matters most in precisely those parts of the city where formal state and civil society…
Loitering: Reassembling Time in the City-of-the-Global-South
One of the most powerfully visible ways in which public space in inner city Johannesburg is ordered is through the material presence of apparently idle young men – a context profoundly linked to the precarious position of young and immigrant men in the post-apartheid economy. For the most part, these young men are regarded with disdain, the objects of fear and anxiety. In the following discussion, based on two years of field research with a group…
Suburban road-closures and the ruinous landscapes of privilege in Johannesburg
In this article we trace the emergence of road-closures - i.e. the barricading by local residents of public roads ostensibly in response to crime - in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg in the decade after apartheid. We argue that road-closures manifest an attempt at material "fixing" an urban order of privilege, even as privilege and inequality is increasingly "deterritorialised" in the city of the global South. While conventionally theorised …
Discourses of Infrastructure and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid Soweto
Local Politics and the Circulation of Community Security Initiatives in Johannesburg
The article analyses the emergence and circulation of community-driven security initiatives in two types of setting in Johannesburg, South Africa: street patrols and community courts in pre-apartheid and apartheid townships on the one hand; road closures in post-apartheid middle-class suburbs on the other. In spite of the obvious contrasts, the two types of community security initiatives share two important features: originating in a series of co…
Scale, governance and the maintenance of privileged control: The case of road closures in Johannesburg’s Northern Suburbs
Top-down sustainable urban development? Urban governance transformation in Saudi Arabia
Loitering: Reassembling Time in the City-of-the-Global-South
One of the most powerfully visible ways in which public space in inner city Johannesburg is ordered is through the material presence of apparently idle young men – a context profoundly linked to the precarious position of young and immigrant men in the post-apartheid economy. For the most part, these young men are regarded with disdain, the objects of fear and anxiety. In the following discussion, based on two years of field research with a group…
Suburban road-closures and the ruinous landscapes of privilege in Johannesburg
In this article we trace the emergence of road-closures - i.e. the barricading by local residents of public roads ostensibly in response to crime - in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg in the decade after apartheid. We argue that road-closures manifest an attempt at material "fixing" an urban order of privilege, even as privilege and inequality is increasingly "deterritorialised" in the city of the global South. While conventionally theorised …
Local Politics and the Circulation of Community Security Initiatives in Johannesburg
The article analyses the emergence and circulation of community-driven security initiatives in two types of setting in Johannesburg, South Africa: street patrols and community courts in pre-apartheid and apartheid townships on the one hand; road closures in post-apartheid middle-class suburbs on the other. In spite of the obvious contrasts, the two types of community security initiatives share two important features: originating in a series of co…
Scale, governance and the maintenance of privileged control: The case of road closures in Johannesburg’s Northern Suburbs
Discourses of Infrastructure and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid Soweto
Local Politics and the Circulation of Community Security Initiatives in Johannesburg
The article analyses the emergence and circulation of community-driven security initiatives in two types of setting in Johannesburg, South Africa: street patrols and community courts in pre-apartheid and apartheid townships on the one hand; road closures in post-apartheid middle-class suburbs on the other. In spite of the obvious contrasts, the two types of community security initiatives share two important features: originating in a series of co…
Suburban road-closures and the ruinous landscapes of privilege in Johannesburg
In this article we trace the emergence of road-closures - i.e. the barricading by local residents of public roads ostensibly in response to crime - in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg in the decade after apartheid. We argue that road-closures manifest an attempt at material "fixing" an urban order of privilege, even as privilege and inequality is increasingly "deterritorialised" in the city of the global South. While conventionally theorised …
Loitering: Reassembling Time in the City-of-the-Global-South
One of the most powerfully visible ways in which public space in inner city Johannesburg is ordered is through the material presence of apparently idle young men – a context profoundly linked to the precarious position of young and immigrant men in the post-apartheid economy. For the most part, these young men are regarded with disdain, the objects of fear and anxiety. In the following discussion, based on two years of field research with a group…
Top-down sustainable urban development? Urban governance transformation in Saudi Arabia
Documentary evidence: Navigating identity and credibility in Africa's urban estuaries
In this article we argue for closer intellectual attention to the intersection between the unstable materiality of urban spaces on the one hand, and anxieties about the materiality of official documents on the other. Based on initial evidence from two cities in Africa, namely Nairobi and Johannesburg, we have observed that official documents as material objects matters most in precisely those parts of the city where formal state and civil society…
Can Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) be a sustainable strategy to address the skills development gap and community sustainability challenges in Just Energy Transition (JET) policy decision-making? Evi…
South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) from coal to renewable energy in response to climate change mitigation policies comes packaged with social costs that these mitigation policies tend to overlook, considering their focus on carbon emission reduction. The paper argues that Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), a component of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) focused on social impact mitigation, can be a long-term approach to closing the…
Retracted Article: Social Networks within the City: Remaking the City through Movement and Collecting Materials in Johannesburg, South Africa
This study examines the dynamics of networks among informal recyclers in Fietas, Johannesburg, South Africa, focussing on how these networks embody their struggle for the "Right to the City." By observing informal recycling activities across various Johannesburg suburbs, the study highlights how recycling not only provides livelihoods for the unemployed but also allows marginalised groups to assert their presence and rights within the cityscape. …
Social Networks Within the City: Remaking the City Through Movement and Collecting Materials in Johannesburg, South Africa
This study examines the social networks of informal recyclers in Fietas, Johannesburg, South Africa, and how these networks function as socio-spatial practices through which informal recyclers assert their Right to the City. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted across multiple Johannesburg suburbs, the study indicates that informal recycling provides livelihoods for marginalised populations and enables informal recyclers to negotiate access…
Political science (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Corporate governance (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Economic growth (3 works) · Economics (3 works)