Tanja Winkler
Biographic Data
| ID | 4005929 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tanja Winkler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tanja |
| FAMILY NAME | Winkler |
| SIGNATURE | WINKLER T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0274-0497 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Democracy Otherwise
More than 40 years of neoliberal globalization have led to a democratic deficit that necessitates urgent redress. Democracy otherwise —which is grounded in decoloniality and its accompanying epistemologies of the South—provides urban and regional planners with an opportunity to learn from the diverse democratic practices emerging in the Global South, practices that are deliberately delinked from the state and capitalism. One such example is found…
What might decoloniality look like in praxis
Decoloniality—which encompasses conceptual frameworks of grounded normativity, grounded relationality, re-earthing, and meta ethical enquiries—yields radically different opportunities for planning theory: opportunities that are explicitly de-linked from occidental systems of thought. Yet, some planning scholars question decoloniality’s transferability into practice. The aim of this article is to demonstrate decoloniality’s political and spatial o…
What to do with the chiefs? Revisiting the historical shifts and continuities of rural land administration and tenure systems in the former Transkei of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
At least seventeen million South Africans live on ‘communal’ landholdings that are held in trust by the state under the custodianship of traditional leaders. Yet, traditional leaders’ land administration powers are undetermined, thereby impeding planning efforts and infrastructure provisions in South Africa’s rural regions. The aim of this article is to revisit the historical shifts and continuities pertaining to rural land administration and ten…
Black texts on white paper
I recently attended an international conference on planning in Africa. Here, it was suggested that the colonial era was over and that planners are already well-versed in decolonising theories and practices. Such suggestions came from Northern and Southern scholars alike. By means of this article, I hope to disrupt this privileged position by introducing the idea of resistant texts which are most often found in endogenous systems of knowledge prod…
Linking Spatial Planning and Land Use Management in the City of Cape Town
Planning to change the world? Questioning the normative ethics of planning theories
We begin with the assertion that epistemological standpoints shape – and are shaped by – ethical principles and that epistemologies of action are constantly evolving. Yet, while many contemporary planning theories are influenced by post-structural and postcolonial epistemologies that recognise the value of subjective and situated knowledge, work on planning ethics tends to retain a focus on normative ethical theories. This focus precludes further…
Between economic efficacy and social justice
On the Liberal Moral Project of Planning in South Africa
Retracking Johannesburg
While promises of participatory governance are enshrined in the South African Constitution and legislated in public policies, state-led participation in Johannesburg is, seemingly, devoid of any real transformative potential. This article demonstrates this by revisiting spaces for participation facilitated by the local state. Findings from three cases and interviews spotlight reasons for ineffective participation: deepening centralization of deci…
Prolonging the Global Age of Gentrification
New Urban Policy and New Conventional Wisdom are not restricted to cities of the global North, but are being imported by municipalities of the global South as ‘world class’ enabling precedents. Johannesburg may be added to the growing number of cities that are adopting economic competitiveness, responsive governance, social cohesion, and social mix strategies to facilitate urban regeneration, so that free-market economic strategies rather than so…
Construire Des Passerelles Ou Ériger Des Barrières ? Associations Cultuelles Et Développement Local À Hillbrow, Johannesburg
L’implication croissante des organisations religieuses dans le développement local ont attiré l’attention des chercheurs qui s’interrogent sur leur rôle en tant qu’agents potentiels de lutte contre la pauvreté à l’échelle locale. Mais les associations cultuelles (AC) sont très hétérogènes. Certaines ont forgé des alliances enjambant les divisions sociales traditionnelles par le biais de mécanismes de « passerelles » ; d’autres défendent des intér…
Super-Sizing Community Development Initiatives
Growing efforts by religious communities to pursue political goals have directed scholarly attention to their role as potential antipoverty and development agents in local settings. Yet agents are organized in a myriad of ways. Some forge alliances across traditional boundaries via 'bridging' mechanisms; others defend particularistic interests by adopting 'barrier' strategies. The former, however, is more likely to lead to the social transformati…
When God and Poverty Collide
Inspired by British and American religion—state practices and social capital theories, South Africa's National Religious Leaders' Forum (NRLF) and the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD) seek similar policy directives to empower a local, but undifferentiated, `faith sector'. For the NRLF/NRASD, the `faith sector' is the best-placed agency to facilitate pragmatic community development projects with far-reaching poverty al…
Black texts on white paper
I recently attended an international conference on planning in Africa. Here, it was suggested that the colonial era was over and that planners are already well-versed in decolonising theories and practices. Such suggestions came from Northern and Southern scholars alike. By means of this article, I hope to disrupt this privileged position by introducing the idea of resistant texts which are most often found in endogenous systems of knowledge prod…
Planning to change the world? Questioning the normative ethics of planning theories
We begin with the assertion that epistemological standpoints shape – and are shaped by – ethical principles and that epistemologies of action are constantly evolving. Yet, while many contemporary planning theories are influenced by post-structural and postcolonial epistemologies that recognise the value of subjective and situated knowledge, work on planning ethics tends to retain a focus on normative ethical theories. This focus precludes further…
Prolonging the Global Age of Gentrification
New Urban Policy and New Conventional Wisdom are not restricted to cities of the global North, but are being imported by municipalities of the global South as ‘world class’ enabling precedents. Johannesburg may be added to the growing number of cities that are adopting economic competitiveness, responsive governance, social cohesion, and social mix strategies to facilitate urban regeneration, so that free-market economic strategies rather than so…
Retracking Johannesburg
While promises of participatory governance are enshrined in the South African Constitution and legislated in public policies, state-led participation in Johannesburg is, seemingly, devoid of any real transformative potential. This article demonstrates this by revisiting spaces for participation facilitated by the local state. Findings from three cases and interviews spotlight reasons for ineffective participation: deepening centralization of deci…
When God and Poverty Collide
Inspired by British and American religion—state practices and social capital theories, South Africa's National Religious Leaders' Forum (NRLF) and the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD) seek similar policy directives to empower a local, but undifferentiated, `faith sector'. For the NRLF/NRASD, the `faith sector' is the best-placed agency to facilitate pragmatic community development projects with far-reaching poverty al…
Between economic efficacy and social justice
Super-Sizing Community Development Initiatives
Growing efforts by religious communities to pursue political goals have directed scholarly attention to their role as potential antipoverty and development agents in local settings. Yet agents are organized in a myriad of ways. Some forge alliances across traditional boundaries via 'bridging' mechanisms; others defend particularistic interests by adopting 'barrier' strategies. The former, however, is more likely to lead to the social transformati…
When God and Poverty Collide
Inspired by British and American religion—state practices and social capital theories, South Africa's National Religious Leaders' Forum (NRLF) and the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD) seek similar policy directives to empower a local, but undifferentiated, `faith sector'. For the NRLF/NRASD, the `faith sector' is the best-placed agency to facilitate pragmatic community development projects with far-reaching poverty al…
Prolonging the Global Age of Gentrification
New Urban Policy and New Conventional Wisdom are not restricted to cities of the global North, but are being imported by municipalities of the global South as ‘world class’ enabling precedents. Johannesburg may be added to the growing number of cities that are adopting economic competitiveness, responsive governance, social cohesion, and social mix strategies to facilitate urban regeneration, so that free-market economic strategies rather than so…
Construire Des Passerelles Ou Ériger Des Barrières ? Associations Cultuelles Et Développement Local À Hillbrow, Johannesburg
L’implication croissante des organisations religieuses dans le développement local ont attiré l’attention des chercheurs qui s’interrogent sur leur rôle en tant qu’agents potentiels de lutte contre la pauvreté à l’échelle locale. Mais les associations cultuelles (AC) sont très hétérogènes. Certaines ont forgé des alliances enjambant les divisions sociales traditionnelles par le biais de mécanismes de « passerelles » ; d’autres défendent des intér…
On the Liberal Moral Project of Planning in South Africa
Retracking Johannesburg
While promises of participatory governance are enshrined in the South African Constitution and legislated in public policies, state-led participation in Johannesburg is, seemingly, devoid of any real transformative potential. This article demonstrates this by revisiting spaces for participation facilitated by the local state. Findings from three cases and interviews spotlight reasons for ineffective participation: deepening centralization of deci…
Between economic efficacy and social justice
Linking Spatial Planning and Land Use Management in the City of Cape Town
Planning to change the world? Questioning the normative ethics of planning theories
We begin with the assertion that epistemological standpoints shape – and are shaped by – ethical principles and that epistemologies of action are constantly evolving. Yet, while many contemporary planning theories are influenced by post-structural and postcolonial epistemologies that recognise the value of subjective and situated knowledge, work on planning ethics tends to retain a focus on normative ethical theories. This focus precludes further…
Black texts on white paper
I recently attended an international conference on planning in Africa. Here, it was suggested that the colonial era was over and that planners are already well-versed in decolonising theories and practices. Such suggestions came from Northern and Southern scholars alike. By means of this article, I hope to disrupt this privileged position by introducing the idea of resistant texts which are most often found in endogenous systems of knowledge prod…
What to do with the chiefs? Revisiting the historical shifts and continuities of rural land administration and tenure systems in the former Transkei of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
At least seventeen million South Africans live on ‘communal’ landholdings that are held in trust by the state under the custodianship of traditional leaders. Yet, traditional leaders’ land administration powers are undetermined, thereby impeding planning efforts and infrastructure provisions in South Africa’s rural regions. The aim of this article is to revisit the historical shifts and continuities pertaining to rural land administration and ten…
What might decoloniality look like in praxis
Decoloniality—which encompasses conceptual frameworks of grounded normativity, grounded relationality, re-earthing, and meta ethical enquiries—yields radically different opportunities for planning theory: opportunities that are explicitly de-linked from occidental systems of thought. Yet, some planning scholars question decoloniality’s transferability into practice. The aim of this article is to demonstrate decoloniality’s political and spatial o…
Democracy Otherwise
More than 40 years of neoliberal globalization have led to a democratic deficit that necessitates urgent redress. Democracy otherwise —which is grounded in decoloniality and its accompanying epistemologies of the South—provides urban and regional planners with an opportunity to learn from the diverse democratic practices emerging in the Global South, practices that are deliberately delinked from the state and capitalism. One such example is found…
Political science (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (7 works) · Economics (6 works) · Legal Issues in South Africa (6 works) · Geography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (5 works) · Economic growth (4 works)