Considering spatial planning for the South African poor : An argument for ‘ planning with ’

This article considers the notion of ‘spatial planning’ in South Africa, elaborating on the challenges relating to the wide disparities between formal and informal areas. Town and Regional Planning theory and anthropological approaches are fused together in this article in an attempt to provide a more integrated approach to spatial planning, arguing in favour of ‘planning with’ poor South Africans, in contrast to ‘planning for’. By using qualitative participant observation, an ethnographic fieldwork study conducted in Marikana informal settlement, Potchefstroom, South Africa, helped form reflections that offer valuable insights in support of the ‘planning with’ approach. Marikana residents’ innovative DIY-formalisation plan of installing communal taps is considered a vivid example of pragmatic local solutions to service-delivery issues and it is argued that these solutions should be considered when ‘planning with’ the poor. The research argues that, despite being different in context, ‘planning with’ approaches have a prominent role to play in both formal and informal settlements. As such, the research elaborated on the value of ‘planning with’ approaches in South Africa, relating to environmental, social, economic, political and broader planning considerations. The article does not offer a generalizable solution to all planning challenges in South Africa. It concludes with a reflection of the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the case study linked to broader themes of the possible planning interventions, considering the delineation of social power, context-based needs, ownership and accountability, and the importance of environmental education for all socio-economic classes, in an attempt to inspire planners, policymakers and anthropologists to find new ways of ‘thinking with’ and ‘planning with’ each other.


INTRODUCTION
One cannot look on the bright side of planning, its modern achievements (if one were to accept them), without looking at the same time on its dark side of domination.The management of the social has produced modern subjects who are not only dependent on professionals for their needs, but also ordered into realities (cities, health and educational systems, economies etc.) that can be governed by the state through planning.Planning inevitably requires the normalization and standardization of reality, which in turn entails injustice and the erasure of difference and diversity (Escobar, 2010: 147).
In 1999, two South African spatial planners (Vanessa Watson and Peter Wilkinson) and an anthropologist (Andrew Spiegel) opened their chapter on the politics of planning1 with the above quote by Columbian-American anthropologist, Arturo Escobar. 2 Spiegel, Watson & Wilkinson (1999) used Escobar's quote to stir up the politics (unequal power relations) of spatial planning and to introduce an argument for a more integrated, and less politically problematic approach to spatial planning in South Africa.It is with this in mind that we deliberately use the same quote to inquire why so little has changed since Spiegel et al. delivered their argument in 1999.In this article, Town and Regional Planning theory and anthropological approaches are fused together in an attempt to consider a more integrated approach to spatial planning, not "for", but "with" poor South Africans.The research draws on a case study based on five weeks of participant observation (the anthropological method of 'hanging out' (Spiegel et al., 1999: 180) and participating in people's everyday lives) in Marikana informal settlement, Potchefstroom, South Africa, in which people resorted to what was locally referred to as "DIY (Do It Yourself) formalisation" in a response to the denial of service delivery from the state.The case study considered water provision to poor citizens and provided an emic (insider) understanding of the current water reality of South Africa's urban poor.It also created a framework for considering broader spatial planning questions relating to planning approaches, community involvement, delineation of social power, and context-based needs.The case study illustrated that people living on the margins of South African cities are often creative and innovative in designing liveable space for themselves.It also illustrates that poor residents are well equipped to plan their living spaces and have sustainable and practical solutions to problems.However, lack of adequate resources often limit the full realisation of these ideas.This research thus argues that, when considering spatial planning for the poor, both top-down and bottom-up planning approaches are problematic, since both reinforce unequal power relations between planners and poor citizens.The research furthermore argues in favour of context-sensitive spatial planning for the poor and that planners need to become more attentive to, and supportive of local solutions to planning and infrastructural concerns -this is where anthropology proves to be of valuable assistance.The article proposes the preposition 'with' in conjunction with 'planning' to argue that a 'planning with' approach to spatial planning for the poor in South Africa can contribute towards addressing the concerns mentioned above and provide a more integrative and sustainable approach to spatial planning for the poor.This article does, however, not provide a generalizable approach, as arguments are based on a singular case study.The research aims to provoke thought about the possibility of a different, more inclusive approach to planning for the poor.Accordingly, a conceptualisation of the notions of 'spatial planning' and 'planning with' is provided.

THE NOTION OF SPATIAL PLANNING
The profession of planning evolved from a designing art to a management and social science (Zhang, 2006: 12) that is now confronted with ever balancing the "protection of the green city", "the promotion of the economically growing city" and "advocating social justice" (Campbell, 1996: 296).
The multidisciplinary nature of the profession led to the creation of different planning approaches, responding to social changes within a particular period of time (Zhang, 2006: 9).Spatial planning thus evolved as a context-specific applied science.
As such, spatial planning is considered the management of change, a political process whereby a balance is sought between all interests involved.Spatial planning is tasked with land-use decisionmaking, and resolving conflicting political and social demands on space, while protecting the earth's generative capacity.
Spatial planning in South Africa has a complicated and problematic colonial history in which land was used politically to disempower and suppress people classified as 'non-white' (the homeland system and the 1913 Land Act specifically come to mind in this instance; Magubane, 1979).Land -and the spatial planning thereof -is not less political or problematic in postcolonial (or post-apartheid) South Africa.Land-use decision-making and the conflicting demands for space imply politics and therefore unequal power relations (Njoh, 2009;Parnell & Mabin, 1995;Spiegel et al., 1999).Njoh (2009) and Spiegel et al. (1999) similarly argue that urban planning is a political tool of power and social control, especially when it is practised 'top-down'.A 'bottomup' approach has been offered to counteract unequal power relations; yet this article argues that a bottomup approach is equally problematic, as it implies unequal social positions (those 'at the bottom' and those 'at the top').
This article argues rather for a 'planning with' approach that is grounded in anthropological understandings of space and cities as 'meshworks' (Ingold, 2017: 10), whilst simultaneously drawing on literature and concepts in spatial planning in an attempt to make the argument for a 'planning with' approach 'policy relevant' (Spiegel et al., 1999: 182-186).

Conceptualising 'planning with'
Over the past five years especially, anthropologists have become increasingly excited about the preposition 'with' and its possibilities for opening up conversations about power relations and how we might deal with unequal power relations (Haraway, 2016;Ingold, 2017;Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011;Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012;Tsing, 2016).Ideas of 'doing with' have been especially prominent in environmental anthropology and in thinking about how we might possibly counteract global warming and mass extinctions by becoming attentive to our entanglements and interdependence with both living and non-living others (Haraway, 2016;Van Doorn, 2014;Van Doorn, 2015).As a scholar in feminist studies, science history, developmental biology, and philosophy Haraway has long argued that nothing can exist without 'existing with' and, more importantly, that nothing can become without 'becoming with' something else (Haraway, 2003;Haraway, 2008;Haraway, 2010;Haraway, 2016).
Applying Ingold's (2017: 10) notion of a 'meshwork', in which "everything tangles with everything else", to South African cities, we vividly perceive that the suburban South African city is contingent upon the maintenance of its margins and the exploitation of the labour contained within these margins.Suburban houses, gardens, municipal service delivery, factories and businesses are maintained by labour sourced from the margins of the cities -historically, the homelands; contemporarily, the townships and informal settlements (Cock, 1980;Parnell & Mabin, 1995;Magubane, 1979;Murray, 2009;Njoh, 2009).
South African cities and informal settlements have 'become with', making the South African city a 'meshwork' (Ingold, 2017: 10) of problematic relationships in which the poor (those not able to contribute meaningfully to the market economy) have become disposable (Murray, 2009) and are left to either 'make do' or die in the margins of our cities where they are left without service delivery or formal, government housing (Gandy, 2004: 368).(Ingold, 2017) between planners and poor citizens in the spatial planning process.

'Planning with' challenges and opportunities in South Africa
In 1999, two South African planning academics (Vanessa Watson and Peter Wilkinson) joined forces with an anthropologist (Andrew Spiegel) to run a project called, 'African population movement in metropolitan Cape Town and its implications for housing policy' (Spiegel et al., 1999: 177).The purpose of the project was to make use of interdisciplinary approaches to gain an in-depth understanding of the housing experiences and expectations among low-income Black South Africans in metropolitan Cape Town, in order to better inform, and make more sustainable housing policy in the area (Spiegel et al., 1999: 177).  2 for an illustration of a DIYformalised area).
To accommodate their right to water and to illustrate water's ability to delineate social power (Gandy, 2004), Marikana residents used an innovative DIY formalisation plan: they installed communal taps as a pragmatic local solution to service delivery for their settlement.
Residents' DIY formalisation process, which they undertook to make their settlement more liveable, is a good example of insurgent city planning.It was used as a case study to propose a 'planning with'-the-poor approach.

Research process
Utilising a qualitative research approach, participant observation was used as a tool for producing data.Participant observation is a method of 'doing research with', as it involves the researcher in a variety of activities over an extended period of time that enables him/ her to observe people in their daily lives as well as participating in everyday practices.The process of conducting this type of fieldwork involves gaining entry into everyday life in the settlement, participating in different activities, sometimes conducting formal interviews, and, more often, casual conversations, and keeping organised, structured field notes (Kawulich, 2005: Art. 43;Clifford, 1990: 51-53).
As this study aimed to provide a fair representation of an informal settlement, a case study with participant observation as method has proven to be beneficial, as it provides opportunities for viewing and participating in everyday events (Marshall & Rossman, 1995;DeMunck & Sobo, 1998: 43;DeWalt & DeWalt, 2010: 259-260).
Participant observation, as a method of "hanging out" (Dewalt & DeWalt, 2010: 261) and 'doing with' not only enables a researcher to enjoy intimate relationships with his/her research companions, but it also allows an emic (insider) perspective on people's daily lives and, therefore, enables a fair representation of research participants in writing (Clifford, 1990: 51).Victor, 2016 her and the residents.In walking through Marikana's streets, the researcher also often 'hung out' (Spiegel et al., 1999: 180) at the 20 auto-installed communal taps and inside residents' houses where she conversed with dozens of residents about their experiences of life and specifically about water provision to their settlement.
Apart from this research method being the primary anthropological research method, 'hanging out' at the 20 communal taps and having casual conversations with residents about daily life enabled the researcher to gain an empathetic and realistic understanding of everyday life in Marikana, as the method ensures vast sensory experience.It was only from daily observing and participating in everyday water practices in the settlement that the researcher was able to understand both the lack of 'proper' infrastructure and the creativity of DIY-installed infrastructure, ensuring a fair written representation of Marikana's infrastructural realities.This method also enabled the researcher to gain residents' trust and ensured a sustained and, therefore, ethical relationship between the researcher and the residents.This research was conducted for the purposes of an honours dissertation in Social Anthropology at the North-West University (Victor, 2016).
Data was collected through a field study considering the water provision to Marikana from both a spatial planning and an anthropological perspective.As such, the current water reality of South Africa's urban poor was central to the point in case of considering broader spatial planning questions relating to planning approaches, community involvement, delineation of social power, and context-based needs.Upon reflection of the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Marikana, and considering the theoretical background in terms of 'planning with' approaches, broad themes of the possibilities of 'planning with' were identified through a coding process considering environment, social, economic, political, and planning issues.

Environmental considerations
Even after installing more accessible water in the form of twenty communal taps during DIY formalisation, sanitation posed a limit to DIY infrastructure, since residents did not have the resources to auto-install proper sanitation infrastructure.
Residents in Marikana made use of the bucket system (this is an embarrassing system, since one needs to walk down the street with a full slop bucket to empty it in the bush), auto-installed pit latrines (these pose risks such as that children can fall in them and die of injury, suffocation or drowning), or defecated in the bush (this is also dangerous, since women were frequently assaulted or raped).
The walls of these latrines were constructed with galvanised iron plates and the interiors often assembled from old ceramic toilet bowls or tin cans with wooden lids.Residents often tiled the floors of their latrines with salvaged tiles and made a toilet brush and some bleach to stand in the corner.During a visit to Marikana, Thembisile, a member of the residential committee, proudly showed the researcher inside such a latrine, and rhetorically asked, 'Is this not much better' than the dirty chemical toilets provided by the local municipality?
Residents were creative in the sense that they shared these pit latrines with neighbours.The latrines were usually locked and the keys were given to neighbours and family members who received permission from the constructor of the toilet to make use of it.All users of the latrines were, therefore, also responsible for the maintenance and cleaning of the latrines.Even though these shared, auto-constructed pit latrines might have partly solved the problem of open defecation, it did not solve the problems of airand underground water pollution.
Neither did the donated chemical toilets.Residents often complained about the foul smell and argued that they would insert and maintain the infrastructure themselves, if local government gave them permission to insert flushing toilets and supported them in acquiring construction materials.
To further make everyday life in the settlement more liveable, residents planted vegetable and flower gardens as well as shade trees at measured stands throughout the settlement, creating green spaces to give "life" to the ground, to provide shade and to minimise ground erosion linked to rainfall, since no storm-water drainage is installed in the area.Some residents made use of large garbage bins to collect rainwater for watering vegetable gardens.
Residents also aspired to create a 'community park' by watering it from a JoJo tank donated by local government in 2014 (on the map in Figure 3, Skhokhorito marked the space for the aspired park).
The JoJo tank was at first received with some discontent, since the water contained in such a tank is not suitable for drinking, and residents argued that the tank did not address their most pressing water issues (safe running water for all residents).One female resident decided to creatively utilise the provided tank to benefit local residents, and used it to water a large vegetable garden at her house, from which food is provided to residents.It was evident that apart from environmental concerns, urban planning should also address social issues.In the next section, the social considerations of 'planning with', as it pertains to the case study will be discussed.

Social considerations
In As mentioned earlier, water has the ability to delineate social power (Gandy, 2004).Therefore, the issue of water provision is not only an environmental or survival issue, but also a social one.Residents' abandonment by the state, which is so evident in the state's denial of service delivery or housing provision, sends a clear message that the state does not care for citizens who cannot contribute to the market economy.
The denial of water provision, in particular, is socially damaging, as water is the most essential resource for life.In Marikana, residents thus decided to auto-install communal taps in an insurgent attempt to negate the state's enforcement of unequal social power and to claim their "right to have a daily life" (Holston, 2009: 246).
Skhokhorito further mentioned that DIY formalisation was a way to "meet the government halfway" with service and housing delivery to Marikana.In this statement, Skhokhorito draws on a fundamental construct of social life: reciprocity, and, more specifically, balanced reciprocity.Nanda (1994: 210) argues that balanced reciprocity enables social relationships to be maintained and regarded as equally worthy.Residents' claim that DIY formalisation is a strategy aimed at "meeting the government halfway" is an indication of the residents' conceptualisation of a good social relationship with local government.The statement is not only a claim that residents have brought something to the table, but also a claim that they expect something in return, in order to maintain good relations with local government.
In terms of maintaining good social relations, it is further important to note that the pressure of providing basic service delivery (such as water) to poor citizens should be understood from the perspective of survival.Citizens in need of water services do not have the luxury of time and cannot wait for government to respond.The drive to survive often leads to 'unauthorized' service usage, but also to innovative and resourceful, often very sustainable solutions to everyday problems that should not be criminalised (Robins, 2014: 497).In addition, citizens in need of basic services often do not have the luxury of There are two main economic considerations as well as two arguments for 'planning with' that become apparent in this instance.
First, in areas such as Marikana, where poverty and unemployment are rife, 'planning with' provides opportunities for cost-effective infrastructure construction.Residents in Marikana made use of the most economically friendly strategy to make their settlement liveable in their collection of shared funds.Residents from neighbouring households would donate money to a collective pool from which funds were drawn in order to 'pull taps closer' to more households.The installation of these collective taps was often accompanied by organised events, during which men did the hard labour of installing the taps, while women prepared a celebratory meal.,After the taps were installed, residents then shared in a meal, usually of pap, marog (a vegetable similar to spinach) and some meat, when possible.Skhokhorito once noted that some residents were annoyed by 'freeloaders' (people who did not participate in the construction of the infrastructure) who often joined in the meals, but that, due to shared poverty, he could not show them Source: Victor, 2016 sufficient funds to meet all their infrastructural needs; yet residents in Marikana made savvy solutions to partly address this issue.
'Planning with', as an approach with the aim of negating unequal power relations (as opposed to 'planning for' or even 'planning against' poor citizens), has vast potential to ensure good social relations between poor citizens, planners and government officials.'Planning with' further has the potential to address economic issues, as will be discussed accordingly.

Economic considerations
Since the residents themselves installed the water infrastructures, they also took the responsibility, or perhaps to use Haraway's (2016: 68) notion "response-ability", for maintaining these infrastructures.
Leakages caused by overuse of the taps, as over one hundred people depend on one communal tap, and the consequent breakage of the tap mechanisms were quickly fixed by residents in innovative ways, such as using forked sticks and wire (see Figure 4).Victor, 2016 away from the meals.The collectively planned auto-construction of taps, therefore, not only enabled residents to install taps in cost-effective ways, but also ensured an affordable meal and wide distribution of food (an often scarce resource) because they planned and did 'with' one another.
A second argument for the economic advantages of 'planning with' is that, if local governments could plan and do 'with' residents, residents would take ownership of the infrastructure (as presented above) and maintain it, thus ensuring cost-effectiveness, since leakages and breaks were fixed quickly and creatively with limited resources.The auto-construction of taps, however, addressed not only environmental or social concerns, but also political ones.

Political considerations
DIY formalisation and the autoconstruction of taps were not only technologies of survival, but also political strategies.Skhokhorito explained that residents of Marikana refused to wait 15 to 20 years for government formalisation and decided to take matters into their own hands, in order to match local government politically.In a casual conversation, Skhokhorito explained that the agenda of communal tap installation was to install a tap at every formalised stand.Skhokhorito explained that, if every person had a tap at his/her stand, water usage might increase and the municipality would suffer a financial loss.In order to avoid financial loss, Skhokhorito argued that the municipality would have to bill residents for water and, therefore, have to install water metres.Water metres can only be installed at stands with addresses and, in this manner, residents hoped to acquire title deeds to stands along with some security -a politically savvy plan indeed (Victor, 2016: 19-20).
In this sense, DIY formalisation was an insurgent claim to citizenship, the city and its infrastructures (Holston, 2009: 246-250).DIY formalisation was also a fervent protest to government's abandonment of residents and its reduction of informal settlement life to 'bare life' -politically unqualified life (Agamben, 1998: 1-3).DIY formalisation was a claim not only to physical life, but also to political life.
As Skhokhorito explained, it was an act of 'active citizenship' -an act of actively questioning power relations between residents and city officials.
In terms of political considerations for a 'planning with' approach, it is important for planners and government officials to be attentive to power differentials and to the inequalities embedded in plannerpoor citizen relationships.It is important for planners to be attentive to how poor residents experience top-down approaches to urban planning and to how they experience urban planners.Planners should then also be attentive to, and supportive of politically savvy local solutions, such as the auto-construction of taps, as part of larger plans to acquire housing certainty.Such solutions are creative planning strategies which planners might find valuable in buying into.

Planning considerations
The case study of DIY formalisation in Marikana informal settlement shows that there are many planning considerations that are valuable and useful to contemplate.Many of them have been mentioned earlier: laying vegetable gardens and planting trees at DIY-measured stands to address environmental concerns; the use of water and water infrastructure to structure a previously formally unstructured space and to bring into question social issues of power delineation, and the use of infrastructure and space measurement to make political claims to the city and its infrastructures (Holston, 2009: 246-250).
Residents in Marikana took specific care to plan their settlement according to existing, standardised government housing plans.These plans included the measurement of streets sufficiently broad to accommodate two vehicles and emergency vehicles and to simplify water and electricity connection; the measurement of stands according to standard government housing stand size (residents did, however, compromise on stand size, in order to illustrate their willingness to "meet the government halfway"), and the allocation of specified areas for garbage (Huchzermeyer, 2006: 57).
Residents also drew on ideas of the "clean city" (Gandy, 2004: 367) in both their allocation of dumping areas far from residential areas and their organisation of pit latrines as far away from houses as possible.
Further, residents organised their settlement in a gridiron layout, similar to suburban South African neighbourhoods.This illustrated both an aspiration for "modern city life" (Ross, 2010: 18-44) and a claim that life in Marikana was in fact "respectable" (Ross, 2010: 35), "modern city life" (Njoh, 2009: 307) -once again a politically savvy planning move.
Residents in Marikana utilised politically savvy DIY approaches of spatial planning to make their settlement more liveable, to claim their right to access to the city, and to transform the margin of Potchefstroom into "their place in the city" (Holston, 2009: 247;Victor, 2016: 20).The authors of this article thus argue that spatial planning in Marikana was strategic and clever, and that these planning strategies could have amazing and long-lasting effects if implemented with planners and government officials.
Based on these findings, the value of 'planning with' could be realised, as it relates to the notions that delineation of social power does not follow a logical order where survival is concerned, that needs cannot be forestalled, but should be context based, that DIY solutions enhance ownership and accountability, and an understanding that environmental education could benefit all classes.

THE VALUE OF 'PLANNING WITH' FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT
The Marikana case study identified valuable lessons that should be considered when planning in the South African context and especially when planning with poor South Africans.Residents in Marikana offered an especially valuable lesson in planning and providing water provision to poor settlements, as much of DIY formalisation centred on the autoconstruction of communal taps and ensuring closer, more accessible running water to residents.Residents in Marikana came up with a pragmatic and sustainable solution to water issues in the settlement by communally collecting money for tap appliances, providing labour for the auto-construction as well as the maintenance of taps, and laying out roughly 60% of their settlement in a gridiron nature, in order to simplify pipe connection.
This article thus argues that such local solutions must be taken seriously and that planners should buy into such solutions and 'plan with' poor citizens, in order to find practical and sustainable solutions to service and housing provision to the South African poor.The 'planning with' approach, in this sense, can contribute to environmental, social, economic, political, and broader planning considerations, especially as it pertains to solutions to water provision for the poor in a water-scarce South Africa, as explained accordingly.

Environmental considerations
Rapid urbanization, significant resource shortages and fragmented institutional structures are some of the issues that contribute to the complexities of water management in South Africa (

Economic considerations
According to the South African nonfinancial census of 2013 (Statistics South Africa, 2013), 5.27 million households received free basic water, and 3.10 million households received free basic sanitation.Currently, no municipality in South Africa charges for storm-water services (Fisher-Jeffes et al., 2012: 903), thus placing more pressure on other sources of income to finance these departments.
As such, the provision of storm-water management is largely funded from property rates, implying that stormwater departments have to compete with many other departments (housing, transport, and so on) with often more pressing needs, when advocating for funding.As a result, most of the storm-water departments in South Africa are chronically underfunded, with some estimated to be receiving as little as 10% of what is ideally required for maintenance (Carden, Fisher-Jeffes & Armitage, 2013: 9).A 'planning with' approach might be the link to support the inclusion of more green infrastructure approaches in South Africa, where the natural environment is optimised to support and, in some instances, fulfil the function of grey infrastructure.Marikana is a good example.Residents collectively accumulated money for infrastructure to provide in the needs of the broader community.Such initiatives prove to be positive in terms of the notion of green infrastructure which relies on the buy-in of local residents, especially considering maintenance, and could be well suited within the 'planning with' approach.

Political considerations
Misperceptions regarding needs and values are probably the greatest reason for not achieving sustainability.Governments often focus primarily on providing basic services to all people, some of whom live in inhumane conditions, while neglecting to place equal emphasis on the environment and the social value that environmental sensitivity might have on both the short and the long term.In addition, governments perceive the unknown to be risky and would prefer traditional approaches, services or infrastructure (Cilliers & Cilliers, 2016)

THE WAY FORWARD FOR INTEGRATIVE PLANNING
The way forward for integrative planning ('planning with') in South Africa should, among others, contemplate the following issues: • The received planning 'wisdom' (Watson, 2004: 252) (Haraway, 2016: 68).
If residents and planners are enabled to "co-respond" (Ingold, 2017) to one another in as far as solutions to housing, environmental and service delivery issues are concerned, poor citizens and planners might become 'empowered' with one another, addressing, if still only partially, the legacy of unequal power relations left behind by colonial urban planning (Njoh, 2009;Spiegel et al., 1999).The planning vision should be refocused in favour of long-term, sustainable practices.'Planning with' can be an instrument to develop social and intergenerational equity, as it has the potential to 'connect' spatially divided communities and settlements.Such an approach and regional strategy should facilitate crosssectoral and transdisciplinary integration, highlighting the links between policymaking and service delivery at national, regional and local levels.The local context and challenges should be understood, and actual public needs should be identified with great caution, as this will result in enhanced ownership and accountability of the infrastructures and services provided.Environmental education should underlie all such approaches.'Planning with' approaches will enable and motivate people to sustain not only the infrastructures, but also the co-created relationships formed with planners and vice versa, enabling possibilities for further planning, thinking and doing with.

CONCLUSION
There is a need to rethink spatial planning in South Africa, especially as it pertains to the South African poor.This article argues that both top-down and bottom-up approaches to spatial planning are problematic, since both imply unequal power relations and reinforce the problematic colonial legacy of spatial planning in South Africa (Njoh, 2009;Parnell & Mabin, 1995).This article thus proposes a 'planning with' approach to spatial planning in South Africa, by making use of anthropological views and theory 'with' spatial planning theory and approaches in an interdisciplinary, complementary and integrative approach, drawing on the approach proposed by Spiegel et al. (1999) of an anthropological understanding of cities as "meshworks" (Ingold, 2017: 10) -spaces in which people (of different economic classes), environments (resources, plants, animals, and so on), infrastructures (both grey and green), and policies (spatial planning policy, laws and rights) are entangled and co-exist.This article proposes 'planning with' as an approach that may take these entanglements into account and provide a less politically unequal approach to spatial planning for the poor.This article does not offer a generalizable solution to all planning challenges in South Africa, but aims to inspire planners, policymakers and anthropologists to find new ways of 'thinking with' (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012) one another, as well as 'with' space in South Africa and 'with' the people who live in these spaces.
towards this research is hereby acknowledged.Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Hand-drawn map of Marikana, indicating formalised as well as non-formalised areas of the settlement and the location of the autoinstalled taps.Skhokhorito Mhala, the researcher's main informant, drew it in the researcher's field journal on 6 September 2016

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: A leaking tap fixed with a forked stick and barbed wire Source:Victor, 2016