Understanding Perspectives
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. This is a simple phrase that describes how more than one person can look at the same person or an object, might it be an artwork and have different views on how beautiful or not beautiful it is. We look and see things around us differently and from these views we often build our own opinions and perspectives. The world as we see it today is built on different ideas. It has 195 different countries also built on different ideas. There are so many religions. Engineering and our infrastructure is what it is today simply because, five heads are just better than one. With this paper I will attempt to explain my understanding of the concept of perspectives and further go on to describe how it has influenced my view on the notion of community engagement.
I have a friend who believes in a Christian God. To be more accurate, she believes that the God exists, but she personally is not a fan. When having these conversations about religion with her, she frequently goes to describe God as “full of himself” and ‘Satan’ as the bigger man because he never wrote or there is not a book that tells Satan’s side of the story. Adichie (2009) in her TEDTalk through her stories of herself while growing up demonstrates what she calls the single story. She describes how she grew up with a single perspective of how only white people could and should exist in literature and in return ended up limiting her world in her writing (cited in Ndzendze, 2012). The perspectives she had where a result of what was presented to her. That is how people usually develop their perspectives. They are typically what you see to be [Shireen Manning; UCT Student, Female] compared to opinions which I believe to be what you make of what you see to be. What you see or think you see to be like Adichie saw the literature can change due to influence and this introduces power in our understanding perspectives.
“The way in which stories are told, the person who tells them, when they are told, and how many stories are told, are all dependent on power” (Adichie 2009). A typical house has four major sides looking into four different directions. A house on a hill in Camps Bay would have a side that overlooks the ocean (the front), two sides that have a small view of the ocean and a small view of the hill, and then there will be side that looks on to the hill (the back). Given who you talk to in that house, you will get a different idea of the house. If you want to buy the house and you talk to the person who has the room with the back window, you will get a bad idea of the house. This idea is just from one person with an experience in an environment and this influences their perspective. This is what Adichie (2009) and Ndendze (2012) are trying to emphasise. One sided stories (single stories) create stereotypes, they may sometimes be true but are not always the only version as Ndzendze (2012) demonstrates in her paper.
When reflecting on our visit to the Observatory Civic Association, it is interesting how we listened to one person the whole day tell a story of a community of so many people and we automatically believed him even when the history he repeated had never been head of, yet it seemed to be the most important piece of South African history. Just because the readings on the locations we went to in the off-campus class were provided by the course, and the course took us there we automatically assumed the community leaders are right. The website links provided to us by our facilitator shaped our perspective of that community even the day before we went there. When we got there, and I heard why another organisation is letting developments that some members of the community were not in favour for then I saw how the information that was presented to me did not allow me to have an informed perspective of the place. I was in favour of the developments.
During the reenactment of a community meeting in the Social Infrastructure class, I learned how what authorities and developers would classify as community engagement is not always successful and yet so essential. Winkler (2013) presents the study that aims to see who benefits from these types of engagements. Even if authorities in their perspectives may consider these engagements as successful from their singular academic view, the communities may not agree and see immediate benefits, as Winkler (2013) shows with the residents of Barcelona and Europe. It was fascinating how a group of 13 people would just let me arrive and declare myself the chairman of the organisation and see them choose me as the spokesperson solely from the fact that I managed to take over. Opens a lot of questions and worries on real community engagement, especially how all of our issues came from four people and the rest where quiet. The reenactment showed as Winkler (2013) stated, for one, challenges that arise during engagements. From entry into the community to the lack of trust and accountability. Developers in Observatory “… need to know how to build and maintain longer-term relationships…” (Winkler, 2013) with the community. Therefore multiple organisations with different perspectives and not just one are important.
I visit Observatory almost every weekend and not once has it occurred to me or my friends that this place has so much history and so much on-going issues. What Observatory is seen as by the public and what is shows itself to the public is a place with all the services on place could ever need. They have proper housing, they have water, they have electricity, their streets are clean, etc - and yet there's so much space for development.
This development is what I personally think will make Observatory more recognized in Cape Town for what it really is. The building of a stadium for one of the fastest growing soccer teams in South Africa and erecting new buildings for businesses and accommodations is what the suburb needs to maintain its services. Every development that happens in the suburb pays a levy and thus helping the community sustain itself. Also, I acknowledge and understand that bringing more people into the community may threaten the safety and security of the residents. With the great history they have excluding the monument in the centre on of the suburb which our CBO made clear that it is not welcomed there - one of the ways it might benefit them to not restrict development that will attract people to their suburb is to have the opportunity to showcase this history.
Observatory is a Heritage Protection Overlaying zone and one of the conditions is that no one can build to higher than six stories. Now, Cape Town is a big city that people constantly move in and there is no space. This means to provide housing for people engineers need to build vertically and not horizontally. If I was part of the community I would suggest letting go of this condition but still, to keep their heritage - have the new buildings brought it to have the same structural design as the buildings in Observatory. In UCT every new building as the same type of brown brittle roofing as the old buildings to keep the heritage going on.
Having multiple structures to represent the community is always beneficial. All sharing information and working towards the development of the same suburb from different hats (perspectives) and mandates. This is goes on to effectively represent all the views of the community as individual residents. It seems to go against the city's own progress to have some members being part of more than one organisation.
What I appreciated the most about Observatory is how they are able to sustain themselves and protect themselves. Their ability to work together towards specific goals of cleanliness, safety and security. Their history should be documented and made available to the rest of the public. It is not fair for the South African National Circus to be removed but the suburb has made it clear that they are a standalone community. Every community should have a Civic Association, but I do not believe that the Observatory Civic Association is working for the greater benefit of the Observatory community. They are working against their own community's development.
When we went to the Observatory, we saw failed developments because of companies and authorities not engaging with the community and still have organisations in the same community who support the development. Seeing how these organisations work together and what they have achieved in Observatory shows the benefits and importance of co-production. They are able to come up with multiple solutions and have a medium where they can critic them. Each organisation has a certain amount and type of information that when amalgamated with that of the other different organisations can enable Observatory to progress.Perspective is the way you view things based on our previously gathered knowledge and experience. They way you see Cape Town based on where you stay in Cape Town shapes your view of Cape Town. The more we perspectives we have the better the outcome will be.
References:
Ndzendze , Z. (2012). A different face of illness in Khayelitsha: problematizing the single
story. Paper presented at the Mellon Mays conference in Philadelphia, June.
Winkler, T. (2013) “At the coalface: University-Community Engagements and Planning
Education, Journal of Planning Education & Research, 33(2) 215-227.