South African racial modernist planning was undemocratic, acontextual, and top-down, with enduring consequences. This article argues that repurposing built spaces marred by racial modernism constitutes a planning “next practice”: incrementally, repurposing suggests what forms of spatial transformation are possible. Synthesizing primary interviews, archival data, in-situ analyses of urban space, and secondary sources, the article traces how bureaucrats and residents repurpose built sites in Mahikeng/Mmabatho, South Africa, which experienced extreme racial-modernist planning as a receiving site of forced relocation and capital of the apartheid-era Bophuthatswana “Bantustan.” The inquiry reveals planning as dynamic and open-ended, subject to recontextualization and alternative planning futures.
Focus Group conversation, featuring interviewee #118, a current civil servant [anonymous]. Focus group recording. 1:03:26. October 12, 2022.
2.
Interview #87 with journalist, political activist, local resident, and community member [anonymous]. Recording transcript; 1:15:48. September 22, 2022.
3.
Interview #131 with local resident and planning researcher [anonymous]. Recording. 1:52:10. October 24, 2022.
4.
Interview #164 with academic, local resident, and activist [anonymous]. Recording transcript; 5:00:00 + across five recordings. December 3, 2022.
5.
Interview #170 with local resident and small-businessperson [anonymous]. Recording; 49:11. December 4, 2022.
6.
Interview #175 with politician, local resident, and activist [anonymous]. Recording transcript; 2:50:53. December 6, 2022.
7.
Interview #180 with municipal planning official [anonymous]. Recording transcript; 1:42:18. December 7, 2022.
8.
Personal communication #29 with academics, community leaders, and activists [anonymous]. Field notes; 3:00:00. March 13, 2022.
9.
Personal communication #42 with academic and planner [anonymous]. Zoom conversation notes; 45:00. April 4, 2022.
10.
Personal communication #86 with academics, community leaders, and activists [anonymous]. Field notes; 2:30:00. September 21, 2022.
11.
Personal communication #118b with activist, politician, and civil servant [anonymous]. Unrecorded WhatsApp conversation and field notes; 30:00. October 12, 2022.
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Personal communication #143 with planning academic [anonymous]. Event and discussion notes; 1:00:00. November 2, 2022.
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Personal communication #176 with local residents, academics, and historians [anonymous]. Field notes; 3:00:00. December 6, 2022.
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