The Threshold of Public and Private: Justice and Control over Water and Electricity Infrastructure in Cape Town

Abstract

Shifting relationships between publicness and privateness reveal how injustice is deconstructed or exacerbated through infrastructure practices in South Africa. This study explores relationships and entanglements between public and private through a focus on the shifts towards alternative water and electricity infrastructure in Cape Town among relatively wealthy households and businesses. While they can secure infrastructure access for themselves, there are implications for public energy and water security, municipal functioning and justice. This marks a tension between individual freedom and collective responsibility, especially given South Africa’s history and state of inequality. The data for this article are drawn from interviews and a survey with households, businesses, government officials and experts along with media, discourse and policy analysis, during 2022 and 2023. The article argues that the binary understandings of public and private obscure real potential for collective action towards public interest by exploring entanglements of public and private in terms of governance, goods, actors and interests.