Johannesburg from the Riverbanks: Navigating the Jukskei

As humanity faces impending global environmental challenges and intensifying inequality in cities around the world, the task of assessing our relationships to urban rivers like the Jukskei, and the nonhumans that inhabit it, takes on renewed urgency. Johannesburg from the Riverbanks: Navigating the Jukskei is the first book to critically look at the role of the Jukskei River in the cultural, social, political and scientific life of the city of Johannesburg. This unique book brings together a wide range of disciplinary perspectives to examine the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, relationships that Johannesburg has to one of its key rivers. This treasure trove of a book tells stories of how Johannesburg and the Jukskei River make each other.  A sparkling compendium of chapters and images by artists, activists, scientists, urban planners, and historians will make you think about the river in new ways.                                – Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor Emeritus, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg from the Riverbanks is a fine example of the power of critical interdisciplinary studies, not only of the Jukskei river itself, but also how we are able to see and understand Johannesburg in refreshing ways. This book is a critical intervention in the increasing importance of studies on the preservation, restoration and sustainability of rivers as important sinews of urban, social, artistic and environmental cultures as well as existence. An invigorating read for anyone interested in understanding the nature-urban interaction. – Mucha Musemwa, Professor of History and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand The authors of this book expose how the processes of modernisation – mining, industry and urbanisation – have poisoned this historic waterway, and highlight how its banks, from the inner city to the plush northern suburbs, reflect the city’s stark inequalities. Johannesburg from the Riverbanks also offers hope: artists, activists and ordinary citizens are shown to work tirelessly and imaginatively to reconfigure people’s interaction with the river.  By centering the well-being of the Jukskei, this important and timely book makes a crucial contribution to current conversations about the environmental crisis, especially Johannesburg’s water catastrophe.                                                                                                    – Noor Nieftagodien, Head of the History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand    

Chapter 1 – Riparian Urbanism: Thinking Johannesburg with the Jukskei Mehita Iqani and Renugan Raidoo

Section A: Scientific Perspectives
Chapter 2 — The Historical Jukskei River Valley: A Botanical Benchmark
Antoinette Boostma

Chapter 3 — Macroplastic pollution within the Jukskei River: How much, what kind and why does it matter?
Kyle Van Heyde

Chapter 4 — Bacterial Contamination in the Jukskei River in Gauteng Province, South Africa Kousar Banu Hoorzook and Atheesha Singh

Chapter 5 — Upper Jukskei Catchment Management Plan
Stuart Dunsmore and Ernita van Wyk

Section B: Art and the River
Chapter 6 — For the One that Dances with Jiggling Brass Compositions for the Jukskei
Dunja Herzog

Chapter 7 — Where Water Once Stood, It Shall Stand Again: Stances on Fluvial Art Practice
Nina Barnett, Refiloe Namise and Abri de Swardt

Chapter 8 — Radiation and Rapture: Images of Healing and Pollution in the Jukskei River
Landi Raubenheimer

Chapter 9 — Community engagement at the Jukskei Source: A Photo Essay
Lungile Hlatswayo

Section C: River Politics
Chapter 10 — Joburg and the Sea: A Squalid Romance
Sean Christie

Chapter 11 — Dirty river: Whiteness, Pollution and the Jukskei
Nicky Falkof

Chapter 12 — Reporting on the Jukskei: Behind Three Headlines
Jamaine Krige

Chapter 13 — The Creaturely Life of the Jukskei, and Anxious Bewilderment of Faecal Discourse
Jessica Webster

Section D: River Living
Chapter 14 — On the Edge: Riverbank Living Along a Jukskei Tributary
Sarah Charlton

Chapter 15 — Mamlambo in Waterfall City
Ujithra Ponniah

Chapter 16 — The River Talks
Sibusiso Sangweni

Chapter 17 — What Elites Think with the Jukskei: Property, Race, and Blame in Totemic Thought
Renugan Raidoo

Section E: Urban River Management
Chapter 18 — The River is our Resource: Alex Water Warriors
Paul Maluleke

Chapter 19 — Temporary Or Permanent? The Built Environment and Living Conditions in Stjwetla Informal Settlement
Savory Chikomwe

Chapter 20 — Converging currents: Urban Ecological Design Strategies Towards a Resilient River System
Dieter Brandt

Chapter 21 — The River Deserves Love: Water for the Future
Romy Stander

Mehita Iqani was appointed as Chairholder of the South African Research Chair in Science Communication at Stellenbosch University from January 2022. Prior to this she was Professor in Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she taught, researched and collaborated for almost eleven years. She is the author and editor of several books on media, consumer culture, luxury, waste, and the global south, the most
recent of which include: African Luxury Branding: From Soft Power to Queer Futures (2023), Garbage in Popular Culture (2021), Consumption Media and the Global South (2016), Media Studies: Critical African and Decolonial Approaches (2019),African Luxury (2019). She has published widely in cultural studies journals and is currently leading the SARChI research programme under the theme, “science communication for social justice”.

Renugan Raidoo is a Lecturer in social anthropology at Stellenbosch University. His current monograph project concerns lifestyle estates in the Gauteng city region, their political economic origins, and their social and spatial consequences. Previous work focused on secrecy and homophobia in urban Sierra Leone. His research has been funded by awards from various sources at Harvard University (where he completed his
PhD), an Emslie Horniman Scholarship from the Royal Anthropological Institute/Sutasoma Award, and the Fulbright-Hays program. He holds an MPhil in social anthropology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, as well as a BA in anthropology and a BS (with honours) in chemistry from the University of Iowa, and has previously taught at Harvard University and Brandeis University. His academic work can be found in the edited volume Anxious Joburg: The Inner Lives of a Global South City (Wits University Press, 2020) and in the journals GLQ and Africa.