Township Economy People, Spaces and Practices

Andrew Charman

Andrew trained as a sociologist and development specialist, studying at the University of Cape Town and Cambridge where he obtained a PhD degree. Andrew has worked as a researcher, a project manager and development practitioner on a range of projects across diverse settings in Southern Africa, including rural areas and townships. His interest in informal markets arose from his work in Malawi supporting smallholder producers. He then worked as a researcher and consultant, advising on development strategies and policies. In 2010, Andrew co-founded the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF) (www.livelihoods.org.za) with the aim of contributing knowledge about how people were responding to development challenges, through conducting research, enabling participatory engagement and facilitating appropriate support. At SLF, he has led a series of projects to understand the policy and regulatory barriers impacting on micro-enterprises in South Africa’s townships. Andrew has wide experience of using mixed methods research and working with researchers from across disciplines to co-produce research that speaks to people’s lived realities. As a development practitioner, Andrew seeks to translate research into interventions that can better serve people’s needs, challenge unfair laws and hold policymakers to account. He has published research on a range of subjects, including food security, informal sector businesses and the politics of informality.

Leif Petersen

Leif Petersen has worked for the last 15 years in the field of South Africa’s township microenterprises and markets. As a co-founding director of the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation NPC (SLF), he has presented a substantive body of academic, commercial and mainstream reporting and presentations on township economy markets, in particular market intelligence for sectors including Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) retailing, supply chain development, and market dynamics of grocery trading, liquor retailing, traditional medicine, and informal manufacturing. His PhD and Post-Doctoral work has focused on qualitative understanding of businesses and consumers of traditional medicines and food in the township context. Leif has worked for a large number of corporate, public sector and international clients and has considerable experience in studies of competition in informal business, and the identification and nature of trade of items such as counterfeit goods and contraband cigarettes. In 2018, Leif concluded a nationwide inquiry into competition in grocery retailing in township informal markets – interviewing over 1 180 township FMCG businesses in all nine provinces. He has strong interests in translating SLF’s insights and interconnectedness with the township economy into interventions that impact practical livelihoods of communities. Most recently this included working in collaboration with South Africa’s emerging arts community in the production of a concept album and documentary promoting township music entitled the “State of the Nation”. Leif has over 30 academic publications and numerous book chapters to his credit, but this is the first book that he has co-authored.

Thireshen Govender

Thireshen Govender is an architect practising and teaching in Johannesburg. Having graduated from the University of Cape Town as an architect, he trained in local practices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Through the awarding of a Chevening Scholarship, he further advanced his studies in Urban Design at The University College of London (Bartlett) in the United Kingdom. He travelled extensively, widely informed by a keen interest on how post-traumatic cities define themselves socially and spatially. In 2008, he founded UrbanWorks Architecture & Urbanism, a design-research studio, to deepen knowledge on post-apartheid spatial practices in order develop innovative and responsive design strategies toward radical transformation in South African cities. The practice works across scales and disciplines to explore how space and design can productively play a role in urban transformation through carefully curated interventions.

Thireshen leads a design-research unit at the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture. The unit investigates and documents the spatial consequence of post-apartheid socioeconomic practices in architecture and urbanism. Through his practice and research, he broadcasts his findings through writing and public talks. His practice provides an experimental means to test findings and advance architectural knowledge production.