Elias Cebekhulu

Elias Cebekhulu teaches Social Policy at UKZN, and his research interests focus on labour markets and sustainable livelihoods. Currently, he is very active with the NEDLAC Community Constituency.

In their chapter, Old Wine in New Bottles: Striving for the Impossible in Durban, Elias and Evan Mantzaris report on the problems of poverty, unemployment, crime and inadequate service provisions which affect people living in inner city Durban as well as the townships and squatter camps around Durban. These are all addressed in more detail in later papers. The division of resources in post-apartheid South Africa is highly inequitable, poverty is still highly racialised (as black) and this is very striking in and around Durban.

In another chapter, Life and Death in Banana City, Elias and Evan Mantzaris describe the conditions of shack dwellers They report on the housing conditions, social life, organisations, employment, activities for children, illnesses and struggles of the residents of Banana City, an area near the UKZN-Westville campus. It is occupied by 4000 or so shack dwellers. They live on university-owned property, and some Vice Chancellors have tried unsuccessfully to evict the ‘squatters’. The paper addresses the struggle of shack dwellers against the university and its attempt to evict three new squatters from its land. This struggle, notably, has received much support from students and staff at the Westville campus, some of whom are helping the children of Banana City with their school fees.

And in another co-authored chapter, The ‘Devil’ himself walks through the streets of Durban, Elias and Evan Mantzaris depict Durban as a city suffused with crime, ‘a magnet’ which ‘attracts people who have no intention of making a good day’s living.’ The paper comprises a series of graphic sketches about the lifestyles and reputations of gangsters in Durban, the crime economy and the commonality of petty crime, bribery and corruption. It is a descriptive piece about ‘criminals’ and where they hang out and socialise in they city. They argue that this is the harsh reality, recently borne out by the spate of muggings of sociology delegates attending the 2006 International Sociology Conference.

References:
Cebekhulu, Elias, and Mantzaris, Evan. 'Old Wine in New Bottles: Striving for the Impossible in Durban', in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (Eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), pp. 74-76.

Cebekhulu, Elias, and Mantzaris, Evan. 'Life and Death in Banana City', in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (Eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), pp. 166-172.

Cebekhulu, Elias, and Mantzaris, Evan. 'The ‘Devil’ himself walks through the streets of Durban', in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (Eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), pp. 264-269.