ABSTRACT
This chapter points out that while ongoing segregation dominates South African urbanity, this does not represent the whole picture of urban social boundaries, categories, and divisions. The end of formal apartheid produced new urban phenomena, such as white traditional healers, who work side by side with their black counterparts in townships, creating spaces of racial mediation (Teppo 2011). The poor whites living side by side with people of color in TRAs (temporary relocation areas) are another example. There are several new connections that contemporary research needs to take into account. While urban researchers do pay attention to global connections, worlding, and neoliberal processes, the local-level, grassroots connections across former ‘racial’ lines remain largely unstudied. This is where urban anthropologists can leave their mark.
