1.1 INTRODUCING SERVICE DELIVERY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN KHAYELITSHA This study presents an assessment of the connections between service delivery – particularly water services – and the participatory strategies adopted by the different communities. This study was conceived in a context of increased militancy in local government, as exemplified by the widespread so-called service delivery protests in 2005-2006. There is already a large body of literature (e.g. Benit-Gbaffou 2008a, 2008b, Piper and Nadvi 2010, Tapscott 2010, 2005, Ballard et al 2006, Miraftab 2006 and Zeurn 2001) on the nexus between state and civil society in the post- apartheid. . Most of these studies highlight the failure of institutionalized participatory governance systems, such as neighborhood committees and integrated development planning. Such failures of traditional participatory channels have inevitably set in motion the shift towards unconventional methods such as protests and legal action, which have been relatively more successful in attracting an audience and making voices heard. The protest itself, however, is not a new phenomenon in South Africa. , as protest was a key component of the struggle against apartheid. Yet there is a crucial distinction. In the colonial and apartheid eras, black participation in government was circumscribed through a series of laws aimed at alienating their South African citizenship. This teeming obsession and desire to subjugate Africans to a permanent underclass throughout their existence outside the homeland did not dissuade black Africans from migrating to urban “white” South Africa. Migration in search of employment opportunities especially in urban areas and mining complexes was a means of... middle of paper... capable of obtaining compromises from the state through their ability to exploit the resources necessary to engage in complex disputes using various spaces such as mass media, the Internet and by enlisting the courts. In urban areas, transforming citizenship requires the removal of race as the central basis of planning. While the ongoing transformation has resulted in the legal exclusion of the foundations of apartheid and the emergence of class as a central element of the fracture, the quality of urban services and socio-economic access arguably retains ancient roots. For many poor people, the huge inequalities between their lot and the wealthy and predominantly white population, of which the Boers are their avowed nemesis, center on the quality of housing and associated services available to the privileged class, and form the basis for measure full citizenship.