becoming ungovernable

ungovernable is an opportunity to experiment. We host programmes and projects to make together and think together about what community means. We are interested in what it means to govern ourselves: to be accountable to ourselves and our neighbours and the needs of our neighbourhood.

ungovernable is grounded in the multi-cultural and mixed-income neighbourhood of Parktown ext (also known as Parkbrow). But is linked with similar experiments in other parts of Johannesburg and the world.

The term 'ungovernable' comes from South Africa's history and from our long tradition of creating better ways of living together. It refers to the practices of self-determination that took place during the states of emergency in the 1980s. This time was characterised by much violence and difficulty, but in the midst of the trouble it also included communities that took charge of their own lives, looking after each other, developing their own service delivery systems, building their own parks for their children to play in.