From Johannesburg’s riverbanks: navigating the Jukskei

Abstract

It is often remarked that Johannesburg is exceptional as a major city in that it has no large body of water. While it may be true that the city does not boast commercial harbours, busy canals, or navigable rivers, spruits and wetlands saturate the city, and are home to many of its non-human inhabitants. These have largely been overlooked as participants in the urbanization of Johannesburg despite shaping, and being shaped by, the city’s development. This book’s focus on the Jukskei river—in which some of the first gold was found on the Witwatersrand—invites a re-centering of waterways as a device to organize how we think about this baffling city.