Survival and crisis in a diverse informal settlement: An action research project in overcome heights, South Africa

In 2018, a team of community workers and volunteers carried out a research
project in Overcome Heights together with researchers from Denmark, South
Africa and the US-based NGO Community Healing Network. Overcome Heights
is an informal settlement situated next to the M5 highway north of Muizenberg
in the South Peninsula of greater Cape Town. The research aimed to understand
how different groups in Overcome Heights survive a crisis-filled everyday life and
how these struggles relate to historical and social structures of oppression and
marginalization in Cape Town.
The research was designed as a collaborative project where community workers
and researchers agreed on how to collect and analyse the data. While researchers
brought methodological skills, community workers brought crucial contextual and intimate knowledge about the area. This combination of methodological skills and local knowledge and experience was brought to bear on all phases of the project, from design through to data collection, quality control and the analysis phase.
Building on previous quantitative research by some of the team members in 2009, the research used qualitative methods in the form of diary studies, interviews and observations over a period of three months to better understand some of the everyday struggles of residents in Overcome Heights.