This article analyses the policy engagement component of a research project on climate resilience in vulnerable communities that took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Conducted in 2022, the engagement included community and stakeholder events in three research sites, and a cross-cutting policy event with municipal officials. Importantly, this policy engagement process occurred in a context of political marginalisation characterised by low trust, and little meaningful communication between these vulnerable communities and the city. The engagement process created new ‘invented’ spaces for the representation of community perspectives to the city, and the city’s perspective to the community. The engagement also facilitated community self-representation through educating community members to advocate for their ideas in these new invented spaces. Drawing on the theoretical framework of ‘political mediation’, the policy engagement process is characterised as a positive instance of democratic mediation through ‘empowered representation’, with some specified limitations.
https://doi.org/10.1332/17442648Y2024D000000033