Navigating interests, navigating knowledge: Towards an inclusive set-back delineation along Cape Town's coastline

As a governance instrument to promote risk-averse decision-making concerning dynamic coastal ecosystems and coastal infrastructure exposed to storm surges and sea-level rise, the set-back line discursively and materially re-shapes people's realities. But its delineation and the linked multi-actor discussions led by the City of Cape Town's Coastal Management Unit (CMU) also emerge from a specific context. Caught in a constant balancing act between varying interests, sources of knowledge and epistemologies on map-making, the CMU engaged in strategic negotiations and counter-mapping. Effectively acting as 'champions', or 'bureaucratic activists', local government officials enabled the transition towards a reflexive, iterative and inclusive delineation process, departing from a technical knowledge building model according to which coastal engineers and consultants still dominate the intellectual space regarding coastal risk governance in South Africa.