This article draws on my research in a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It focuses on young people�s identification adaptations in their interaction with chooling in this city. While the deeper markings of race, class and gender associated with the city�s apartheid past are ever present, I will suggest that young people�s adaptations are negotiated fundamentally in light of the changing cultural topography of race (Rizvi, 2004) in which life in South African cities are currently experienced. I employ the lens of �translocalism� to signpost the new articulation field in terms of which school students reflexively adapt their youthful identities. I use the case of one high school student to illustrate how many young people navigate spatially reconfiguring urban school terrain.