Contesting Transformation: Popular Resistance in Twenty-First Century South Africa - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745332730 ISBN 13: 9780745332734

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Contesting Transformation is a sober and critical reflection of the wave of social movement struggles which have taken place in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Much of the writing on these movements was produced when they were at their peak, whereas this collection takes stock of the subsequent period of contradiction and complexity. The contributors consider how these different movements conceive of transformation and assess the extent to which these understandings challenge the narrative of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

From township revolts to labour struggles, Contesting Transformation is the definitive critical survey of the state of popular struggle in South Africa today.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Marcelle C. Dawson is a senior researcher in Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. She serves on the board of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 47 (Social Classes and Social Movements). She is co-editor of Popular Politics and Resistance Movements in South Africa (2010) and author of a forthcoming monograph on the Anti-Privatisation Forum in South Africa. Her work has been published in Citizenship Studies, Journal of Higher Education in Africa and Social Movement Studies. Luke Sinwell is a senior researcher in Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. He has published in Geoforum, Social Movement Studies and Review of African Political Economy.

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Contesting Transformation

Popular Resistance in Twenty-First-Century South Africa

By Marcelle C. Dawson, Luke Sinwell

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2012 Marcelle C. Dawson and Luke Sinwell
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-3273-4

Contents

List of Figures, 
Acknowledgements, 
Abbreviations, 
1 Transforming Scholarship: Soberly Reflecting on the Politics of Resistance Marcelle C. Dawson and Luke Sinwell, 
2 The Crisis of the Left in Contemporary South Africa Dale T. McKinley, 
3 Voice, Political Mobilisation and Repression under Jacob Zuma Jane Duncan, 
4 Barricades, Ballots and Experimentation: Making Sense of the 2011 Local Government Elections with a Social Movement Lens Peter Alexander, 
5 Insurgent Citizenship, Class Formation and the Dual Nature of a Community Protest: A Case Study of 'Kungcatsha' Malose Langa and Karl von Holdt, 
6 Unfolding Contradictions in the 'Zuma Movement': The Alliance in the Public Sector Strikes of 2007 and 2010 Claire Ceruti, 
7 Labour Strikes and Community Protests: Is There a Basis for Unity in Post-Apartheid South Africa? Trevor Ngwane, 
8 Agents of Change? Reflecting on the Impact of Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa Fiona Anciano, 
9 Resisting Privatisation: Exploring Contradictory Consciousness and Activism in the Anti-Privatisation Forum Carin Runciman, 
10 The Challenge of Ecological Transformation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Re-emergence of an Environmental Justice Movement Jacklyn Cock, 
11 'Tacticians in the Struggle for Change'? Exploring the Dynamics between Legal Organisations and Social Movements Engaged in Rights-Based Struggles in South Africa Kate Tissington, 
12 How the Law Shapes and Structures Post-Apartheid Social Movements: Case Study of the Khulumani Support Group Tshepo Madlingozi, 
13 Managing Crisis and Desire in South Africa Shannon Walsh, 
14 Transforming Contestation: Some Closing Words Luke Sinwell and Marcelle C. Dawson, 
Bibliography, 
About the Authors and Editors, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Transforming Scholarship: Soberly Reflecting on the Politics of Resistance

Marcelle C. Dawson and Luke Sinwell

THE GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT: A LENS THROUGH WHICH TO ASSESS RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS IN AFRICA

On a summer day in Durban, South Africa, on 3 December 2011, a global day of action against the crisis of climate change was held at COP 17, the meeting at which elites and other world leaders came together to discuss how to combat climate change. In contrast to their suggestion that carbon trading is the solution, many of the thousands of protesters held the view that this would only benefit the richest countries and would leave the crisis intact. In an attempt to have their concerns addressed through non-institutionalised means, they refused to be silenced, renaming COP 17 'The Conference of the Polluters'. Some of the more striking slogans were displayed by the Democratic Left Front (DLF), a new umbrella social movement intent on unifying the left in post-apartheid South Africa. Some 500 DLF protesters marched forcefully, wearing T-shirts reading 'Africa is Burning, Transform the System' and 'Listen to the People', thereby pointing to what they saw as the root cause of the problem: the pursuit of profit by the few at the expense of the many in Africa and the rest of the global South.

Resistance efforts such as the global day of action against COP 17 arguably form part of developments from the late 1990s onwards that constitute the Global Justice Movement (GJM). 'The Battle of Seattle' – the mass protests that successfully shut down World Trade Organisation conference proceedings in that city – marked the beginning of a new era of resistance to neoliberalism. Slogans such as 'Our World is not for Sale' and 'People before Profit' became commonplace in the spate of protests that have spread across the globe since 1999. The World Social Forum (WSF), which is defined as 'an event and an open space for debate and discussion', is widely regarded by some as the organised and sustained form of these struggles.

The GJM and WSF have been celebrated and lauded globally in academic and activist circles. As embodied in the WSF's slogan, 'Another World is Possible', these initiatives provided a sense of hope that neoliberal globalisation could be contested from below through mass action. As quickly as these protests were unfolding, a body of scholarship emerged to capture what was happening on the ground. Initial accounts of the GJM were written in a way that arguably inspired more people to become part of the larger struggle against capitalism. These texts proved useful in publicising the work of the different movements and garnering sympathy for them. However, many authors – particularly those rooted in the academy – failed to interrogate, from the viewpoint of movement activists, what an 'alternative' or 'transformative politics' actually entailed. From scholarly writings, it was clear that an alternative was desirable; some authors suggested that the alternative was decidedly anti-capitalist. But it was not clear whether the millions that made up the movements desired the same and, if so, how they sought to achieve this or a different outcome. Internal documents drawn up by activists themselves may have been clearer about movement ideals, objectives, strategies and tactics, but these were not always reflected in scholarly writing. Relying largely on definitions of transformation that were imposed from the outside rather than those that were generated by activists themselves, scholarship was out of tune with the reality on the ground. However, alongside these overly sanguine texts, some scholars began to reflect on the shortcomings of the GJM and it was not long before its ability to provide a concrete alternative to neoliberal globalisation began to be questioned by activists and sympathetic scholars alike. Spaces like the WSF were criticised as being very expensive talk shops with no direction, no clear strategies on how to stop neoliberal globalisation and no viable alternatives to capitalism.

Similar realities are reflected on the ground and on paper in the South African context. In this book, we assess the state of social movements in post-apartheid South Africa and the attendant scholarship after more or less a decade of dissent. In the South African context, the term 'social movement' has largely excluded trade unions, whereas elsewhere, in North American and European literature for example, organised labour is theorised as part of the social movement milieu. As some of the chapters indicate (see Ngwane and Ceruti in particular) this narrow definition of social movements has precluded any significant engagement between community-based and workplace struggles.

South Africa is an interesting context in which to contest transformation and problematise resistance, since it is one of the most unequal countries in the world and has recently been dubbed 'the protest capital of the world'. While some scholars suggest that protest sits comfortably alongside a dominant ruling party that has been in power for nearly two decades and that unfaltering party loyalty is one of the biggest resources of the African National Congress (ANC), others (notably Alexander, this volume) suggest that ANC hegemony is beginning to crumble.

From the late 1990s social movements such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), the Landless People's Movement (LPM) and Abahlali baseMjondolo...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745332730
• ISBN 13: 9780745332734
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 300
• Herausgeber: Dawson Marcelle C., Sinwell Luke
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar