Post-apartheid South Africa’s exacerbated inequality and the Covid-19 pandemic: intersectionality and the politics of power (original) (raw)
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Agenda, 2017
During the recent student protests in South Africa African women students articulated their identities as "radical, intersectional African feminists". This reintroduced discussions of the concept of intersectionality into public debate and academic scholarship. Intersectionality refers to the interlocking relations of dominance of multiple social, political, cultural and economic dynamics of power that are determined simultaneously by identity categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, disability and others. The aims of this focus piece are firstly to do a conceptual analysis of the concept of intersectionality, secondly to look at critiques of intersectionality, and thirdly to contextualise it for South Africa by illustrating it with student protests in a post-colonial context. keywords Feminism, Intersectionality, #EndRapeCulture, Matrix of Domination Agenda 111/31.
Ideology and agency in protest politics: Service delivery struggles in post-apartheid South Africa
2009
My aim in this dissertation is to explore the manner in which protest leaders in the postapartheid context understand themselves and their actions against the backdrop of the sociohistorical, political and economic conditions within which protests take place. The aim is to contribute to the debate around the nature of the challenge posed by protest action to the post-apartheid neoliberal order. The study uses an actor-oriented ethnographic methodology. to examine at close range the nature of the protest movement in working class South African townships focusing on the so-called service delivery protests. In the quest to understand the action, forms of organisation and ideologies characteristic of the protests, and their significance for post-apartheid society, I use concepts and insights from the literature on social movements, discourse theory and, in particular, Gramsci's ideas on hegemony. The latter helps me to define and assess the threat posed by the protests to the dominant order which I characterise as neoliberalism or neoliberal capitalism. The conclusion that I come to is that the protests are best understood in the context of the transition from apartheid to democracy: its dynamics and its unmet expectations. They represent a fragmented and inchoate challenge to the postapartheid neoliberal order. Their weakness, I argue, partly derives from the effects of the demobilisation of the working class movement during the transition to democracy. It will take broader societal developments, including the emergence of a particular kind of leadership and organisation, for the protests to pose a serious challenge to the present order. The experience of the struggle against apartheid suggests the necessity of a vision of alternatives to inspire, shape and cohere struggles around everyday issues and concerns into struggles for radical society-wide alternatives. Protest action was linked to imagination of a different way of doing things and organising society. Without this link, it is likely that the protest movement will be increasingly isolated and contained with some of its energy used negatively, for example, in populist chauvinism, xenophobic attacks, mob justice, and other forms of antisocial behavior that are becoming a worrisome feature of post-apartheid society. Nonetheless, it provides hope and the foundation for a different future .
Gender, Technology and Development, 2011
The democratic transition in South Africa after 1994 heralded the introduction of gender-sensitive policies that have brought many bene-fits, including legislative reforms to address violence against women and to ensure women’s rights to safe termination of pregnancy. Formal equality coincided with a rapid increase in women’s employment in the labor market. This article draws on interviews to illustrate the lived
Globalization, marginalization, and contemporary social movements in South Africa
African Affairs, 2005
The objective of this article is to provide a broad framework for situating social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. The discussion begins with a brief review of approaches to the study of social movements and then turns to the challenges presented by globalization. South African democratization coincided with its increasing economic, social and political engagement with the rest of the world. One of the key effects of this has been massive job losses and resultant increases in poverty and inequality. Finally, the article reviews key features of movements in postapartheid South Africa. Overwhelmingly, these movements are driven by worsening poverty, with struggles addressing both labour issues and consumption issues. In addition, some movements confront questions of social exclusion in terms of gender, sexuality and citizenship which sit at the intersection of recognition and redistribution. Given the failure of the post-apartheid party political system to generate opposition to the left of the African National Congress (ANC), social movements provide a vital counterbalance to promote the needs of the poor in political agendas.
Gendered Boundaries: Feminist Politics and Popular Struggles in South Africa
Feminist Africa, 2024
Events in the last decade of contemporary South African history have ruptured the normalised regime of politics on the mines and in the universities. These events began with the Marikana strikes in 2012 and South Africa's hashtag movements-#rhodesmustfall, #feesmustfall, #RUReferencelist, (and relatedly #metoo). The rejection of representative forms of politics signalled by the direct action of workers at Marikana and students in universities seemed to suggest that institutionalised structures, i.e., the trade union and student representative Understanding how and why women's appearance at the forefront of contemporary popular struggles seemed both sudden and novel requires us to think about these struggles as part of a history of women's experiences with institutional politics within the broader political economy of South Africa. From the late 1800s, imperial capital and colonial segregationist governmental policies
The Lack of a Fully Intersectional Approach to Gender-Based Violence in South Africa
Gender-based violence is an issue of major concern in South Africa and is a result of an intersectionality of oppressors. A culture of violence, firmly established by racist and classist historical institutions, remains prominent. In addition, the culture outwardly focuses on tensions of race and class, rather than the oppression of gender, even though gender-based violence is necessarily relies upon the male domination and female subordination. Historical female oppression and patriarchal cultural patterns existed before the introduction of white rule. This phenomenon of South African culture particularly focusing on race and class as oppressors that contribute to gender-based violence, instead of patriarchal norms, can be observed through two major frameworks: discourses of rape and the greater rape culture and inconsistencies between laws, acts, and the Constitution of the South African government as compared to public consciousness of gender. Including an intersectional approach in South African culture that emphasizes oppressive gender structures in discussions of gender-based violence that also incorporates the ways in which race and class are also influences of such violence, must be considered if gender-based violence is to substantially decrease. who have been identified as subordinate (Miller, 1976). While the dominant class defines normal, the subordinate class internalizes these prescribed definitions, struggling to survive within a world in which the norms of the dominant class do not match their own reality (Miller, 1976). Subordination and domination tend to function most clearly and most impactfully along lines of gender, race, and class. The nation of South Africa is no exception of country that continues to deal with the negative consequences of oppression that originate from a coercive and segregated history. Different forms of oppression that currently function in the nation center around the violent and turbulent history of colonialism, slavery, forced black labor, and institutionalized segregation during Apartheid, all of which were based upon intersecting racial, ethnic, and classist lines. This history has created a lasting culture that focuses on the oppressors of race and class in a very strong way, often ignoring the prevailing patriarchal culture that heavily influences and contributes to this violence. The traumatic and lasting effects of intersectional oppression in South Africa remain evident, seen in the high rates of poverty along racial lines, a massive inequality gap, continued community racial segregation, and gender violence.
Privilege, Solidarity and Social Justice Struggles in South Africa: A View from Grahamstown
[This is a version of a paper that appeared in Transformation volume 88, in 2015] Abstract The last decade has seen a significant increase in the number and prominence of social movements in South Africa. Many of these movements are supported by relatively privileged individuals who are not themselves victims of the injustices the movements oppose. In this paper, I draw out some of the possibilities and limitations of the role of privileged individuals in supporting social movements struggling for social justice, looking particularly on the role of students in supporting such movements. The paper is based on research on the relationship between one such movement, the Unemployed People's Movement (UPM), and a student organization, the Students for Social Justice (SSJ), both of which are based in Grahamstown, South Africa. While acknowledging that privileged supporters of such movements can play a constructive role in social justice struggles, I use the experiences of the UPM and SSJ to explore some of the tensions that are likely to emerge and that need to be addressed when the relatively privileged participate in popular struggles. In particular, I discuss the likely difficulties privileged supporters will experience in bridging social divides and in contributing meaningfully to the theorization of popular struggles.
Voices of protest: Conclusion: Making Sense of Post-Apartheid South Africa's Voices of Protest
Voices of protest: Social movements in post-apartheid South Africa, 2006
What, then, are the principal findings of and lessons emanating from the preceding studies? What is the impact of contemporary social movements on the political and socio-economic scene in South Africa? What is their impact on the country's development trajectory and the future of its democratic political system? These questions, and the answers to them, would be of interest to a diverse set of stakeholders including academics, social movement activists and even public officials.
Queer politics and intersectionality in South Africa
Safundi, 2017
In an interview with Nadia Davids, Zethu Matabeni discusses contemporary queer politics in South Africa and Cape Town in particular. Matebeni contextualizes current queer activism in a broader historical trajectory in which she observes the ongoing exclusive boundaries of Pride celebrations and positions two recent protest movements, #FeesMustFall and Rhodes Must Fall. Zethu Matebeni (ZM): I'm interested in a different narrative, because I know there have been a lot of queer women of color who have done so much work in this city, changing the landscape and the culture around it. "Queer in Africa? The Cape Town Question" is a symposium that we're holding from 6-8 October 2016. And it's going to be in various locations in Cape Town. The idea behind the symposium was for me to actually interrogate the city, as someone who has lived here for a few years now and has had a number of encounters and interventions in the city as a queer person and a black person. I've created a queer tour of Cape Town, which tells stories that nobody's ever really heard, of queer people of color in this city, starting by reimagining the arrival of the Dutch (laughs), and what happens in Robben Island, what happens in Company Gardens, for example. The tour starts in Sea Point and it goes along the city, kind of in a straight line into Khayelitsha. And over there, throughout that journey, we're meeting a whole range of people, going back through historical spaces and moments that talk about queer life in Cape Town. For me it's really important because actually what it does is change the main narratives: because the main narrative that people know about queer Cape Town is actually a white, gay Cape Town, which is what you get from the Green Point, Sea Point side. And so I've been interested in going back to their own archives and asking them to retell their stories and to map a different Cape Town for us and for, I suppose, the next generation. And so I've found them. They're in Salt River. They're in Athlone. They're in Khayelitsha. And it's been really exciting! So that's the one part: to do this tour and to introduce people to a different Cape Town, to the people of the Cape. And the second part is to invite people to respond to the critical questions that we've posed: around the history of the city, around the racialization of the city, and the class issues around the city KEYWORDS Queer; cape Town; South africa; lGBTQ; gay pride; Beverly ditsie; aidS; #feesmustfall; rhodes must fall
The intersectional challenges faced by women of colour in South Africa
Alternate Horizons, 2021
Gender oppression speaks to the challenges that women face due to their gender. South African societies have become characterised by the oppression of women by men as women continue to exist on the periphery in our community. This article deploys an argument that women still find themselves facing intersecting challenges of patriarchy, racism, economic exploitation and other related forms of heterosexualist gender oppression.