- Department of Political Science
Butler University
4600 Sunset Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46208
Robin Turner
Butler University, Political Science, Faculty Member
- University of the Witwatersrand, Society work and development institute (SWOP), Department Memberadd
- I am an associate professor of political science at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana and research associate... moreI am an associate professor of political science at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana and research associate of the Society, Work, and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witswatersrand. I earned a doctorate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, a masters degree in social science (African politics) from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and a bachelor's degree in public policy studies and certificate in women's studies from Duke University.
My research focuses principally on state-society relations and political economy in southern Africa. I use interviews, ethnography, archival research, and surveys to examine the interplay between state policies and local practices over time and to look closely at how past and present ways of structuring property and authority shape local political economies and influence constructions of identity. My research, writing, and teaching span multiple fields, including development studies, tourism studies, political ecology, and geography as well as political science and African studies. The courses I teach at Butler contribute to the core curriculum, to the interdiscplinary programs in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, International Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Science, Technology, Environment, and Society; and to political science.
My first book project, Nature Tourism & Rural Politics in Southern Africa, presents a nuanced analysis of tourism’s multifaceted effects on rural people. Drawing from more than eighteen months of field research in ten localities, this book shows how state land tenure, property rights, and traditional leadership policies have profoundly shaped the development of southern African nature tourism, influenced the distribution of its benefits and costs, and affected local responses to tourism. My initial work on nature tourism, “Communities, Wildlife Conservation, and Tourism-based Development: Can Community-based Nature Tourism Live Up to Its Promise?” was co-published by the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy and the University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection. A second article in progress will present a critical examination of the concession model that has employed in many community nature tourism initiatives.
A second current project examines the politics of traditional leadership, those state-recognized kings, queens, chiefs, headmen, councils and courts that base their claims to legitimacy in customary practices. My research among the Barokologadi ba ga Maotwe, who were subject to forced removal in 1949-50, analyzes how traditional leadership, land tenure, and land restitution policies have aggravated collective struggles among South African traditional communities. The Journal of Modern African Studies published my article on this case in 2013. Another article in Africa Spectrum, "Traditional, Democratic, Accountable?" explores how rural black South Africans who are subject both to so-called traditional leaders and to “modern” government officials such as municipal councilors, provincial premiers, and Members of Parliament navigate their citizen-subjection. Other work under review examines youth activism in this context..
My third project focuses on political dynamics in the rural localities set aside for white people during colonialism, segregation, and apartheid. While these localities were long subject to direct governance, South Africa's democratization has altered these localities’ place within the polity. No longer perceived as a crucial political constituency, white farming regions have been exposed to global market forces and rural landholders have had to articulate new rationales for support. My work examines how landowners, ethnic activists, and tourism business people in the Mapungubwe region have responded to this changing context.edit
Research Interests: Environmental Sociology, Social Movements, Environmental Geography, Environmental Law, Environmental policy, and 15 moreRace and Racism, Bibliography, Environmental Studies, Social Movement, Political Science, Racism, Environmental Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Ethnicity, Annotated Bibliographies, Literature Review, Minorities, Environmental Racism, Annotated Bibliography, and Governance and Politics
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Seventeen years after South Africa’s democratization, questions of representation continue to trouble rural localities. Although the franchise has been extended to all adult citizens, many black rural people remain dually subject to... more
Seventeen years after South Africa’s democratization, questions of representation continue to trouble rural localities. Although the franchise has been extended to all adult citizens, many black rural people remain dually subject to so-called traditional leaders — kings, chiefs, and headmen — and to modern government officials such as municipal councilors, provincial premiers, and Members of Parliament. While both “traditional” and “modern” officials claim to represent their subjects-constituents, the extent to which either provides for the effective representation of specific rural localities is questionable. Local people have little power to remove traditional leaders whom they regard as illegitimate or who fail to promote the community’s well-being. And local and district municipalities, which are the most accessible modern institutions, not only operate at the supra-locality level and have limited authority but also employ electoral rules that create stronger ties between potential councilors and political parties than to local voters. So how are we to think about representation in this context? How are rural polities configured, through what local institutions are rural people represented, and who possesses the authority to make locality-wide decisions? In this paper, I examine these questions through a close examination of the politics of representation in four rural, impoverished, and politically marginal localities in South Africa’s North West province. Drawing from my research in Lekgophung, Molatedi, Pitsedisulejang, and Supingstad between 2005 and 2011, I analyze how black rural South Africans have sought effective and accountable representation from traditional, modern, and new institutions. Each of these created new locality-specific, locality-wide institutions to speak and act on behalf of the collective and also employed other strategies. Pitsedisulejang residents continue to contest the definition of their “traditional” community, Supingstad residents have used a range of tactics to challenge their chief’s authority and legitimacy, and Lekgophung and Molatedi residents have empowered local trustees to exert authority over the communities’ tourism concessions. In so doing, these localities illustrate the diverse ways through which rural people have conceptualized, pursued, and struggled over representation in post-apartheid South Africa. These cases underscore the need to look beyond formal political institutions and to think carefully about micro-scale representation as well as mass representation.
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Research Interests: Geography, Political Science, Book Review, Icon, Citation, and 3 moreDownload, ICON, and Current History
Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised... more
Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised traditional leaders and institutions imbricated in past violence, suffer from inadequate and inequitable basic service provision, and have little access to economic opportunity. This article enriches our understanding of the everyday politics of peace by examining a youth-led mobilisation in the rural traditional community of Supingstad. Modelling new ways of interacting and confronting the fears that prevented many from participating in public life, youth activists sought to build a better, more democratic, collective life; to improve public service provision; to generate economic development and to practice the open and accountable governance they desired. This local initiative to address the multiple forms of violence to which South Africans are still subject exemplifies youth peace praxis.
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Dr. Turner\u27s contribution to: Maureen P. Flaherty, Tom Matyók, Jessica Senehi, Sean Byrne, and Hamdesa Tuso, editors, Gender and Peacebuilding: All Hands Required, 321-338. New York: Lexington Books, 2015
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This paper explores the policy environment surrounding livestock policy improvements in Uganda, with a view to identify opportunities for pro-poor interventions and reforms. The paper reviews challenges facing livestock producers and... more
This paper explores the policy environment surrounding livestock policy improvements in Uganda, with a view to identify opportunities for pro-poor interventions and reforms. The paper reviews challenges facing livestock producers and analyzes the broad political economic context in which livestock sector dynamics are situated. A review of the livestock sector highlights the constraints facing poor rural livestock producers based on: missing or inadequate infrastructure; the small size of the domestic market and limited capacity to service international markets; the complex political environment; violent conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army, the government, and civilians; predation by cattle rustlers and restrictions on political participation. Although neoliberal reform rhetoric pervades policy discourse, many civil servants are sceptical about this approach. The concluding section outlines several interventions that could improve the livelihoods of poor rural livestock p...
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Dr. Turner\u27s contribution to: Maureen P. Flaherty, Tom Matyók, Jessica Senehi, Sean Byrne, and Hamdesa Tuso, editors, Gender and Peacebuilding: All Hands Required, 321-338. New York: Lexington Books, 2015
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This paper analyzes the political economy of the livestock sector in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The aim is to identify politically feasible interventions that could have broad positive effects on poor rural livestock... more
This paper analyzes the political economy of the livestock sector in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The aim is to identify politically feasible interventions that could have broad positive effects on poor rural livestock producers in these states. To that end, the paper assesses the relationship between land, livestock, and poverty, describes the organization of the sector, and analyzes the political and bureaucratic interests shaping livestock policy. The study used the key informant method supplemented with official documents, newspaper sources and recently published research on the livestock sector. Interviews helped reveal policymakers' concerns, whereas field trips allowed the researcher to talk to a farmers and learn their perspectives from the bottom. Newspapers contained many lively stories of how well-intentioned policies went awry at the implementation stage, while published research analyzed various political, institutional and technical aspects of poli...
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Nearly two decades after South Africa's democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional”... more
Nearly two decades after South Africa's democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional” leaders – kings, queens, chiefs and regents. This article deepens our understanding of contemporary governance by exploring the agency of these citizen-subjects through close examination of traditional leaders’ strategies and citizen-subjects’ mobilizations in four rural localities. These cases illustrate how citizen-subjects are working with, against and through traditional leaders and councils, hybrid organizations and independent groups to pursue community development and effective, accountable governance, and show how the present governance framework enables traditional leaders to block or undermine collective initiatives. In drawing attention to citizen-subjects’ agency and their difficulties in holding traditional leaders accountable, this an...
Research Interests: Comparative Politics, Government, Accountability, Corporate Governance, Africa, and 15 moreDemocratization, Governance, Local Government, Customary Law, Democracy, Developing Country, Herrschaft, Municipality, Afrika, Domination, Demokratisierung, Municipal administration, Ländlicher Raum, descriptive study, and Kommunalverwaltung
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Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised... more
Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised traditional leaders and institutions imbricated in past violence, suffer from inadequate and inequitable basic service provision, and have little access to economic opportunity. This article enriches our understanding of the everyday politics of peace by examining a youth-led mobilisation in the rural traditional community of Supingstad. Modelling new ways of interacting and confronting the fears that prevented many from participating in public life, youth activists sought to build a better, more democratic, collective life; to improve public service provision; to generate economic development and to practice the open and accountable governance they desired. This local initiative to address the multiple forms of violence to which South Africans are still subject exemplifies youth peace praxis.
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ABSTRACTHow do government policies and practices affect struggles over collective identity and struggles over land? Examining the interconnections among collective identity struggles, land struggles and state policies and practices in... more
ABSTRACTHow do government policies and practices affect struggles over collective identity and struggles over land? Examining the interconnections among collective identity struggles, land struggles and state policies and practices in post-apartheid South Africa, this paper argues that the government's contradictory policies and ambivalent practices have aggravated collective struggles over the boundaries of belonging. Specifically, the differing definitions of community set forth in traditional leadership, land tenure and land restitution policies exacerbate existing divisions among ‘communities’ concurrently subject to these policies and create practical policy dilemmas for decision-makers. This paper illustrates the interplay between public policies and collective identity struggles through close examination of struggles among the Barokologadi ba ga Maotwe, a so-called traditional community. The Barokologadi case underscores the necessity of attending to these interactions.
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Research Interests: Economics, Politics, Development, Livestock, Developing Country, and 4 moreDeveloping World, Polity, Elite, and Peasant
Additional Info: Formerly submitted as ms. #1085 in UCIAS Edited Volumes--see review history there. Volume was declined for publication; individual articles are being published here per UCIAS Editorial Board. NM ... Abstract: This paper... more
Additional Info: Formerly submitted as ms. #1085 in UCIAS Edited Volumes--see review history there. Volume was declined for publication; individual articles are being published here per UCIAS Editorial Board. NM ... Abstract: This paper analyzes the opportunities and tensions ...
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Research Interests: Environmental Sociology, Social Movements, Environmental Geography, Environmental Law, Environmental policy, and 15 moreRace and Racism, Bibliography, Environmental Studies, Social Movement, Political Science, Racism, Environmental Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Ethnicity, Annotated Bibliographies, Literature Review, Minorities, Environmental Racism, Annotated Bibliography, and Governance and Politics
Lee Ann Fujii and I became fast friends, colleagues, and disciplinary comrades soon after we met at the 2004 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR). IQMR presentations and workshops sparked fourteen years of... more
Lee Ann Fujii and I became fast friends, colleagues, and disciplinary comrades soon after we met at the 2004 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR). IQMR presentations and workshops sparked fourteen years of conversation about the discipline, our positionality with respect to the discipline and research participants, methodologies, the “field,” and much more. Lee Ann made me laugh and encouraged me to think harder as we talked over coffee and chocolate at home in Oakland, New York, Washington, DC, Indianapolis, and Toronto; met up at APSA annual meetings; and practiced yoga together...
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Dr. Turner's contribution to: Maureen P. Flaherty, Tom Matyók, Jessica Senehi, Sean Byrne, and Hamdesa Tuso, editors, Gender and Peacebuilding: All Hands Required, 321-338. New York: Lexington Books, 2015.
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Contemporary postapartheid South African land struggles are haunted by the long shadow of historical dispossession. While apartheid-era forced removals are justifiably infamous, these traumatic events were moments in the more extended,... more
Contemporary postapartheid South African land struggles are haunted by the long shadow of historical dispossession. While apartheid-era forced removals are justifiably infamous, these traumatic events were moments in the more extended, less frequently referenced, and more expansive process that fundamentally shaped the South African terrain well before 1948. The South African Republic's mid-nineteenth-century assertion of ownership of all land north of the Vaal River and south of the Limpopo marked the start of a long process of racialized dispossession that rendered black people's residence in putatively white areas highly contingent and insecure throughout the former Transvaal. This article analyzes the connections between past dispossession and contemporary rural land and natural resource struggles in the Limpopo and North West provinces, contending that addressing South Africa's vexed present requires a fuller reckoning with its past.
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Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment... more
Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populations were found either to have no clear connection to their political leaders or to be controlled by political clientage. Furthermore, communities ‘free’ of patron–client ties to the centre generally are not better represented by political associations but instead receive fewer benefits from the state. Nonetheless, patterns of clientage are different from what they were forty years ago. First, patronage chains today often have a global reach, through trade, bilateral donor governments and international NGOs. Second, the resources that fuel political clientage today are less monopolistic and less adequate to the task of purchasing peasant political loyalty. Thus the bonds of patronage are less tight than they were historically. Third, it follows from the preceding point and the greater diversity of patrons operating today that elite conflicts are much more likely to create spaces in which peasant interests can eventually be aggregated into autonomous associations with independent political significance in the national polity. NGOs are playing an important role in opening up this political space although at the moment, they most often act like a new type of patron.
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Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised... more
Structural violence remains widespread in post-apartheid South Africa as governance, opportunity and well-being are still sharply inflected by place, by race and by class. Most rural black South Africans are subject to state-recognised traditional leaders and institutions imbricated in past violence, suffer from inadequate and inequitable basic service provision, and have little access to economic opportunity. This article enriches our understanding of the everyday politics of peace by examining a youth-led mobilisation in the rural traditional community of Supingstad. Modelling new ways of interacting and confronting the fears that prevented many from participating in public life, youth activists sought to build a better, more democratic, collective life; to improve public service provision; to generate economic development and to practice the open and accountable governance they desired. This local initiative to address the multiple forms of violence to which South Africans are still subject exemplifies youth peace praxis.
Research Interests:
Nearly two decades after South Africa’s democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional”... more
Nearly two decades after South Africa’s democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional” leaders – kings, queens, chiefs and regents. This article deepens our understanding of contemporary governance by exploring the agency of these citizen-subjects through close examination of traditional leaders’ strategies and citizen-subjects’ mobilizations in four rural localities. These cases illustrate how citizen-subjects are working with, against and through traditional leaders and councils, hybrid organizations and independent groups to pursue community development and effective, accountable governance, and show how the present governance framework enables traditional leaders to block or undermine collective initiatives. In drawing attention to citizen-subjects’ agency and their difficulties in holding traditional leaders accountable, this analysis of contemporary traditional governance underscores the need for further democratizing reforms.
Research Interests:
How do government policies and practices affect struggles over collective identity and struggles over land? Examining the interconnections among collective identity struggles, land struggles and state policies and practices in... more
How do government policies and practices affect struggles over collective identity and struggles over land? Examining the interconnections among collective identity struggles, land struggles and state policies and practices in post-apartheid South Africa, this paper argues that the government's contradictory policies and ambivalent practices have aggravated collective struggles over the boundaries of belonging. Specifically, the differing definitions of community set forth in traditional leadership, land tenure and land restitution policies exacerbate existing divisions among ‘communities’ concurrently subject to these policies and create practical policy dilemmas for decision-makers. This paper illustrates the interplay between public policies and collective identity struggles through close examination of struggles among the Barokologadi ba ga Maotwe, a so-called traditional community. The Barokologadi case underscores the necessity of attending to these interactions.
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The livestock sector has significant potential for improving the livelihoods of landless people and small and marginal farmers, who comprise the majority of India’s rural poor. However, resource and institutional constraints prevent poor... more
The livestock sector has significant potential for improving the livelihoods of landless people and small and marginal farmers, who comprise the majority of India’s rural poor. However, resource and institutional constraints prevent poor producers from realizing the full potential of the animals they possess. Developing effective pro-poor livestock policies requires consideration of the political context and attention to the specific characteristics of poor livestock producers.
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This paper analyzes the political economy of the livestock sector in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The aim is to identify politically feasible interventions that could have broad positive effects on poor rural livestock... more
This paper analyzes the political economy of the livestock sector in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The aim is to identify politically feasible interventions that could have broad positive effects on poor rural livestock producers in these states. To that end, the paper assesses the relationship between land, livestock, and poverty, describes the organization of the sector, and analyzes the political and bureaucratic interests shaping livestock policy.
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This paper explores the policy environment surrounding livestock policy improvements in Uganda, a country that has undergone substantial reforms in the last 15 years. It aims to identify opportunities for pro-poor interventions—reforms... more
This paper explores the policy environment surrounding livestock policy improvements in Uganda, a country that has undergone substantial reforms in the last 15 years. It aims to identify opportunities for pro-poor interventions—reforms that would improve the livelihoods of poor rural livestock producers. Towards this end, the paper reviews challenges facing for livestock producers and analyzes the broad political economic context in which livestock sector dynamics are situated. The adoption and implementation of pro-poor livestock sector interventions are in some ways constrained and, in others, enabled by civil conflict in several parts of the country, the semi-authoritarian nature of the Museveni regime, and the reform alliance between the Ugandan national government and its international development partners. Ugandans face an uneasy trade-off between political stability and democracy that inhibits participation.