A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that ‘another world is possible’. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and... more
A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that ‘another world is possible’. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and academic practice in post-apartheid South Africa, where community-based movements have emerged primarily in order to access basic services. In particular, it highlights the pivotal role that the
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... intended to work independently from political parties and be non-partisan, the fact ... J Hicks (2008) 'Democratisation and inclusion: revisiting the role of ward committees', in M ... and R Deacon (2008) 'Party... more
... intended to work independently from political parties and be non-partisan, the fact ... J Hicks (2008) 'Democratisation and inclusion: revisiting the role of ward committees', in M ... and R Deacon (2008) 'Party politics, elite accountability and public participation: ward committee politics ...
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Energy racism, a brainchild of racial capitalism, systemically excludes the black majority who are denied safe, reliable and clean household energy. It manifests in violent and, sometimes, deadly ways, which are often met with organised... more
Energy racism, a brainchild of racial capitalism, systemically excludes
the black majority who are denied safe, reliable and clean household
energy. It manifests in violent and, sometimes, deadly ways, which
are often met with organised resistance from below. Drawing on a
case study of Orange Farm, Johannesburg, this article explores the
politics of popular resistance to the crisis of neoliberalism and cost
recovery. It argues that the macro-sphere of energy production (for
example, global coal consumption and Eskom) and the microsphere
of consumption and resistance intersect within the
constraints of a racialised system of capital extraction.
the black majority who are denied safe, reliable and clean household
energy. It manifests in violent and, sometimes, deadly ways, which
are often met with organised resistance from below. Drawing on a
case study of Orange Farm, Johannesburg, this article explores the
politics of popular resistance to the crisis of neoliberalism and cost
recovery. It argues that the macro-sphere of energy production (for
example, global coal consumption and Eskom) and the microsphere
of consumption and resistance intersect within the
constraints of a racialised system of capital extraction.
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Debunking the conventional belief that grassroots democracy is always a panacea for the poor and disenfranchised. The last two decades have ushered in what has become known as a participatory revolution, with consultants, advisors, and... more
Debunking the conventional belief that grassroots democracy is always a panacea for the poor and disenfranchised. The last two decades have ushered in what has become known as a participatory revolution, with consultants, advisors, and non-profits called into communities, classrooms, and corporations alike to listen to ordinary people. With exclusively bureaucratic approaches no longer en vogue, authorities now opt for “open” forums for engagement. In The Participation Paradox Luke Sinwell argues that amplifying the voices of the poor and dispossessed is often a quick fix incapable of delivering concrete and lasting change. The ideology of public consultation and grassroots democracy can be a smokescreen for a cost-effective means by which to implement top-down decisions. As participation has become mainstreamed by governments around the world, so have its radical roots become tamed by neoliberal forces that reinforce existing relationships of power. Drawing from oral testimonies and ethnographic research, Sinwell presents a case study of one of the poorest and most defiant Black informal settlements in Johannesburg, South Africa - Thembelihle, which consists of more than twenty thousand residents - highlighting the promises and pitfalls of participatory approaches to development. Providing a critical lens for understanding grassroots democracy, The Participation Paradox foregrounds alternatives capable of reclaiming participation’s emancipatory potential.
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From the Arab Uprising, to anti-austerity protests in Europe and the US Occupy Movement, to uprisings in Brazil and Turkey, resistance from below is flourishing. Whereas analysts have tended to look North in their analysis of the recent... more
From the Arab Uprising, to anti-austerity protests in Europe and the US Occupy Movement, to uprisings in Brazil and Turkey, resistance from below is flourishing. Whereas analysts have tended to look North in their analysis of the recent global protest wave, this volume develops a Southern perspective through a deep engagement with the case of South Africa, which has experienced widespread popular resistance for more than a decade. Combining critical theoretical perspectives with extensive qualitative fieldwork and rich case studies, Southern Resistance in Critical Perspective situates South Africa's contentious democracy in relation to both the economic insecurity of contemporary global capitalism and the constantly shifting political terrain of post-apartheid nationalism. The analysis integrates worker, community and political party organizing into a broader narrative of resistance, bridging historical divisions among social movement studies, labor studies and political sociology.
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By the mid-1980s black township activists from across South Africa had risen up in an unprecedented manner to delegitimize and challenge the apartheid state. By the end of 1985, a new era in politics emerged in Alexandra, a small and... more
By the mid-1980s black township activists from across South Africa had risen up in an unprecedented manner to delegitimize and challenge the apartheid state. By the end of 1985, a new era in politics emerged in Alexandra, a small and densely populated township North East of Johannesburg, under the ideology of ‘people's power’. Perhaps more than any other place in
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A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that ‘another world is possible’. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and... more
A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that ‘another world is possible’. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and academic practice in post-apartheid South Africa, where community-based movements have emerged primarily in order to access basic services. In particular, it highlights the pivotal role that the
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He further suggests that ‘open collective protest is rare’ (ibid., p. 241), and correctly lends legitimacy to the ‘everyday forms of resistance’ that peasants in Sadaka, a small village in South-East Asia, undertake on a daily basis in... more
He further suggests that ‘open collective protest is rare’ (ibid., p. 241), and correctly lends legitimacy to the ‘everyday forms of resistance’ that peasants in Sadaka, a small village in South-East Asia, undertake on a daily basis in order to challenge the material and ideological basis of class domination by the powerful. It is through footdragging, pilfering, feigned ignorance, arson, slander, and sabotage, those acts of resistance which are not necessarily collective or public, he argues, that class struggle by peasants may be most effective in the long run at providing an alternative to the hegemonic framework of elites (Scott 1985). Aiming to challenge my own interpretations of resistance in post-apartheid South Africa, Carin Runciman builds on Scott’s analysis in order to argue that ‘our conceptualization and understanding of resistance is often isolated from the understanding and interpretations which activists themselves hold’ (Runciman 2012, p. 607). In so doing, she problematises the imposition of scholars’ own values onto subaltern movements – something which I admittedly did in my article that she critiques. Paying particular attention to the organisational forms of the anti-capitalist umbrella body of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), Runciman suggests that my own work was not ethnographic enough (ibid., p. 613) since it does not consider ‘the messy and often contradictory realities of social movement activism’ as well as the limited resources that the poor have at their disposal. Scott’s emphasis was on class domination and class struggle by poor peasants in opposition to the rich. Runciman applies this theoretical framework produced out of poor peasants’ struggles with the rich to largely urban struggles for service delivery in post-apartheid South Africa, which, I argued (Sinwell 2011a) are not in most instances about class struggle. Furthermore, as we are aware from various newspaper articles of frontline protests as well as scholarly reports (Von Holdt et al. 2011, Sinwell et al. 2009), open and collective protest, although it is far more rare than regularly weekly meetings for example, is in fact quite common in the post-apartheid context. The so-called ‘weapons of the weak’ that these movements employ are
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This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth... more
This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth interviews with worker leaders, it explores the contestation over representation and recognition in the platinum mines during a time when workers waged historic strikes putting forward radical demands for pay increases. There has been a rocky transition (one that is incomplete) from the values and culture of the workers’ committee at Amplats to that of the union – AMCU. Gouldner's critique of Michels’ classic ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ provides a useful starting point from which to understand this transition as well as the contemporary mineworkers’ movement in South Africa more generally. Gouldner suggested that Michels ignored democratic impulses thereby putting forth a model which was monolithic and static rather than socially constructed and contextually specific. The article advances the concept of Insurgent Trade Unionism in order to argue that when the rank and file takes on an insurgent character, the trade union's bureaucratic or official power (at the national, regional and branch level) becomes marginal, but only relatively so in this case, as the events reveal.
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... shacks because that is where they [foreigner nationals] stay' (Interview with Themba Sithole, resident of Alexandra, Alexandra, 22 August 2009). ... Ellen Chauke, a pensioner who receives R800 a month, which she says... more
... shacks because that is where they [foreigner nationals] stay' (Interview with Themba Sithole, resident of Alexandra, Alexandra, 22 August 2009). ... Ellen Chauke, a pensioner who receives R800 a month, which she says is 'barely enough to feed myself', is one of the leaders of ...
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This article highlights both the internal educative practices of social movements and how these practices can effectively link to building Freirean pedagogies within higher education institutions. At the heart of this possibility lies the... more
This article highlights both the internal educative practices of social movements and how these practices can effectively link to building Freirean pedagogies within higher education institutions. At the heart of this possibility lies the democratic transformation of relations between students and teachers on the one hand and researchers and activists on the other. I draw from two case studies of my own research on community-based organisations and workers’ movements in post-apartheid South Africa, which point to the possibilities and challenges of developing Freirean approaches within the neoliberal higher education context. The article suggests that if the goal of education is to challenge systems of oppression, then social justice and the democratisation of the knowledge project must be the guiding principles we employ to navigate our everyday teaching and learning practices both inside and outside the academy.
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Johns Hopkins University Press. 2021. pp. 336. ISBN: 978-1-42144269-3
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This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth... more
This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth interviews with worker leaders, it explores the contestation over representation and recognition in the platinum mines during a time when workers waged historic strikes putting forward radical demands for pay increases. There has been a rocky transition (one that is incomplete) from the values and culture of the workers’ committee at Amplats to that of the union – AMCU. Gouldner's critique of Michels’ classic ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’ provides a useful starting point from which to understand this transition as well as the contemporary mineworkers’ movement in South Africa more generally. Gouldner suggested that Michels ignored democratic impulses thereby putting forth a model which was monolithic and static rather than socially constructed and contextually specific. The article advances the concept of Insurgent Trade Unionism in order to argue that when the rank and file takes on an insurgent character, the trade union's bureaucratic or official power (at the national, regional and branch level) becomes marginal, but only relatively so in this case, as the events reveal.
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... shacks because that is where they [foreigner nationals] stay' (Interview with Themba Sithole, resident of Alexandra, Alexandra, 22 August 2009). ... Ellen Chauke, a pensioner who receives R800 a month, which she says... more
... shacks because that is where they [foreigner nationals] stay' (Interview with Themba Sithole, resident of Alexandra, Alexandra, 22 August 2009). ... Ellen Chauke, a pensioner who receives R800 a month, which she says is 'barely enough to feed myself', is one of the leaders of ...
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From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and... more
From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and transformation. In contrast to conventional approaches to social science more generally, we argue that a neat separation between theory and action is useful neither for
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On 16 August 2012, 34 mineworkers were gunned down by police during strike action in Marikana, South Africa, where Lonmin, the third largest platinum mining company in the world, is located. This has been termed the Marikana massacre,... more
On 16 August 2012, 34 mineworkers were gunned down by police during strike action in Marikana, South Africa, where Lonmin, the third largest platinum mining company in the world, is located. This has been termed the Marikana massacre, described as a turning point in South African history. Drawing from original ethnographic research, the article highlights the origins of the now infamous living wage demand of R12,500 South African (or about USD$500) per month which was more than twice the average worker’s salary at the time. Its origins, which can be traced back to two specific workers, did not involve violence or inter-union rivalry, nor were its initiators militant or uncompromising as has been suggested elsewhere. The article argues that the idea of violent solidarity and the assertion that workers were motivated by interunion rivalry, obscure the independent nature of workers’ resistance and the way in which it was transformed over time. The empirical evidence presented below als...
From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and... more
From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and transformation. In contrast to conventional approaches to social science more generally, we argue that a neat separation between theory and action is useful neither for
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The core activities associated with the #Fees Must Fall (FMF) movement in South Africa may be understood as forms of “disruptive power” (Piven [2006]. Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America. Plymouth: Rowman and... more
The core activities associated with the #Fees Must Fall (FMF) movement in South Africa may be understood as forms of “disruptive power” (Piven [2006]. Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers). By illuminating the fluid nature of student–worker solidarity in the related #Outsourcing Must Fall (OMF) campaign at the University of the Free State (UFS), the article argues that the specific historical context and politics that underpin “disruptive power” should be given greater emphasis. Drawing on original empirical research including in-depth interviews and observation, the article explores two major demonstrations at UFS: its shutdown in late October 2015 and the occupation of a rugby field (during a homecoming game) by black students and workers in February 2016. The findings reveal that the ability of students and workers to disrupt the normal activities of others on campus, to put universities on hold, enables them to access power. It is concluded that “disruptive power” remains a method which students and workers should continue to employ at South African universities in order that the gains made by both FMF and OMF are extended, rather than reversed.
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Mine workers have been positioned at the forefront of a new left alliance in South Africa. This article questions that assumption. It assesses the politics of workers on a mine called Swartklip, part of Anglo Platinum’s operation in... more
Mine workers have been positioned at the forefront of a new left alliance in South Africa. This article questions that assumption. It assesses the politics of workers on a mine called Swartklip, part of Anglo Platinum’s operation in Limpopo province, whose rank and file engaged in unprotected strike action in the Northam region (in 2012) before becoming part of the longest strike action in South African mining history (in 2014). Drawing from original in-depth interviews with workers’ leaders, the article argues that the Marikana massacre and the concessions that workers had won from their employers at Northam, and in the western limb of the platinum mining belt more generally, was indeed rooted within a militant worker-driven, democratic culture, which laid the groundwork for a shift in the country's broader political landscape (notably the rise of the EFF as a political force and the shift of NUMSA outside the ANC alliance). However, the events at Northam suggest that mine workers in general do not envisage themselves playing a leading role in consolidating a left alternative in South Africa’s ‘new’ political formations.
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Le 16 août 2012, 34 mineurs ont été abattus par des policiers au cours d'une grève à Marikana, en Afrique du Sud, là où se situe la troisième plus grande société minière de platine au monde, Lonmin. On parle depuis du massacre de... more
Le 16 août 2012, 34 mineurs ont été abattus par des policiers au cours d'une grève à Marikana, en Afrique du Sud, là où se situe la troisième plus grande société minière de platine au monde, Lonmin. On parle depuis du massacre de Marikana, décrit comme un moment décisif de l'histoire de l'Afrique du Sud. S'inspirant de recherches ethnographiques original, l'article met en valeur les origines de la désormais célèbre exigence d'un salaire décent de 12 500 rands sud-africains (environ 500 USD) par mois, soit plus de deux fois le salaire moyen d'un ouvrier à l'époque. Cette demande, attribuée à deux mineurs en particulier, n'impliquait pas à l'origine de violence ou de rivalité intersyndicale, et ses initiateurs n'étaient ni militants ni opposés à tout compromis comme l'ont suggéré d'autres sources. Le présent article soutient que l'idée de solidarité violente et l'assertion que les ouvriers étaient motivés par une rivalité intersyndicale obscurcissent la nature autonome de leur résistance et la façon dont elle a évolué avec le temps. Les données empiriques présentées ci-dessous indiquent aussi que dans la soirée qui a suivi le massacre, des ouvriers se sont brièvement réunis et ont pris la résolution de continuer la grève afin que leurs collègues abattus ne soient pas morts en vain.
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This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth... more
This article investigates the relationship between the workers’ committee, the National
Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction
Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth
interviews with worker leaders, it explores the contestation over representation and
recognition in the platinum mines during a time when workers waged historic strikes
putting forward radical demands for pay increases. There has been a rocky transition
(one that is incomplete) from the values and culture of the workers’ committee at
Amplats to that of the union – AMCU. Gouldner’s critique of Michels’ classic ‘Iron
Law of Oligarchy’ provides a useful starting point from which to understand this
transition as well as the contemporary mineworkers’ movement in South Africa more
generally. Gouldner suggested that Michels ignored democratic impulses thereby
putting forth a model which was monolithic and static rather than socially constructed
and contextually specific. The article advances the concept of Insurgent Trade
Unionism in order to argue that when the rank and file takes on an insurgent
character, the trade union’s bureaucratic or official power (at the national, regional and
branch level) becomes marginal, but only relatively so in this case, as the events reveal.
Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction
Union (AMCU) at Amplats between 2012 and 2014. Drawing from in-depth
interviews with worker leaders, it explores the contestation over representation and
recognition in the platinum mines during a time when workers waged historic strikes
putting forward radical demands for pay increases. There has been a rocky transition
(one that is incomplete) from the values and culture of the workers’ committee at
Amplats to that of the union – AMCU. Gouldner’s critique of Michels’ classic ‘Iron
Law of Oligarchy’ provides a useful starting point from which to understand this
transition as well as the contemporary mineworkers’ movement in South Africa more
generally. Gouldner suggested that Michels ignored democratic impulses thereby
putting forth a model which was monolithic and static rather than socially constructed
and contextually specific. The article advances the concept of Insurgent Trade
Unionism in order to argue that when the rank and file takes on an insurgent
character, the trade union’s bureaucratic or official power (at the national, regional and
branch level) becomes marginal, but only relatively so in this case, as the events reveal.