From Presence to Power: Women's Citizenship in a New Democracy

Hassim, Shireen

doi:10.2307/4066012

Cited by 24 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Feminists have refuted liberals' claims of universalism and gender blindness by pointing out that to start with, citizenship had been about only men and their rights of citizenship. By not recognizing difference, feminist theorists have argued, the universal claims of the liberal citizenship discourse have inherently favored men and those with power (Young 1990;Hassim 1998Hassim , 1999Sandercock 1998).…”

Section: Feminists' Expanded Notion Of Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminist praxis, citizenship and informal politics: Reflections on South Africa's anti-eviction campaign

Miraftab

2006

International Feminist Journal of Politics

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Section: Feminists' Expanded Notion Of Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminist praxis, citizenship and informal politics: Reflections on South Africa's anti-eviction campaign

Miraftab

2006

International Feminist Journal of Politics

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“…The transition to democracy in South Africa does not mark the endpoint of political struggle, of contestations over the meanings of citizenship, or the eradication of social and economic inequalities, including those of gender (Hassim, 1999). As with other post-independent states, the struggle for women lies in the (im)possibilities of translating de jure equality into de facto equality, and of translating state level commitment to gender equality into tangible outcomes at local and individual levels.…”

Section: Gender and Citizenship In South Africa: Officializing Stratementioning

confidence: 99%

New spaces of citizenship? Rethinking gendered participation and empowerment in South Africa

McEwan¹

2005

Political Geography

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Publisher's copyright statement:Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. for creating alternative, more radical citizenship spaces, these can also be problematic and exclusionary. The paper draws on recent feminist writing to examine the possibilities for rethinking citizenship as an ethical, non-instrumental social status, distinct from both political participation and economic independence. This reframing of citizenship moves beyond notions of "impasse" or "hollowness", challenges the public/private distinction that still frames many debates about citizenship and considers the emancipatory potential of gendered subjectivity. The paper argues that citizenship is shaped by differing social, political and cultural contexts and this brings into sharp focus the problematic assumption of the universal applicability of western concepts and theories.

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“…Thus, despite the liberal view that it is universal human subjects who are the bearers of rights, these can usually only be accessed by 'citizens' of a state, as it is the latter which bestows that status upon them (Mamdani 1995). Of course, the apparent benefits of citizenship, as feminist scholars in particular have noted, are differentially distributed, as the powerless are much less able to secure them (Yuval-Davis and Werbner 1999;Hassim 1999).…”

Section: Human Rights Discourse and Passive Citizenshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

2 - Development, Social Citizenship and Human Rights: Re-thinking the Political Core of an Emancipatory Project in Africa

Neocosmos¹

2001

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The paper begins from the axiomatic point that, despite the form it eventually took, namely that of a neo-colonial process, development was understood and fought for in Africa as [part of] an emancipatory political project central to the liberatory vision of the pan-African nationalism which emerged victorious at independence. Indeed independence was always seen, by radical nationalism in particular, as only the first step towards freedom and liberation from oppression, the second being economic development. Indeed 'economism' and 'statism' were mirror images of each other: it was believed that only the economy could liberate humanity and that only the state could drive the economy to progress. Today, the first proposition has been retained but the second has been dropped from hegemonic discourse. Yet the two are inseparable twins; it is in fact the case that just as the latter is false so is the former, for human emancipation is and can only be a political project. While development today is said to be guided by the (not so invisible) "hand of the market", the state has simultaneously 'subcontracted' many of its development management functions to external bodies such as NGOs. These are frequently simply new parastatals, vehicles for social entrepreneurship for a 'new' middle-class of development professionals. We have now a new form of state rule which forms the context for re-thinking development and politics. Central to this new form of rule is the hegemony of human rights discourse. This paper begins by reviewing the political assumptions of the nature of citizenship underlying T.H. Marshall's argument for 'social rights'; it provides a critique of human rights discourse and civil society from an emancipatory perspective, situating these within the new forms of imperialism and comments on the character of political parties and social movements in understanding political emancipation today. It argues that in Africa, if * Director, Global Movements, Monash, South Africa.Email: michael.neocosmos@up.ac.za 36Africa Development, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, 2007 one is to think an emancipatory project, citizenship must be conceived as active citizenship, and political subjectivity must be thought, not as management or opinions but, following the work of Badiou and Lazarus, as the freedom to think new 'possibles'. RésuméCette étude part du point axiomatique selon lequel, en dépit de la forme finalement prise par le développement, à savoir celle d'un processus néocolonial, pour lequel l'Afrique a lutté et qui fait partie d'un projet politique émancipateur au coeur de la vision libératrice du nationalisme panafricain qui s'est révélé victorieux à l'indépendance. De fait, pour le nationalisme radical en particulier, l'indépendance a toujours été considérée comme la première étape vers la liberté et la libération de l'oppression, la seconde étant le développement économique. En effet, « l'économisme » et « l'étatisme » ont été l'image inversée de l'un et de l'autre ; l'on croyait que seul l'économie pouvait libérer l...

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From Presence to Power: Women's Citizenship in a New Democracy

Cited by 24 publications

References 5 publications

Feminist praxis, citizenship and informal politics: Reflections on South Africa's anti-eviction campaign

Feminist praxis, citizenship and informal politics: Reflections on South Africa's anti-eviction campaign

New spaces of citizenship? Rethinking gendered participation and empowerment in South Africa

2 - Development, Social Citizenship and Human Rights: Re-thinking the Political Core of an Emancipatory Project in Africa

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