Rights discourse and practices, everyday violence and social protests: Who counts as subject and whose lives are real in the neo-colonial South African nation state?

Stewart, Linda

doi:10.4314/ldd.v18i1.1

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Describing and locating the protest case South Africa reports among the highest number of annual public protests on the African continent (Alexander, 2012;Joubert et al, 2015). Whereas public protests were fundamental to the anti-apartheid struggle (Petrus and Isaacs-Martin, 2011), in the post-1994 era they mostly signify opposition and resistance to neoliberal globalisation, manifest in rising levels of poverty, unemployment, inequality and unequal inclusion in socio-political and economic opportunities and decision-making (see Duncan, 2016;Paret et al, 2017;Stewart, 2014). The Regulation of Gatherings Act (RGA) protects the rights of all South Africans to engage in protests peacefully and unarmed, contingent on various conditions (Duncan, 2016).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Protests, which occur outside of the regulatory framework of invited spaces, tend to be constructed by officialdom as a threat to the authority of the state, legitimacy of democratic dispensations, economic development aspirations and public safety (see Drury, 2002;Duncan, 2016;Gitlin, 2003;Robins, 2014). Such constructions, used by hegemonic systems to refute the social realities of marginalised, impoverished and displaced individuals and communities, underrate the systematic and structural violence resulting from unequal social structures and relations (Galtung, 1990), faced by many on a daily basis (Stewart, 2014). Even though a large number of linguistic and conceptual resources may be applied to discredit and delegitimise protests that are enacted outside of invited spaces (Drury, 2002), spaces for public participation in political and socio-economic processes are ambiguous and unpredictable (Cornwall, 2002).…”

Section: Protests As Dynamic Spatial Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A multimodal reading of public protests

Day

Seedat

Cornell

et al. 2018

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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Public protests in (un)democratic polities, reflective of discursive articulations of resistance and material expressions of struggle, seek to disrupt prevailing unjust societal, political and cultural practices. The insurrectionist purposes of protests are often in contravention of public order regimens, which seek to regulate enactments of public protests, minimise the disruptions inherent to protests and legitimise those defined as non-violent. This produces a non-violent-violent protest binary, which fails to account for the dynamic nature of protests. This study, critical of the non-violent-violent binary, assumed a multimodal analysis of unedited video footage of a selected authorised protest in the City of Cape Town, South Africa to understand the rapid discursive and kinaesthetic shifts that may occur within single protest events. The findings suggest that protests shift between moments of resistance and insurgency and moments of appeasement of official scripts. As such, protest enactments within a particular discursive space seem to be constitutive of resistance to power, insurgence and cooperation as well as actions defined either as legitimate or illegitimate by official discourse.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Protests As Dynamic Spatial Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multimodal reading of public protests

Day

Seedat

Cornell

et al. 2018

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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Building Decolonial Peace into the Everyday: A Feminist Intervention

Day,

Malherbe,

Suffla

et al. 2023

Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding

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Mining Community Development in South Africa: A Critical Consideration of How the Law and Development Approach the Concept “Community”

Heyns

2019

Law and Development Review

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The legislative system that provides for the socio-economic development of mining communities in South Africa has been under significant scrutiny in recent times. Various instances of conflict between mining communities and mining companies, of which the Marikana Massacre of 2012 is certainly the most noteworthy, show that mining communities expect mining companies to contribute more to the improvement of their living conditions. The relationship between mining communities and mining companies are exposed to the various socio-economic challenges that other sectors of the South African economy currently face. However, considering the legislative system in the mining industry specifically and in terms of a conceptual approach may show to the unique challenges the industry faces when it comes to mine community development. A conceptual approach requires asking whether the way in which the legislative system is framed and the rhetoric it promotes do not create expectations with mining communities that cannot be met by mining companies, because mining communities are not accurately depicted in the legislative system. The legislative system promotes “mine community development” by means of a complex interaction between various pieces of legislation and policy guidelines. At the centre of this interaction are the definitions of “community” and “mine community”. These definitions have been amended quite a few times since the enactment of the legislative system, attesting to the difficulty for the law to capture “community”. The latest iterations of the definitions are criticised for their ambiguity, causing uncertainty as to who should benefit from mine community development. This paper proposes that there is a conceptual problem when catering for communities, and not individuals, in a development paradigm, posing challenges for accurately defining “community”. It is not argued that community development should not be promoted, but a possible reason for why mine community development is not successful is proposed. The South African mining legislative system will be considered in parallel with relevant international legal instruments.

show abstract

Rights discourse and practices, everyday violence and social protests: Who counts as subject and whose lives are real in the neo-colonial South African nation state?

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

A multimodal reading of public protests

A multimodal reading of public protests

Building Decolonial Peace into the Everyday: A Feminist Intervention

Mining Community Development in South Africa: A Critical Consideration of How the Law and Development Approach the Concept “Community”

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