Edited by Heidi Brooks, Rekgotsofetse Chikane and Shauna Mottiar, the volume explores South Africa's post-1994 protest landscape with a view to understanding the dynamics, underpinnings and implications of contemporary protest. Exploring the multifaceted and interconnected drivers of protest, the volume illuminates both short term causes and institutional and structural drivers, while highlighting some of the strategic challenges that emerge from popular unrest. Contributors to the volume provide an overview of the complex trends and dynamics of protest action, the diversity of protest spaces and actors, and responses to protest action by both citizens and state. The book makes a case for understanding protest as a manifestation of popular experiences of the post-1994 project. In so doing, it seeks to highlight the prospects for addressing the root causes of popular unrest. In the diversity of spaces, sectors and communities of interests in which collective action has emerged, Protest in South Africa: Rejection, reassertion, reclamation shows how protest is underpinned by a rejection of the status quo, a reassertion of interests, and a reclaiming of the political and democratic space. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
1. The architecture of protest in South Africa: Contexts and underpinnings -- Part I: Complex causes in protest trends and dynamics -- 2. Protest in an age of contention: South Africa's resonances with the Global South and beyond -- 3. The nexus of citizen, party and state in accumulating protest repertoires in South Africa -- 4. Protest apathy in South Africa -- Part II: The architecture of protest -- 5. Gendering protests: mapping women's participation in community protests in Duncan Village, Eastern Cape -- 6. Rural protest against imposed development processes and environmental damage: fishing communities in the Eastern Cape's Wild Coast -- 7. Dying to drink: water tenderpreneurs, community agency and protest in Mothutlung, North West -- 8. Electricity contestations and infrastructural citizenship: protest in Lamontville, Durban -- 9. Weaponising grassroots democracy: Operation Dudula's right-wing populism and the need for a countermovement -- 10. Beyond protest: violence, looting and anarchy in July 2021 -- Part III: Responses and repercussions -- 11. Transactional activism: effect of the engagement practices of protest leaders on community protests in South Africa -- 12. Changing influences on the policing of public order in South Africa and the Global South -- 13. Crime and punishment: crime and policing-related protest in South Africa -- 14. Rejection, reassertion, reclamation: The underpinnings of protest in South Africa.
Summary:
Edited by Heidi Brooks, Rekgotsofetse Chikane and Shauna Mottiar, the volume explores South Africa's post-1994 protest landscape with a view to understanding the dynamics, underpinnings and implications of contemporary protest. Exploring the multifaceted and interconnected drivers of protest, the volume illuminates both short term causes and institutional and structural drivers, while highlighting some of the strategic challenges that emerge from popular unrest. Contributors to the volume provide an overview of the complex trends and dynamics of protest action, the diversity of protest spaces and actors, and responses to protest action by both citizens and state. The book makes a case for understanding protest as a manifestation of popular experiences of the post-1994 project. In so doing, it seeks to highlight the prospects for addressing the root causes of popular unrest. In the diversity of spaces, sectors and communities of interests in which collective action has emerged, Protest in South Africa: Rejection, reassertion, reclamation shows how protest is underpinned by a rejection of the status quo, a reassertion of interests, and a reclaiming of the political and democratic space.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.