Book review: All our welfare: towards participatory socialpolicy by Peter Beresford

As the UK welfare state comes under increased pressure, in All Our Welfare: Towards Participatory Social Policy, Peter Beresford offers a critique of its past, present and future from a participatory perspective. Drawing upon personal experience and the theories of welfare service user movements, Beresford outlines the limitations of past approaches and explores ways in which service user ideas and experiences can serve the development of a sustainable and participatory social policy. Although wishing for a more detailed vision of how the welfare state can become user-led, Ashwin Desai finds this a timely and thought-provoking read

The 2016 local government elections in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa : is Jesus on his way?

Abstract: Post-1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has increasingly allied itself to traditional authorities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Part of the reason for this has been to undermine the support base of the Inkatha Freedom Party. In more recent times, the alliance between chiefs and the ANC has seen them linked to mining interests, often running roughshod over local forms of resistance. In addition, the August 2016 local government elections showed a weakening of ANC support in some of these rural hotspots of KZN, thus creating the possibilities for activists to build alliances anew

An exploratory critique of the notion of social cohesion in contemporary South Africa

Abstract: This article seeks to situate the increasing salience of social cohesion in the context of the transition from apartheid to a post-apartheid society. It starts by analysing the changing political and economic landscape post 1990. It pays particular attention to the role of Nelson Mandela as a symbol of national unity; this despite the fact that the African National Congress (ANC) government’s economic policies failed to have a fundamental impact on levels of poverty and inequality. But with the end of Mandela’s presidency and the inability of his successor Thabo Mbeki’s policies to also make a dent on inequality and poverty, what we have seen are rising levels of community and labour unrest. In this context, the article argues that notions like social cohesion and ubuntu have assumed increasing importance as ways to stitch together a fracturing society. The latter part of the article argues that, with high levels of poverty and inequality, commodification of basic services and mounting social protests, it is difficult to deploy ideas like social cohesion, especially when new political subjectivities are challenging the hegemony of the ANC

Between rock and the pavement: through the underworld of Durban

Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the challenges faced by two people recovering from drug addiction in Durban. Both are Black African to use the terminology of our time. One a woman, and the other, a teenager on the edge of youth. This paper uses the life history approach as a way of telling two stories, illustrating the social context in which people’s lives are blighted by drug abuse and the recurring problems associated with attempts to overcome addiction. It situates the narrative of these two lives in a city witness to the eroding of apartheid and the opening up of new spaces and challenges. Sensitive to issues of spatiality and temporality, it is a story that, while embedded in local realities, places these issues in the context of broader changes within society

The present in the past : maritime crime waves off the coast of Durban, South Africa

Abstract: A crucial resource the apartheid state needed to import was oil. As an embargo took hold through the 1970s, methods were sought to circumvent it through the use of intermediaries and the construction of pipelines off the Durban coast for the speedy off-loading and transport of oil to the economic heartland, some 500 kilometres inland. This paper casts a net into that period, illustrating how the apartheid state made common cause with the most ruthless of traders, some of whom developed ingenious ways to make considerable amounts of money indirectly fuelling a pariah state’s violent repression of its people. In particular, the paper focuses on a ship called the Salem, which sank off the coast of Senegal in January 1980. The case of the Salem illustrates the global networks that existed in the illicit oil trade, the lengths the state would go to by relying on brokers to break the embargo and also explores maritime insurance scams, of which the sinking of the Salem was one of the biggest in maritime history. The final section of the paper brings the story up to the present to show how pipelines off the Durban coast and the selling of oil reserves are still the site for nefarious schemes of one sort or another

“Die ou ballie is net so ‘n naai soos ons” : race place and gangs in a Durban township

Abstract: There are many aspects of any community’s collective life that are difficult to penetrate. Gangs are one of them. This is exacerbated when one is trying to interview gang members in the midst of violent conflicts fuelled by age old feuds and the trade in illicit drugs. Police are on high alert and gang members particularly edgy. It helps if a researcher is already known in a community and has established networks. In the case of Wentworth, my primary work over the last year has been to construct family histories concentrating on the question of racial identity. In the midst of this research, there was a burst of gang violence that resulted in two murders. I spent a long time talking, debating and interviewing gang members, relying on old style ethnographic fieldwork that involves, as Mintz reflects, “the same willingness to be uncomfortable, to drink bad booze, to be bored by one’s drinking companions, and to be bitten by mosquitoes as always” (2000: 170). The more information I collected, the more I started to reflect on Walter Benjamin’s idea of the destructive character. It is typical Benjamin, full of nuance and subtlety, and I used it as a basis to understand the gang members’ sense of themselves, their mission and how they viewed their defence of “their” turf. This latter aspect emerged time and again in many forms, with Wentworth seen as both a place of danger and place of refuge. The theoretical underpinning for this article is the notion of space as a social creation rather than the “passive locus of social relations” (Lefebvre, 1991: 11, 26) and that our task is to understand “by what social process(es) is place constructed?” (Harvey, 1996: 261)

Indian South Africans and the Black Consciousness Movement under apartheid

In the late 1960s, “non-white” university students marched out of the white dominated but, at that stage, still multi-racial, National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). They formed the South African Students Organisation (SASO) and began formulating an ideology called Black Consciousness (BC). At its heart, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) called for the unity of South Africa’s oppressed, which they defined as African, Coloured and Indian. Those who were not students found a home in the Black People’s Convention (BPC). Many students of Indian origin joined SASO and played leading roles in the development of the BCM. This article traces these developments, paying particular attention to Indian women, seeking to understand their motivations in joining the movement, and record their experiences inside the BCM. Their story has to date been largely ignored, primarily because the Indian male members of BCM who stood trial and went to Robben Island during this period have tended to overwhelm the narrative, and in more recent times, the post-apartheid liberation story has been dominated by the journey of the African National Congress (ANC)

Race, place and everyday life in contemporary South Africa : Wentworth, Durban

Abstract: Local government in South Africa witnessed major deracialisation and the emergence of large metros post-1994. In Durban for example, there was the creation of eThekwini metro that brought 40 separate jurisdictions under the banner of one administration (Freund, Urban Forum, 21(3), 283–298, 2010). Despite this administrative deracialisation, apartheid group areas have largely remained intact. Drawing on primary qualitative data research and participant observation, this article explores issues of place, belonging and identity in the flatlands of Wentworth, a place set aside for coloureds in the early 1960s. Residents’ attitudes towards Wentworth are complex and often contradictory: feelings of alienation contend with a deep attachment to place and a sense that the flats are an asset to be handed down to the next generation. What emerges from interviews conducted with the residents is that the demise of legally demarcated racial boundaries has reinforced a kind of ‘territorial belonging’, as Wentonians increasingly feel alienated from the broader body politic (Bauder, Antipode, 48(2), 252–271, 2016: 255)

Chinese Walls, BRICS and the Scramble for Africa

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between China and Africa in the context of BRICS (a bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS has been touted in some quarters as offering an alternative anti-imperialist road to the dominance of the North (the United States and the European Union) as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organisation (WTO). On the other hand, it has been argued that rather than challenging the present trajectory of global capitalism, BRICS acts in a sub-imperialist way, furthering global capitalism through its own regional alliances and often allying with economic super-powers. This article explores the debate, paying particular attention to the role of China in Africa

Migrants and violence in South Africa : the April 2015 xenophobic attacks in Durban

Abstract: In 2015, a wave of xenophobic attacks swept across South Africa. The violence was at its worst in Durban, where thousands of immigrants, mainly from Africa, were attacked by their fellow South Africans, their businesses looted and people killed. This article looks at the sparks for the violence, while unpacking the complex relations between locals and African immigrants against the backdrop of an earlier episode of violence in 2008/9. The latter part of the article focuses on the struggle of civil society to build a strong anti-xenophobic front against the background of growing inequality and a government determined to pursue high-end mega projects