RESIST

ANCE –

FROM

THEORY

TO PR

ACTICE

TUESDAY 23

RD SEPTEMBER 2014

SOC2004S

EMMA AROGUNDADE

REFRESH AND MOVE FORWARDA patchwork journey – elements of ‘formal’ resistance and

some examplesGoing through many quite quickly, this is about expanding

the view, rather than making something consistent (remember Heldke & O’Connor say that there are many tensions between different forms of resistence)

Most examples from officially non-repressive / ‘democratic’ spaces where we’re not talking about a dictatorship – this changes the nature of resistance (think about SA’s history) – mostly we’re talking about resisting social systems of oppression and privilege along race, class, gender lines but this is not clear cut, and other examples are used / shown

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNER

Jocelyn Hollander, Prof. of Sociology, University of Oregon

Research interests in social construction of gender, women’s self-defense training, social psychological approaches to race, class gender and sexuality, language and discourse http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/hollander.php

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERRachel Einwohner - Assoc. Prof. Sociology, Purdue Liberal Arts

Research focus on dynamics of protest and resistance, effectiveness, role of gender and other identities in protest dynamics and protesters sense of efficacy.

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/sociology/directory/?p=Rachel_Einwohner

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERPeople define resistance differently, everything from mass riots to how you wear your hair is considered an act of resistance

Use two dimensions to define resistanceMust it be recognised by others Must it be intentionalMust involve action, must be oppositional

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERDiversity of resistance includes Mode of resistance using bodies or other material objects

Social movements or protest (marches, picketing etc)

Violence, working slowly, feigning sickness, wearing particular types of clothing, or stealing from your employer

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERResistance through talk and other symbolic

behavior Hawaiian women publishing traditional stories in newspapers, speaking ‘native’ language, practising dance to resist annexation

Silence e.g. women in Northern Ireland staying silent during raids

Breaking silence – rape survivors speaking out

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERScale differs Individual or collective Widespread or locally confiedLevels of coordination differ How purposeful is organisation amongst resistors (e.g. revolution vs hairstyle choice)

Targets differ Individuals or groups or organisations, to institutions and social structures

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNERDirection or goals of resistanceMost frequently understood as aimed at achieving change, but some resistance curtails change (e.g. whites resisting residential desegregation)

Can be antisocial – drug trafficking & tax evasionGenerally understood as political action, but can be identity based (e.g. Israeli’s who resist conscription)

HOLLANDER & EINWOHNER

Is act intended as resistance by actor?

Is act recognized as resistance by

Target? Observer?

Overt resistance Yes Yes YesCovert resistance Yes No YesUnwitting resistance No Yes YesTarget-defined resistance

No Yes No

Externally-defined resistance

No No Yes

Missed resistance Yes Yes NoAttempted resistance Yes No NoNot resistance No No No

BABA A BUNTUExecutive Director and Founder of Ebukhosini

Solutions, Co-Director of AFURAKA Cultural Community Development, Founder of SHABAKA Empowerment Programme For Young Afrikan Men, Founder of Ukuzimisela Leadership Programme, Development Manager of R.I.S.E. Mzansi, Management Board Member of Lapeng Child and Family Resource Unit

http://whoswho.co.za/baba-buntu-30091

Lecturer, researcher, strategist and practitioner within Afrikan history, culture, community empowerment and social transformation.

https://twitter.com/BabaBuntu

BOOK – THE AFRICANA WORLD

BUNTU‘Unscrambling Africa’s Future: The Role of

African Youth in Pan-African Empowerment’- Analyses the various forms of historical

oppressions faced by Afrikans (list in chapter)- Takes the historical view (remember Tamboukou –

have to understand how we got here in order to imagine a new future)

- Posits a set of practices for ‘unscrambling’ – forms of resistance?

- Not an exhaustive list, but a starting point

BUNTUEducation – enable the development of a strong sense of

self, locating people in own history, encourage agency, vocational training, African history, culture, science and wisdom must be at the centre of everything that is taught, start with the teachers

Entrepenuership – everyone should be making something, developing skills, developing each other. Requires mentoring, ‘identify economic opportunities without exploitation’

Organisation – systems of social, political and economic organisation, starting with family and kinship group. “reviving matrilinialism, collectivism and the role of elders”

BUNTUCommunity Development – community defined, sense of ownership &

responsibility, political & cultural awareness, sustainability, relationships with others

Culture – ‘expressive articulation of meaning, the guiding principles for coexistence and the cosmological identity of the community’, resurrecting ancient wisdoms, medicine, spritual practices, moral codes, but not all practices relevant or useful anymore. Poetry, art, dance, but not for entertainment.Reclaiming authentic African history, centring African values, location & agency

Governance – ‘rules of engagement, qualifies leadership, articulates codes people must live by’, look at African examples of people-centred governmance, democracy and spiritual-moral legal practices.

STILL THINKING ABOUT RESISTANCE“It is an old question in social movements: Should we fight the system or “be the change we wish to see”? Should we push for transformation within existing institutions, or should we model in our own lives a different set of political relationships that might someday form the basis of a new society? “

See more at: http://organizationunbound.org/expressive-change/should-we-fight-the-system-or-be-the-change/?utm_source=Organization+Unbound&utm_campaign=eddb0a5310-Newsletter+September+2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4217f39792-eddb0a5310-184559721#sthash.Eszv4kUt.dpuf

STILL THINKING ABOUT RESISTANCENot necessarily such a binary choice, but also can create

tensions

THE PLOTMostly thinking about ‘post’-apartheid South AfricaPrimarily along economic linesAshwin Desai – ‘we are the poors’Steven Robins – ‘From Revolution to Rights in South Africa’Arundhati Roy – against imperialismRichard Pithouse – ‘Marikana, Resolve & Resilience’THINKING INTERSECTIONALLY & TOWARD FEMINISMYvette Abrahams – ‘We are here because we are here’

DESAIAshwin Desai – Prof. of Sociology at the University of

JohannesburgLectured at UDW, Workers College & RhodesInterested in the sociology of sport & social identity /

social movements

DESAI Published in 2002: “It [this book] describes an ongoing spiral fo struggle against market-driven measures to make residents of poor communities become paying customers in a capitalist society supposedly made non-racial by the defeat of apartheid and by the embrace of the free market in its place”

DESAI“The struggle in Chatsworth helped to ignite

rebellions in other areas, and to illuminate struggles already happening elsewhere. These struggles…have begun to jump the firebreaks of race and place. Will they continue to do so, and incinerate the fetters of old political allegiances and class compromise that have so immobilized us these last ten years? Or will the multitude be confined to the outer reaches of society doused by brigades of politicans, past masters of turning on and off the taps of struggle and expectation? Or will they stand side-by-side and in so doing light the way to a new society?”

DESAI“These hidden struggles have become epic, because they have taken guts and imagination. Above all, before a new basis of solidarity could emerge, the ethnic handicap had to be overcome…memories of past traditions of resilience and resistance had to be filtered through new buzzwords and adapted to changed conditions”

DESAI“Remarkable political aptitudes developed. Linkages with niche allies, in hundreds of little engagements, were supremely expedient. The enemy was mocked, praised, lobbied, fought, voted for, slandered, borrowed from, set-up, debated and chased away. All principle flowed from th eneed to ward off evictions, water disconnections and the like…However this instinct for survival also meant that concessions were made and public pronouncements could become politically murky”

DESAI“Cultural and religious innovation, too, played a

role. People cast about for theologies they could put to work. Religious ceremonies were decoded and given very contemporary moral force. In this way, hip-hop, bhangra, and the festival of (no) lights (Diwalie) shared a platform, receiving applause and militant acclaim…And for the ‘ordinary’ people, the residents with biographies disfigured by poverty, it was discovered that no speech, workshop, or meeting could heal old wounds as healthily as did the labour around the now ubiquitous communal cooking pot”

DESAI“You will meet in this book Sifiso Sithole. He is sixteen years old and from Soweto. He belongs to the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) that sponsors Operation Khanyisa (“to light up”). Sifiso is part of a hunted band of people who reconnect electricity to the homes of those who are too poor to pay the bills of the busy-being-privatized utility Eskom”

DESAI“You will hear the story of Jasmine Samsodien. She lives at numer 35 Heuningberg in Tafelsig, Cape Town. She turned to the Tafelsig Anti-Eviction Committee when police and council employees arrived to evict her in September 2001. Prevented from doing so by a mass uprising, the following month the council authorities cut her water and thereby a lifeline to her four children and three grandchildren. The inspirational response of the people of the Cape Flats is recorded in these pages”

DESAI“Binisle Mzeku worked at Volkswagen South Africa in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape for over a decade. At the beginning of 2000 he was one of 3,000 workers who went on strike against their own union. At issue was the sweetheart decision of NUMSA to sign an agreement with management that eroded many shopfloor gains in the bloody battles of the 1980s”

DESAI“The response of the state to all these

struggles has been uncompromising and brutal, ranging from vicious assaults, arrests and the fabricating of charges and the labeling of activists as criminals. But paradoxically the life of people in these communities has become increasingly sensuous. An active sense of community pervades. Spaces for living that are not bonded to the dollar sign have been carved open and are jealously protected while new ways of struggling that value human needs and desires are being imagined.”

STEVEN L ROBINSSteven Robins is a Professor in the Department of Sociology

and Social Anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch. He has published on a wide range of topics including the politics of land, 'development' and identity in Zimbabwe and South Africa; the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC); urban studies and most recently on citizenship and governance. His book entitled From Revolution to Rights in South Africa: Social Movements and Popular Politics (2008) focuses on globally connected social movements, NGOs and CBOs that are involved democratic struggles over access to AIDS treatment, land and housing.

http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departments/sociology/staff/srobins

ROBINSBook examines the way in which the introduction

of the Bill of Rights, and its varied and inclusive ‘rights’ are mobilised by various groups (individuals, NGOs, social movements) in order to try and achieve some of these in the face of an overwhelmingly unequal society

Uses examples like the TAC, Trade Unions, SECC, AEC etc. and the way that the ‘revolutionary’ state started using labels like ‘ultra-left’ to try and disparage work by these movements

ROBINSConclusion of Robins book makes the point after reviewing

the work of social movements and NGOs in South Africa that:

- Organisations and people pull on a variety of ‘hybrid’ political rationalities and identities in order to achieve their aim – in response to the “hybrid, provisional and situational character of politics in post-apartheid South Africa”

- “successful interventions by the state, NGOs and social movements require a find appreciation that political rationalities and identities tend to be deployed situationally”

- Basically you can be a rights activist in one arena and a violator of rights at a different time in a different arena, so taking on ‘resistance’ does not translate coherently in the lives of individuals or organisations.

ROBINS“Many post-apartheid NGOs and social movements

have become quite adept at mobilising rights in popular struggles to leverage access to state resources. Rights-based approaches have not necessarily translated into the forms of depoliticisation and individualisation assumed by many of liberalisms critics, and neither has ‘rights talk’ been rendered completely incompatible with group-based claims to ‘ethnic’ belonging and indigenous identity”

CONTEXT?Part of a broader global struggle that has sometimes been

called ‘the Empire” / “Imperialism” / “Neoliberalism”Global /local movements around the world been swapping

ideas, ideologies, practices, support in a variety of ways for a number of years.

Have a global gathering – World Social Forum for some exchange (has been some criticism of this)

ARUNDHATI ROYBorn 1961Author & political activistWrites extensively around anti-globalisation, vehement critic of neo-

imperialism (The Algebra of Infinite Justice just one of her books) confronting power

"I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy

Numerous inspirational quotes, this is from a piece called ‘Life After Capitalism” WSF Porto-Alegro 2003

RICHARD PITHOUSEDr. Richard Pithouse teaches politics at Rhodes University

where he teaches contemporary political theory and urban studies and runs an annual semester long post-graduate seminar on the work of Frantz Fanon.

http://sacsis.org.za/s/stories.php?iUser=20

PITHOUSE‘Marikana, Resolve & Resilience’- The massacre at Marikana and ongoing stikes have

inscribed Marikana into our history- These kinds of events often turning points in history- Miners are proud of their victory “we will not be there

dogs”- The ‘political imagination’ of the strike is not

contained to the mines- It make take generations to see the results, but this is

significant, and has already made its mark on other struggles in SA

- Conversations now are about how to get resolve to continue the struggle

PITHOUSE“In 2014 it is difficult to believe that in time everyone will have a place in the nation…But ‘Marikana’ is now the name of land occupations around the country, as well as a workers’ rebellion, a massacre and an extraordinary strike…New forces are stirring. Elite nationalism is beginning to lose its hold on an increasingly militant citizenry…None of us know where this will end…The deal that carried us through the last twenty years is up”

YVETTE ABRAHAMSYvette Abrahams was born in 1963, in Crawford, Cape Town,

South Africa. She grew up mostly in exile, in Scandinavia. She is a historian and spends most of her working hours researching gender in different forms. She dreams of laying a pathway that will lead young Black women securely towards freedom in the new millennium. From January to December 2002, she was a visiting scholar at the African Gender Institute. Her articles have published in a number of edited anthologies, including Black Women in White Institutional Cultures (Indiana University Press, 2003) and Discourses on Difference, Discourse on Oppression (Centre for Advanced South African Studies, 2001). 

http://www.gift-economy.com/womenand/womenand_khoekhoe.html(picture source http://www.fire.or.cr/sept05/images/austin-fotos1.htm)

YES, IT’S A FEMINIST THINGhttp://

africanfeministsrock.tumblr.com/post/69049497747/abc-of-african-feminists-elaine-salo

"NAMING OURSELVES AS FEMINISTSWe define and name ourselves publicly as Feminists because we celebrate our feminist

identities and politics. We recognize that the work of fighting for women’s rights is deeply political, and the process of naming is political too. Choosing to name ourselves Feminist places us in a clear ideological position. By naming ourselves as Feminists we politicise the struggle for women’s rights, we question the legitimacy of the structures that keep women subjugated, and we develop tools for transformatory analysis and action. We have multiple and varied identities as African Feminists. We are African women – we live here in Africa and even when we live elsewhere, our focus is on the lives of African women on the continent. Our feminist identity is not qualified with `Ifs`, `Buts’, or `Howevers’. We are Feminists. Full stop.

"- Excerpt from the Charter of Feminist Principles for African

Feminists, African Feminist Forum 

BOOK – DISCOURSES ON DIFFERENCE AND OPPRESSION2002CASAShttp://www.casas.co.za/

ABRAHAMS- Contextualises womanist theory in African

realities- Glossary of key terms used (race, brown, womanist

etc.)- Explain theoretical underpinnings of womanism &

historical background- Argues that womanism is the key to creating a

revolution which will liberate African women as female members of a conquered people.

- Places historiography of Sarah Bartmann in context of womanist concerns

ABRAHAMS“The African family is the foundation of our resistance. As much as it is the site of oppression for women, it has also been the nurturing ground for revolutionaries. It is small wonder that our African revolutions have been so contradictory. For as long as African women are disempowered within their families, communities, and continent, the struggle for African freedom is being deprived of more than half its human energy.”

ABRAHAMS“A revolution that depends on the male, the rich and the well-fed for its success, is not going to get very far. Womanism poses a set of solutions to the twin problems of theoretical analysis and activism on these issues. It reaffirms African solidarity, both in Africa and in the African diaspora, while pointing out the hollowness of a solidarity which relies on the oppression of African women for its continuance.”

ABRAHAMSAfter discussing the creation of the category ‘coloured’ and its uses for oppression and division, she posits:

“If coloured is the thesis, then Brown is its anti-thesis: a reaction to the racism forced upon a group of people on the basis of an observable phenotype, rooted in a political tradition as old as colourism itself.”

ABRAHAMSResistance to land theft, genocide and slavery

was on the basis of meaning ascribed to phenotypes, so race is a social construction, but Abrahams argues:

“The freedom fighters who were and still are imprisoned for the causes of Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness are sitting behind iron bars, not texts. Our many heroes…who confronted the possibility of dying in the struggle, knew well that their lives were more than a social construct. To lay down the breath of your body for an ideal is to be profoundly aware of the material nature of reality. In this tradition, I consider reality to be constituted of both the essence and the social construct. This is a womanist position”

ABRAHAMS“The Pan-Africanist and Black Consciousness Movements of Azania were organisations dedicated to both material transformation and spiritual revolution…decolonisation of the mind and the land were processes only seperable conceptually”

ABRAHAMS“One of the cardinal tenets of the Black Consciousness Movement was never to let the enemy determine your agenda”

ABRAHAMSWe need to understand and analyse the social constructs and

the material reality as they intertwine. Dispossession is ideological with a material set of consequences. If we don’t understand this, our choices for activism will be limited.

“The one thing I find very comforting about the past is that it is over, in the sense that there is nothing I can do to change it. Thisis my definition of ‘objective’: something that is unchangeable. To me as an activist, the past constitutes an objective reality. What I can change is the future. It is my subjective choices in the present which will create the world for my children. This is the strength of the political tradition to which I belong”

ABRAHAMS“…it is appropriate to define the term ‘revolution’, as used in this chapter. It means ‘to turn a circle’, from the past to the future, from oppression to freedom. Revolution means to accomplish a qualitative change in human relations in such a way that it becomes impossible to turn back to old, oppressive relations. A commitment to revolution does not have to be equated with a commitment to violence. The qualitative change is what is important, not the measures used to achieve it.”

ABRAHAMS“A revolution is made of material things as much

as by liberatory theories. So the fact that many poor Africans are directing their energies to acquiring money cannot in and of itself be considered a counter-revolutionary activity. Rather one needs to ask: what do they do with the money once they get it? Do they go to meetings or to cocktail parties? Do they invest in designer clothes or in community projects? The problem of the African middle class is one which can only be solved in practice. At present that practice is overwhelmingly determined by racially defined ownership of the means of production. Certainly in contemporary southern Africa the middle class has not overly impressed one with its ability to convert its new riches into liberatory activity…”

ABRAHAMS“…For every Kamuzu Banda there is a Chiekh Anta Diop,

for every Mabotut Sese Seko a Ken Saro Wiwa. For every bandit chief in a suit there is a civil servant who curses her corrupt bosses, laments her department’s lack of money, and goes out to the rural areas yet again to make all the difference she can make. For every example of conspicuous consumption, we seem to produce a middle-class professional lambasting the neo-colonial elite…The African middle class seems to produce reckless idealism as often as corrupt tyranny…It stands to reason that the middle class can nurture an ideology and organisational practice which turns dissatisfaction into constructive activity for structural change.” – but the sexism HAS to be addressed

ABRAHAMS“Revolution begins at home” Gender oppression needs to end, and has to be understood in

an intersectional manner

ABRAHAMS“This vision is not only theoretical, but practical:

it is the sum of observations made by African women throughout the long years of our struggle. We have tilled fields…washed dishes…stood on the barricades…organised conferences…waged an armed struggle…prayed for the living and the dead. We have survived oppression and dreamt of freedom, if not for ourselves, then for our children. The lesson we have learned is, I suppose, ultimately and idealist one: that we cannot work, fight and struggle to change the material realities of oppression unless we are guided by a vision of freedom. To envision freedom in the midst of oppression is the hardest thing to do – and yet it continues to be done, generation after generation, and shall continue to be done until we are free.”