Compromised communities and re-emerging civic engagement in Mpumalanga Township, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 31, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 857-873

  Mosoetsa, Sarah ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK; POLITICAL PARTICIPATION; URBAN POLITICS;

AFRICA; KWAZULU-NATAL; SOUTH AFRICA; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 31844449100     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070500370779     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. The province of KwaZulu-Natal was formed out of the former province of Natal and the KwaZulu Bantustan. It has an estimated population of about nine million people; poverty levels are increasing and the majority of the population still lives in non-urban areas (Statistics South Africa, October Household Survey, 1999 (Pretoria, Stats SA, 1999). Approximately 284,000 children under the age of seven and 551,000 other members of the household are living below the poverty line. It is the poorest province with the third highest unemployment rate of approximately 40 per cent (J. May, Poverty and Inequality in South Africa (Johannesburg, Praxis, 1998)
2. B. O'Leary, 'Status and Service Patterns of Development in KwaZulu-Natal', South African Labour Bulletin, 22, 5 (1998), pp. 23-6
3. A. Sitas, 'The "New Poor": Organisational Challenges', South African Labour Bulletin, 22, 5 (1998), pp. 16-22.
4. See, for example, S. Mainwaring, G. O'Donnell and S. Valenzuela (eds), Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1992)
5. S. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991)
6. A. Przeworski, 'Some Problem in the Study of the Transition Democracy', in G. O'Donnell, P. Schmitter and L. Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 47-63.
7. D. Beetham, 'Conditions for Democratic Consolidation', Review of African Political Economy, 60, 21 (1994), pp. 157-72.
8. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
9. Beetham, 'Conditions for Democratic Consolidation'.
10. Ibid., p. 165.
11. Independent Development Corporation, (1971) p. 57, cited in B.S. Young, The Industrial Geography of the Durban Region (PhD. thesis, University of Natal, 1972).
12. Ibid.
13. A. Minnaar (ed.), Patterns of Violence: Case Studies in Natal (Pretoria, Human Sciences Research Council Press, 1992).
14. D. Bonnin, 'Spatiality in the Construction of Identity: African Women and Political Violence in KwaZulu-Natal', Society in Transition, 1, 4 (1997), pp. 27-42
15. D. Bonnin, 'Claiming Spaces, Changing Places: Political Violence and Women's Protests in KwaZulu-Natal', Journal of Southern African Studies, 26, 2 (2000), pp. 301-16
16. D. Bonnin, '"I am Poor, I Must Start All Over Again" - The Impact of Political Violence on Household Economies: A Case Study from KwaZulu-Natal', Society in Transition, 32, 2 (2001), pp. 186-204.
17. B. Nzimande and S. Thusi, Children of War: The Impact of Political Violence on Schooling in Natal (Research report, Education Policy Unit, Durban, 1991).
18. Bonnin, 'I am Poor, I Must Start All Over Again', p. 194.
19. Interview with Jabu Ngcobo, former South African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU) organiser in Hammarsdale, 26 March 2003.
20. A. Sitas, 'Bonds that Shape, the Bonds that Bind, the Bonds that Break: Un-digitalised Bodies in a Globalising Economy' (unpublished paper, Durban, 2002), p. 3.
21. Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Accelerating Transformation (Johannesburg, COSATU, 2000).
22. Sitas, 'Bonds that Shape, the Bonds that Bind'.
23. G. Fakude, Informalisation in KwaZulu-Natal's Clothing Sector (Research Report No. 37, Industrial Restructuring Project, School of Development Studies, Durban, 2002)
24. C. Skinner, and I. Valodia, 'Labour Market Policy, Flexibility, and the Future of Labour Relations: The Case of KwaZulu-Natal Clothing', Transformation, 50 (2002), pp. 56-76.
25. Indeed most South Africans were voting for their local government on 1 November 1995, but elections in KwaZulu-Natal only took place on 26 June 1996, given the high levels of political intolerance and violence.
26. The Unicity Council was introduced in 2000, after the December 2000 municipality elections. The executive committee council has full power, chaired by the mayor and under the provisions of the Municipal Systems and Municipal Structures Acts (see P. Hall and G. Robbins, 'Economic Development for a New Era: An Examination of the Adoption of Explicit Economic Development Strategies by Durban Local Government Following the April 1994 Elections', in W. Freund and V. Padayachee (eds), (D)urban Vortex: A South African City in Transition (Durban, University of Natal Press, 2002).
27. Following Beall (2001) I use the concept 'social resources' as opposed to 'social capital' in order to explain more dynamic and holistic societal relations that are not necessarily founded on transaction cost calculations. These include alliances, networks, and associations; formal and informal organisations that people rely on for survival (see J. Guyer, 'Household and Community in African Studies', African Studies Review, 24, 2/3 (1981), pp. 87-137
28. J. Beall, 'Valuing Social Resources or Capitalizing on Them? Limits to Pro-poor Urban Governance in Nine Cities of the South', International Planning Studies, 6, 4 (2001), pp. 357-75
29. J. Beall and N. Kanji, 'Households, Livelihoods and Urban Poverty', Theme paper 3, ESCOR Commissioned Research on Urban Governance, Partnership and Poverty (Birmingham, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, 1991).
30. Interview 27, 10 November 2002, Mpumalanga Township.
31. Interview 40, 26 November 2002, Mpumalanga Township.
32. The Municipal Structures Act (1998) of South Africa makes provision for the ward participatory system of municipal government, which allows for the establishment of ward committees to facilitate community participation in the matters of local government.
33. Interviews 7, 13, 20, 26, 27 and 29: 4 and 16 August 2002
34. and 30 September 2002; 7 October 2002; and 23 November 2002, Mpumalanga Township.
35. A concept used by Lambert and Webster to describe COSATU's role during the apartheid era. R. Lambert, and E. Webster, 'The Re-emergence of Political Unionism in Contemporary South Africa?', in W. Cobbett and R. Cohen (eds), Popular Struggles in South Africa (Trenton, NJ, Review of African Political Economy/Africa World Press, 1988), pp. 20-41.
36. This kind of unionism became important in linking workplace struggles about higher wages and discrimination to broader community struggles for democracy. K. von Holdt, 'Social Movement Unionism: The Case of South Africa', Work, Employment and Society, 16, 2 (2002), pp. 283-304.
37. Characterised by trade unions' exclusive focus on the improvement of wages, hours, working conditions, etc., and also evidenced by a move towards capitalistic ventures such as union investment companies.
38. S. Buhlungu, 'The Paradox of Victory: South Africa's Union Movement in Crisis', New Labor Forum: Labor Comes Out, 8 (Spring/Summer 2001), pp. 67-78
39. S. Buhlungu, Comrades, Entrepreneurs and Career Unionists: Organisational Modernisation and New Cleavages among COSATU Union Officials, Occasional Paper No. 17 (Friedrich Ebert Stiftüng, Johannesburg, 2002)
40. Von Holdt, 'Social Movement Unionism', pp. 283-304.
41. A process of retreating into the household is also identified in a study of Zimbabwe by Allast Mwanza, and was evident in Russia in the 1990s. Burawoy, Krotov and Lytkina argue that in this context people retreat back to their own resources, intensifying their production and elevating women's previous role as organiser and executor of the domestic economy. This is a process described in relation to Russia as 'gendered involution', a retreat to a primitive domestic economy and a 'defensive strategy of minimalist survival'.
42. A. Mwanza, 'Social Policy in an Economy Under Stress: A Case of Zimbabwe' (Southern Africa Regional Policy Institute, Harare, 1998)
43. M. Burawoy, P. Krotov and T. Lytkina, 'Involution and Destitution: Russia's Gendered Transition to Capitalism', Ethnography, 1, 1(2000), pp. 43-65.
44. J. May, 'Migrant Labour in the Transkei: Causes and Consequence at the Village Level', Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 6, 1 (1987), pp. 1-34
45. C. Murray, Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1981)
46. J. Nattrass, 'Migrant Labour in KwaZulu-Natal' (Durban, Development Studies Unit, University of Natal, 1984)
47. J. Sharp and A. Speigel, 'Vulnerability to Impoverishment in South African Rural Areas: The Erosion of Kinship and Neighbourhood as Social Resources', Africa, 55, 2 (1985), pp. 133-51.
48. Report of the Lund Committee on Child and Family Support in South Africa (Pretoria, Department of Social Development, 1996)
49. May, 'Poverty and Inequality in South Africa'.
50. Monthly social grants vary; the old age pension is R780, disability grant R780 and the child grant R180. Government proposes to increase the age limit for child grants to fourteen years.
51. E. Francis, Making a Living, Rural Livelihoods in Africa (London, Routledge, 2000).
52. Interview 10, Mpumalanga Township, 29 November 2002.
53. Interview 2, Mpumalanga Township, 10 and 15 August 2002; 16 September 2002; 29 November 2002.
54. Similarly, N. Kabeer, Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought (London and Delhi, Verso and Kali, 1994), p. 103, drawing on the examples of Brazil (Thomas, 1990), Philippines (Senauer, 1990) and Kenya (Kennedy, 1989), concludes 'the gender of the person owning wealth or earning income appears to have a systematic effect on patterns of resource allocation within the household'.
55. Bargaining power within households also has to be taken into consideration when talking about household inequalities. As opposed to altruistic models (see Becker 1965, 1974, 1981), bargaining models of the household (see Sen, 1984; Folbre, 1994; Kabeer, 1994) accommodate diversity in decision-making behaviour, do not rule out altruism as the basis of decisions, and accommodate the idea of gender asymmetry as a product of structural rather than purely individual inequalities in power, privilege and resources.
56. G. Becker, 'A Theory of the Allocation of Time', Economic Journal, LXXX, 200 (1965), pp. 493-517
57. G. Becker, 'A Theory of Marriage: Part I', in T.W. Schultz (ed.), Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children and Human Capital (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1974)
58. G. Becker, Treatise on the Family (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1981)
59. A. Sen, Resources, Values and Development (Oxford, Blackwell, 1984)
60. N. Folbre, Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structure of Constraints (London and New York, Routledge, 1994); Kabeer, 'Reserved Realities'.
61. Rosenzweig comes to a similar conclusion in a research study conducted in India and the Philippines. M.R. Rosenzweig, 'Program Interventions, Intra-household Distribution and the Welfare of Individuals: Modeling Household Behaviour', World Development, 14, 2 (1986), pp. 233-43.
62. D. Gaitskell, 'Power in Prayer and Service: Women's Christian Organization', in R. Elphick and R. Davenport (eds), Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social and Cultural History (Cape Town, David Philip, 1997).
63. The Anglican Mothers' Union in South Africa had about 34,000 members in 1970, triple the size of the Mothers' Union in either west or central Africa (Gaitskell, 'Power in Prayer and Service').
64. B. Haddad, Theologising Development, Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 1, 10 (July 2001), pp. 5-20
65. F. Wilson and M. Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge (Johannesburg, David Philip, 1989).
66. Interview 13, Mpumalanga Township, 18 August 2002.
67. This is a revolving saving and credit scheme common in South Africa in the black community. Members of such a scheme contribute a fixed monthly fee and give it to one individual who then reciprocates the following months to other group members. The money has often been used to buy things that are out of reach under normal circumstances.
68. Interview 40, 26 November 2002, Mpumalanga Township.
69. Interview 8, 7 September 2002, Mpumalanga Township.
70. Beall, 'Valuing Social Resources'.
71. Treatment Action Campaign, 'Equal Treatment', TAC Newsletter, 11 (2003).
72. These initiatives include the recent Civil Disobedience Campaign, which was limited and withdrawn after a few days. Other campaigns were a mother-to-child-transmission campaign, a campaign against patent abuse and profiteering, a campaign against pharmaceutical companies and the United States' Medicines and Related Substances Control Act of 1997, an Act that threatened to impose economic sanctions on South Africa, should the government reduce prices of essential medicine.
73. Interview, S'bu Khanyile, TAC District Co-ordinator, 22 June 2004, Pietermaritzburg.
74. Beetham, 'Conditions for Democratic Consolidation', p. 171.
75. Beetham, 'Conditions for Democratic Consolidating'.
76. Linz and Stepan, 'Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation'.