W3 Notes - PDF

Week 3 Reading: ‘The People Cannot Live in the Air’: History of the Squatter Movement in South Africa Background ◦ How we can use the squatters (native reserves – Africans were not allowed to purchase land) as a sign for mobilisation ◦ Building social movements ◦ What does th...

Week 3 Reading: ‘The People Cannot Live in the Air’: History of the Squatter Movement in South Africa Background ◦ How we can use the squatters (native reserves – Africans were not allowed to purchase land) as a sign for mobilisation ◦ Building social movements ◦ What does this mean for sociology as a discipline ◦ The thinking of the time of book – many sociologists were quoting organic intellectuals (Antonio gramsy) What the author does ◦ Ngwane – referenced squatters as site of development for social movements ◦ We don’t usually assign these places as space for ideologies and racial thoughts To think about ◦ What is the main central argument in Ngwane ◦ What is the context he is writing from ◦ What tools did he use to develop his argument ◦ What terminology does he use Why the squatter movement (why shack dwellers – squatters) ◦ Starts by quoting the stats of those living in squatters – - 10 million people - 20% of SA population ◦ Numerically suggests that if you look at the social behaviour – will offer understanding on how people organise themselves ◦ Ngwane says that the squatter is also part of the working class – they are agents of change ◦ Conceptual questions he brings in ◦ Looking at this from the SA perspective ◦ Geographic space that attracted working class of Africans à women, migrant labourers History of the squatter movement ◦ Remember Plaatje said a squatter is a native who owns some livestock and, having no land of his own, hires a farm or grazing and ploughing rights from a landowner. Central argument  ◦ Looked into salient aspects of the history of the squatter movement in South Africa in the mid-twentieth century and during the 1980s resurgence of opposition to apartheid in order to reflect on what form and character amakomiti take during upswings in the struggle... - This will help clarify the twin roles of the amakomiti as organs of struggle and as grassroots self-governance structures. ◦ Understanding the key aspects of the squatter movement in mid 80’s ◦ Help us to understand à “This will help clarify the twin roles of the amakomiti as organs of struggle and as grass- roots self-governance structures. “ ◦ Governance – ideological appeal, orientation to democracy Paragraph 1 ◦ He locates squatter within international context ◦ Paradigm created ◦ Grassroots and decision making structures reach wider in heightend struggle ◦ What is the main drive of development of grassroot drives - Makes reference to what he has observed in SA - Moment when their was a surge in grassroots movement à amakomiti ◦ Need to understand the context and what spurred the development of these organisations Context Migrant labour and proletarianization ◦ Remember Plaatje spoke about the role of land in transforming the Natives into servants and how land together with taxation and labour policies were used to secure labour supply? ◦ The type of labour that this period gave rise to was called migrant labour, why and what does this mean? - Time of land act – Apartheid was in full force - 3 instruments to separate the producer from the land à used to secure labour for the mines a. Land act b. Taxation - Anyone above the age of 18 had to pay tax c. Labour policies - Used to implement system to protect and promote the interests of the poor whites (created due to the Anglo-Boer war) ◦ Locate within political economy of country – understand mode of production (how production was organised) - Under Marxism it is communally owned ◦ Situates his understanding of emergence of squatter ◦ How did indigenpus people live before people came in the cape of good hope Used idea of migrant labour how the black working-class came about  ◦ Young African men did not just leave land because they were scared of the threats of the government ◦ One of the push factors was the arrival of merchant capital – mercantilism – economic system where countries would catch other countries and then use them as subsidiaries and export the raw materials ◦ Disrupted the social relations that existed and traditional mode of transport on our country Features of earlier societies/traditional societies à household/homestead à a unit of social production (pp22) 1. Kinship ties 2. Governance structure ◦ chiefs/headmen/prominent clan leaders, councils 3. The colonial state inferred by giving chiefs more powers over the people, power backed by its might, this introducing a despotism that had in some instanced not previously existed ◦ Encroachment of colonial state ◦ This is how Africans were made migrants ◦ Movement of work from home to factories – had to move/migrate ◦ This collapsed social system à forced process o Had to leave as migrants – oscillate between traditional and modern societies ◦ Proletarians – how people who owned the land before became the workier – people separated from land due to land act 'Articulation of modes of production' paradigm a) Harold Wolpe - 'Cheap labour power thesis' à page 23 ◦ Under capitalism How migrants were secured 1. Make work hours longer Made African labour cheap – cannot 2. Pay them less compared to the costs buy land – therefore they have no 3. Technology value ◦ The company purchases your capacity of work and tell They earn individual wages – not you how much they will pay àthen they give work family wages (this would require hours housing) ◦ Quote: ‘cheap labour power thesis’ explained the native Have already left society – live in reserves from the perspec- tive of capital: they served to hostels/compound – live as reduce the cost of labour reproduction by keeping wages individuals down Combination of capitalism and b) William Beinart à questioned amaMpondo's loss of agency racism à colonialism implied by this paradigm ◦ Xhosa migrants did not just leave due to pressure form colonial but also there was a sense of urgency to incorporate themselves incorporated into the economic system o They were not simply just “victims” but there was some level of agency  ◦ Cattle advance – calculative strategy o “This suggests active engagement with rather than passive surrender to the power of capital” ◦ In other words, amaMpondo were neither ‘modernists’ nor ‘traditionalists’, as some dual economy analysts imagine, they were pragmatists, attempting to negotiate their way around real constraints emanating from ‘both worlds’. What is Ngwane's main critique of the above? Besieged by colonial conquest and capitalist relations, the Mpondo strategy was to adjust and adapt on better terms rather than escape the capitalist juggernaut. ◦ Strategy ◦ They saw migrancy as vital to their incorporation into capital's - allowed sons to go and work in the gold mines A system of payment preferred by household heads for sons that went to work in the gold mines was cattle advance, whereby a beast was handed over by the labour tout, usually a white trader, before the migrant worker left for the mines ◦ How the squatter movements came about Squatter Movement in the 1940’s ◦ The chapter challenges us to think differently about the squatters - Plaatje spoke about them ◦ Why the 1940s? ◦ What role did the geography of squatters play in the development of squatter movement? Soweto à very unique Ideological character of the movement, pp27 ◦ Unlike the ANC was banned by the Apartheid government by 1950’s ◦ Townships became places of mobilisation (were not allowed to organise trade unions in legal terms) ◦ and African communist party Leadership* ◦ Women were allowed to join this formation ◦ Ideology of the state was to exclude women but were allowed in this movement ◦ Made it very unique Distinction between popular and state democracy pp28 ◦ Elites elected and distanced from population ◦ Popular democratic leaders are closer to the people à squatter movements ◦ How did the capitalist mode of production contribute to the emergence of the squatter movement in the cities?  Conclusion ◦ squatter were the urban movements ◦ Inward looking, not outward looking ◦ Nothing about communism Tools used 1. Chronological approach 2. Observation 3. Interviews 4. Documents Additional thoughts How did SA benefit from the WW2 ◦ Manufacturing industry grew significantly due to the need for weapons and uniforms ◦ Women in the first time in history entered the labour market in large numbers ◦ Significant movement from villages to cities à urbanisation – priority of land and housing Why was there a rise in squatter movements à migrants and other workers moving ◦ Due to the demand in housing due to the industrialisation ◦ Could be because Africans learnt that if they want to be taken seriously, you cannot advocate change as an individual – you have to form a collective Note - 1922 – trade unions formed, disgruntled white workers protests Within this context Reading 2: Geographies of racial capitalism: the 2021 July riots in South Africa à Ashwin Desai Comparison of both readings ◦ Racial capitalism – conceptual hook that connects Ngwane chapter and Desai article ◦ Ngwane. - historical approach – - chronological approach – - growth of movement up until post-apartheid à there was a decrease ◦ Desai – - old concept but understand the current behaviour of subjects/people Abstract ◦ Central point – we can only understand if we understand the ◦ Africans and Indians have always been ref to previously disadvantaged ◦ We have an intra-racial conflict  ◦ The manifestation of the old is important ◦ Need to understand the kind of protests and violence that is happening in society CONTEXT ◦ Locates the riots within the South African context after 1994. Desai notes that socio- economic tinder was dangerously dry with unemployment levels running beyond 40 per cent. - Delivery on government promises of development for poor black communities, through conservative economic policies has all but ground to a halt. - This was exacerbated by endemic theft of public monies by cadres of Nelson Mandela's once proud liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC). ◦ Violence was headlined as taking a racial turn, setting Africans against Indians, and ◦ Explain the power of racial capitalism, with the understanding that, while "dynamic and changing", its "Temporality... is one of ongoingness... a process not a moment - endemic theft of public monies à violence of the state Macro-economic policy GEAR – growth employment and redistribution strategy ◦ Wave seen capital flight ◦ Companies moving away ◦ Flooding of cheap illegal goods into the country ◦ SA companies cannot compete à higher unemployment and inequality ◦ Changed social and economic status of SA (rich remain rich and vice versa The looting exposed the kinds of tensions that are already there – inherited from Apartheid Explained in terms of racial capitalism 2021 July riots in South Africa - provides an insight into how capitalism connects with race (between and within) Central argument ◦ Using the concept to try to understand what is happening in July 2021 ◦ Given the continuing power of racial geographies and inherited forms of capital accumulation, racial capitalism still has great explanatory value in contemporary South Africa, and it provides ways of understanding the events that unfolded in Phoenix à pp3543 ◦ Cites Bhattacharyya - "the place of racialisation in particular instances of capitalist formation, most of all when those instances are now" BUT - Uses Bhattacharyya work to try and explain the place of racialisation - Place becomes the central focus - Not just about profit making – also about the relations that happen  ◦ Disagrees with the view that "racial capitalism does not emerge as a plan" - "dismisses the intentionality", what does this mean? pp3544 (yellow) ◦ Fighting against capitalism meant you have to fight against racism ◦ It was not a coincidence – it was a plan Reason 1: ◦ In South Africa, capital accumulation and racist exploitation have been handy bedfellows - Land act had economic motivations à plan and goal. Reason 2: ◦ “violent dispossessions inherent to capital accumulation operate by leveraging, intensifying, and creating social distinctions” Racial capitalism ◦ Desai defines racial capitalism as racial domination and capital accumulation were inextricably linked and that the fight to defeat apartheid was also a struggle to end capitalism ◦ How has the transition given capitalism a new lease of life after 1994? Citing Clarno: The South African transition has reproduced racial capitalism while transforming the dynamics of exploitation and exclusion. Deindustrialization and casualization have weakened the labour movement, intensified the exploitation and precariousness of the Black working class, and produced a growing racialised surplus population... Coupled with their increasingly precarious economic situation, the Black poor confront a severe shortage of decent housing. The crises of unemployment and homelessness are compounded by landlessness. ◦ Pp 3545 quotes about the value of racial capitalism as a tool (2 quotes) First quote ◦ Racial capitalism helps us to understand how people become divided from each other in the name of economic survival or in the name of economic well-being. One aspect of its techniques encompass the processes that appear to grant differential privileges... and the social relations that flow from these differentiations. (2018, 10–11) Second quote ◦ operates both through the exercise of coercive power and through the mobilisation of desire. People are not only ‘forced’ to participate Taking us through history in economic arrangements that cast them to the social margins; to understand the they also rush to be included in this way and to become edge- positionality’s subjects of capitalism. (2018, 9–10) How market and - High level of politically and economically vulnerable commodification made population individuals act they way - Understand how racial capitalism forces individuals to act in they act a certain way – work against each other  - Explains how different privileges are allocated to different groups Understand that today people are not forced but rush into the economic system Phoenix: a place of racialisation ◦ What kind of racial capitalism defines social relations in Phoenix? Same way other The role of the law in defining race relations then and now? townships are created ◦ Found themselves in places defined by law ◦ Post apartheid law – in order to address the past, you need to make a new hierarchy ◦ Put the Africans on the top and so on ◦ Indians and Black people are put against each other ◦ Affirmative action policies contribute to racial relations What are the synergies & differences between Desai and Ngwane arguments? ◦ Phoenix situation was created in apartheid. Many were poor. By merely occupying the - Came from working class background spaces and being silent about ◦ The law played a role in racializing this space. the spaces ◦ Post apartheid government said that there was a hierarchy Same as many other black system where the Indians were placed higher than black people. townships à created in - But after the black people were placed higher and they Apartheid were not offered the same opportunities as the black people. ◦ Racial classification has never ended after apartheid. ◦ Phoenix in geography... adjusted to other places. - Lied in spaces closer to urban spaces. - There is a desire to be part of this economy, but they do not have access. Legally, Indian and African South Africans are distinct groups and the state, through legislation, differentiates between them in assigning opportunities, giving preferential treatment to Africans. ◦ Help us understand how racial capitalism can be a trigger for the looting??  Tutorial How to read texts (critically) ◦ Using the uMbuso text, locate: 1. Research Tools à which "tools" / mediums are used by the author to gather insights 2. Context à place the text into context ( significance of time and place) 3. Central argument - what is the authors focus/ keep making reference to - These enable you to gain a deeper understanding of the text Which research tools are used by the author ◦ Observations ◦ Interviews - Given the focus on land and its cultural, social, and historical significance, ethnographic research may be used to document the lived experiences and perspectives of those affected by land disputes. o What are their experiences of there everyday lives o Especially important with land and looking at the historical significance ◦ Documents ◦ Newspapers/ media articles ◦ Forensic/ archival evidence. - To analyse policies, laws, and official govern documents related to land distribution and reform South Africa, uMBuso relies on archival sou records, and documentation of previous land commissions. - When looking at policies you need evidence to substantiate your points ◦ The metaphor of the eye – to look at history - This is an analytical tool What is the main context of this text ◦ Bethel farm and how farm labourers were brutally killed. ◦ Set against the backdrop of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid histories, highlighting the systemic land dispassion - Framing contemporary struggles for land reform and social justice o What is the history that informs the writers work ◦ Context is crucial for understanding the power dynamics and cultural identities intertwined with land ownership; it emphasizes the ongoing impact of historical injustices on marginalized communities today  What is the central argument The process of dispossession. It uses the eye to unpack this process, which has four components: These 4 components all 1. Ontological Nowhereness - which means not belonging to any explain why it is important place. to look at this – there was a - They didn’t have a place to inhabit where they could reason why these were grow economically written about 2. The Eschatological component - which is the spiritual aspect. - People no longer had a tie to the land - No tie to cultural and spiritual ways of being previously 3. Temporalities (time) - in which dispossession from land indicates past, present, and future - What did it mean to be disposed of your land 4. Law (farmers' authority) - made those who are dispossessed to be seen as criminals. - What was once yours was taken away and crimalised ◦ Mbuso argues that land is a deeply contested site in South Africa, intertwined with historical legacies of colonialism and apartheid that continue to shape contemporary struggles for justice and identity. - Whilst this research may have been done a while ago, but it is still very relevant ◦ Further highlights how land ownership transcends mere physical space, serving as a symbol of belonging, memory, and resilience for marginalized communities. - Modern example - District 6 – people were forcibly removed and placed in the cape flats - Land owner transcends mere physical place - There is a sense of belonging to these places - How past injustices influence present problem - What the land struggles mean for the future - Land issues are not static but dynamic - Solutions need to take into consideration of interrelated time issues à who is most affected by it Essay Writing do’s and Don’ts ◦ Basic elements of essay writing are still not adhered to ◦ Assignment indicate that students still grapple with - Referencing o Paragraph sizing/lengths - What qualifies for the introduction and conclusion - Transitioning within and between paragraphs - Proofreading prior to submission is a minor, yet vital aspect as well What an in-text reference SHOULD look like: ◦ "According to Kemp (2024: 27), this is the correct method" ◦ "This is the correct method and should be followed for a good grade (Kemp, 2024: 27). What it should NOT look Hike: ◦ "According to Kemp this is the correct method (2024,27)." ◦ "Kemp states this is correct." ◦ "(kemp, 2024,7) discusses this..." ◦ "Therefore, this is the correct method. (Kemp, 2024: 7)" Introduction ◦ One or two short sentences situating the essay into context ◦ Then, you will include a thesis statement saying what the essay will do. ◦ use your own discretion here but ensure the reader expect from the essay Conclusion ◦ One or two sentences stating what the essay has proven/shown. ◦ Remember to revisit the essay question- answer it directly, using the same language as the question. ◦ Avoid repetition; shorter sentences are more impactful (especially in the conclusion)