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Abstract
Motivated by the litigious politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, this paper enquires into the knowledge dynamics implied by the governmentality literature’s take on the (neo)liberal deployment of (human) rights. It suggests that by implicitly constructing the freedom of codified rights as illusionary and opposed to the reality of neoliberal rationalities of government, this scholarship posits a cognitive hierarchy between agents of government and the governed, and thus reproduces the power dynamics that it seeks to criticise. Interweaving a presentation of Abahlali’s self-articulation as knowledgeable and rightful subjects with Jacques Rancière’s notion of ‘literariness’, the paper accounts for codified rights’ potential to enable the disruption of such dynamics, and traces the governmentality literature’s suspicion towards this potential back to its textual methodology.
Acknowledgements
The financial assistance of the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. I am grateful to Michael Merlingen, Gary Minkley, Louiza Odysseos, Erzsebet Strausz, Kiven Strohm, and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. For their input, I also thank the participants of the 2013 European Workshops in International Studies in Tartu, Estonia.
Notes
1. See primarily Foucault, ‘Society Must Be Defended’; Foucault, Security, Territory, Population; and Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics.
2. Foucault, “The Subject and Power.”
3. See Agamben, Homo Sacer.
4. Opposing Giorgio Agamben’s reading, this perspective is usually aligned with accounts more ‘loyal’ to Foucault, where biopolitics is supposed to overshadow, yet not completely replace, sovereign power. See Neal, “Cutting off the King’s Head”; Neal, Review of the Literature; and Ojakangas, “Impossible Dialogue on Bio-power”. See also Bondi and Laurie, “Introduction.”
5. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 22. Lacking the space here for a thorough elaboration, I signal my understanding of how biopolitics relates to (neo)liberalism and their respective governmentalities with reference to Foucault’s claim that liberalism should be studied as the ‘general framework of biopolitics’.
6. Rygiel, “In Life through Death.” See also Isin and Nielsen, Acts of Citizenship; and Isin and Nyers, Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies.
7. See McNevin, “Political Belonging in a Neoliberal Era”; Nyers, “Abject Cosmopolitanism”; and Guillaume, “Regimes of Citizenship.” I thank one of my anonymous referees for reminding me of the significance of this body of texts.
8. By the end of the 2000s Abahlali baseMjondolo (‘shack-dwellers’ in isiZulu) had become one of the largest social movements in South Africa, counting over 10,000 members. Following a series of inhabitants’ demonstrations, it was formed in 2005 in the Kennedy Road shack settlement of Clare Estate, Durban. See Abahlali baseMjondolo, “Izwi Labampofu – Voice of the Poor.” For a thorough documentation and analysis of the movement’s emergence, see Pithouse, “‘Our Struggle is Though on the Ground, Running’.” I conducted research with Abahlali baseMjondolo in two phases between 2009 and 2010. Research comprised daily visits to the movement’s central office in the Kennedy road shack settlement and occasionally to other settlements in eThekwini (Greater Durban), conducting interviews with members individually or in small groups, and observing (and taking part in) the movement’s activities.
9. Selmeczi, “Dis/placing Political Illiteracy.”
10. Burchell et al., The Foucault Effect; and Burchell, “Liberal Government.”
11. Ivison, Rights; Rose, Governing the Soul; and Rose, “The Death of the Social?”
12. Dean, Governmentality, 50.
13. Cruikshank, The Will to Empower, 4.
14. For the sake of brevity, the following discussion of the governmentality literature’s account of (human) rights is reduced to a handful of its paradigmatic arguments, focusing on their implicit knowledge dynamics. For further discussions of rights as/in relation to governmentality, see Chase, “Legitimizing Human Rights”; Ivison, Rights; Jabri, War and the Transformation of Global Politics; Jung, “The Politics of Indigenous Identity”; Lindroth, “Indigenous Rights”; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, “At the Crossroads of Autonomy and Essentialism”; Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen, “Adapt or Die?”; Rose, “The Death of the Social?”; Sokhi-Bulley, “Human Rights”; Zanotti, “Normalizing Democracy and Human Rights”; and Zanotti, Governing Disorder. For alternative readings from within Foucauldian thought, see Cadman, “How (not) to be Governed”; Golder and Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s Law; Golder, Re-reading Foucault; and Patton, “Foucault, Critique and Rights.”
15. Foucault, “‘Omnes et Singulatim’,” 307.
16. Cruikshank, “Revolutions Within.” For similar insights regarding contemporary governmentalities of the European Union, see Sokhi-Bulley, “Human Rights”: ‘actors govern…themselves, without coercion or the need for a coercive body’ (p. 240).
17. Bondi and Laurie, “Introduction,” 399.
18. Cruikshank, “Revolutions Within.”
19. Odysseos, “Human Rights,” 747.
20. See also Levy, “Contested Citizenship of the Arab Spring”: ‘[neoliberal governmentality] construes a specific kind of citizen, configured exhaustively as homo œconomicus’ (p. 30).
21. Odysseos, “Human Rights,” 749–750 (emphasis in the original).
22. Ibid., 753.
23. Ibid., 772. See also Lindroth, “Indigenous Rights”: ‘The expert interpretation of indigenous rights actively produces the indigenous population’s aspirations and aims as compatible with the neoliberal logic’ (p. 355).
24. Sokhi-Bulley, “Human Rights,” 241 (emphasis in the original).
25. It has to be noted, however, that Odysseos does engage the issue of rights struggles. See, for example, her contribution to this volume.
26. Rancière, Disagreement, 82. For a challenge to Rancière’s interpretation of this binary and thus his conception of ‘metapolitics’, see Fisken, “The Visibility of Politics.”
27. Rose, Governing the Soul, 253.
28. Ibid., 256.
29. Sokhi-Bulley, “Human Rights,” 240; emphasis in the original.
30. Valverde, “‘Despotism’ and Ethical Liberal Governance,” 357.
31. Golder and Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s Law.
32. Singer and Weir, “Politics and Sovereign Power.”
33. Langlois, “Human Rights in Crisis?”
34. See Chandler, “The Rise and Limits of Biopolitical Critiques.”
35. City of Durban, “Warwick Junction Developments.”
36. Duncan, “Thabo Mbeki and Dissent.”
37. Abahlali, “Thuli Ndlovu was Assassinated Last Night.”
38. Beyond lacking a court order justifying the process, evictions usually executed by the police and/or municipal Land Invasion Units are illegal for failing to consult and notify inhabitants in advance or to advise them that they have a legal right to oppose removal. See Abahlali, “Another Political Eviction”; Butler and Pithouse, Lessons from eThekwini; and Sacks, “‘Marikana’ UnFreedom Day Land Occupation.”
39. Selmeczi, “Dis/placing Political Illiteracy.”
40. See, for example, Abahlali’s statement on the occasion of the prohibition of its Human Rights Day march with reference to the renovation of the Durban City Hall and the safety risks thereof: ‘The Freedom Charter said that “the people will govern”. It didn’t say that the experts will govern. It didn’t say that there will be democracy if the city managers decide to allow it.’ Abahlali, “Sutcliffe’s Dirty Tricks.”
41. My understanding of the aesthetic nature of politics draws on Rancière’s thought. Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics.
42. Panagia, The Political Life of Sensation.
43. “KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act of 2006.”
44. The public participation exercise took place on 4 May 2007. See Chance, Report on Public Participation Exercises.
45. Abahlali, “No Land, No House, No Vote, No Bill!.”
46. Chance, Report on Public Participation Exercises.
47. Abahlali, “Meeting to Build a Coalition.” On the significance of students’ engagement with the text of the proposed legislation at the centre of the 1986 student strike in Paris, see Rancière, On the Shores of Politics.
48. Abahlali, “Celebrating our Victory.” See also Kell and Nizza, From Shack to the Constitutional Court.
49. Abahlali, “Meeting to Build a Coalition.”
50. Unfortunately, this victory has since been reversed and illegal evictions become normal again.
51. Odysseos, “Human Rights,” 771.
52. Below I draw on and extend the some of the discussion in Selmeczi, “‘From Shack to the Constitutional Court’.”
53. Interview with Mazwi Nzimande, July 8, 2009. See also the scene in Dear Mandela where, after commonly reading the Housing Section of the Constitution, former Abahlali spokesperson, Mnikelo Ndabankulu talks to a group of recently evicted people: ‘We will rebuild these shacks but these people will come back tomorrow. When they do you must ask them “Where are your court documents? And if you want to demolish my house, you have to produce a court order. And if you do bulldoze it, who is going to compensate me?” He will think to himself “I thought I was dealing with an idiot!”.’ Kell and Nizza, Dear Mandela. See also Jaraisy, “For West Bank Protesters.”
54. Regrettably, here I lack the space to support this point with such accounts. See Selmeczi, “Dis/placing Political Illiteracy.”
55. Butler and Pithouse, Lessons from eThekwini.
56. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 47.
57. Rancière and Panagia, “Dissenting Words,” 115.
58. Ibid., 113.
59. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 48.
60. Rancière, “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?,” 302.
61. Ibid., 303.
62. Rancière and Panagia, “Dissenting Words,” 115.
63. Ibid., 11.
64. O’Malley et al., “Governmentality, Criticism, Politics,” 502.
65. Significantly the ‘acts of citizenship’ literature, which does account for the reversibility of government through rights, tends to draw on ethnographic methods. See, for example, Isin and Nyers, Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies.
66. Binkley, “The Work of Neoliberal Governmentality”; and Kerr, “Beheading the King.”
67. Cruikshank, “Revolutions Within,” 234.
68. See ibid; and Cruikshank, The Will to Empower.
69. Cruikshank, “Revolutions Within,” 233–234.
70. Cruikshank, The Will to Empower.
71. Abahlali, “Celebrating our Victory.”
72. For example, interview with Zama Ndlovu, July 8, 2009. See also Selmeczi, “‘We are the People Who do Not Count’.”
73. ‘We go to court to confirm the rights that have been won in prior struggles but we are very clear that the only real defense for these rights, and the only way to win new rights, is through the power of the organized poor.’ Abahlali, “Sutcliffe’s Dirty Tricks.”