Social movements and biopolitical states: A study of humanitarian aid in Cape Town 2008

Abstract

In May of 2008, a wave of xenophobic violence erupted in South Africa resulting in the displacement of thousands of ‘refugees’ who ended up in government-established ‘safety camps’. Due to the lack of an adequate response by government and the United Nations, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African AIDS activist organisation, began providing relief to the displaced population. In this paper, we are interested in investigating the ‘biopolitical technologies’ used by the TAC in their response to this crisis. We argue that the TAC's approach to providing humanitarian aid to refugees in Cape Town drew on both the organisation's own archive and repertoire of activist techniques and practices and the biopolitical toolkit deployed by international agencies such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The outcome of this cross-fertilisation, we argue, was a hybrid assemblage of tactics and techniques that did not conform to the characterisation of humanitarian aid as simply another kind of bureaucratic antipolitics. The case study draws attention to the ways in which the TAC sought to ‘empower’ refugees and non-nationals as well as pressure and leverage the South African state into responding to the crisis, and thereby fulfil its pastoral role as ‘the watchful shepherd’ and the protector of human life.

Keywords:

• humanitarianism
• refugees
• biopolitics
• social movements

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Notes

1. Although most of the thousands of displaced people in the camps would not be legally defined as ‘refugees’ in terms of international law, we have decided to follow the lead of TAC and refer to all those South African non-nationals who were displaced by the violence of May 2008 as ‘refugees’. Our use of this term is based on the observation that the xenophobic violence, threats of violence or simply fear of the possibility of violence, resulted in a situation whereby tens of thousands of people fled their homes in the townships of Cape Town and Gauteng.

2. See  the list of interviews.

3. Author 1 volunteered to become a TAC site assessor for two months, and the descriptions of this work is based on his experiences during this period.

4. The Sphere Handbook is a set of guidelines established by The Sphere Project, which is a project established by humanitarian organisations and NGOs. The project is based on maintaining a set of norms and standards around which humanitarian efforts respond to disasters. The handbook ‘describes the core principles that govern humanitarian action, and asserts the right of populations to protection and assistance’ (Sphere Available at: www.sphereproject.org).

5. The case of Zimbabweans during this crisis is worth mentioning due to the fact that the South African government refused to acknowledge Zimbabweans as ‘refugees’ unless they were the target of specific political harassment or violence. As a result, practically all Zimbabweans were not eligible for refugee status, nor were they legally entitled to work in South Africa. In early 2009, there were signs that the South African government was considering conferring residence and employment rights to Zimbabweans based on the escalating economic, political and health crisis in Zimbabwe.

6. This is the camp that Author 1 worked at when he was doing site assessments.

7. It must be noted that the camp itself was a heterogeneous environment and as such not all residents of the camp supported the work of the TAC. Rather, life in the camp for both the TAC and government was a constant battle for legitimacy in the eyes of the residents.