Of Space and Alienation: South African stories of unfree life under racial capitalism

ABSTRACT

This article explores how to make sense of the feeling of unfreedom in South Africa today and how this unfreedom, charged with local and historical legacies, can be connected to global capitalist dynamics. Paralleling excerpts of the oral histories of Khumo who moved to Johannesburg in 1976, and Kagiso, who moved in 2015, this piece discusses how dispossession characterises unfreedom. Bringing literature on racial capitalism back to South Africa, its place of origin, and grounding it in the narratives of Khumo and Kagiso, the piece discusses the history and development of global dynamics of spatial exclusion and subjective, material, and productive-creative alienation. Furthermore, it discusses how Khumo and Kagiso perceive dispossession as historical thus racialised and manufactured, and contest it by negating racialisation and the idea of freedom. The article thus contributes to wider debates about neoliberalism in Africa, and (global) racial capitalism, showing how dispossession remains the main expression of unfreedom under capitalism; and how unfree life is reproduced every day in and through cities, and is lived as alienation.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa; racial capitalism; freedom; cities; alienation

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Mehdi Beyad, Laiqah Osman, Haje Keli, Poonkulaly Gunaseelan, Fatima Rajina, and Saghar Birjandian for commenting on previous versions of this article, and the SOAS Africa seminar series for the opportunity of presenting a draft of this paper. The author would also like to thank the research assistants, Adelle Nqeto and Lesley Moyo, as well as Johnny Selemani, Magdalena Zimmermann, Peter Vale, Alexander E. Davis, and Vineet Thakur for their support during fieldwork and the initial part of this research. Finally, the author would like to thank the editors and blind reviewers for their time, trust, and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

I declare no financial interest or benefit, or conflict of interest has arisen from this work.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil; and by SOAS, University of London [fieldwork award].

Notes on contributors

Luísa Calvete Portela Barbosa

Luísa is a Lecturer of International Relations at Cardiff University, and holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from SOAS, University of London, where she worked as graduate teaching assistant. Luísa was a writing fellow in the Johannesburg Instituted of Advanced Studies (JIAS) as the University of Johannesburg, and a research fellow at Georgetown University, Washington DC. She works on postcolonial dimensions of contemporary global politics, within regimes of governance, broadly understood, and on Global South and critical methodologies and thought.