Broadening conceptions of democracy and citizenship: the subaltern histories of rural resistance in Mpondoland and Marikana

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to broaden perspectives on citizenship and democracy in post-apartheid South Africa. The article focuses on two spaces within South Africa, which have specific significance for both land and labour questions in South Africa and where we have focused our research: Mpondoland in the Eastern Cape and Nkaneng Shack Settlement in Marikana. The links that can be made between the recent Marikana/Lonmin Strikes and the earlier Mpondo Revolts reveal a subaltern sphere of politics informed by older modes of political organisation that challenge dominant institutions like civil society and traditional authorities. The article demonstrates that South Africa’s land and agrarian questions must, of necessity, be linked to broader struggles for justice, dignity and humanity that require structural socio-economic and political change, in line with how people practise politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Marikana
• Subaltern Studies
• popular politics
• Mpondo Revolt
• rural resistance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Camalita Naicker is a PHD Student at UHURU and the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University. Her research and published work focuses on labour and popular struggles in South Africa, particularly after the Marikana Massacre in 2012. She writes about access to land and the politics of land occupations in South Africa's cities. She also writes about student movements and the struggles for affordable decolonial education in South Africa.

Sarah Bruchhausen is a Post Graduate student who has recently completed her Master of Arts degree in the History Department at Rhodes University in conjunction with UHURU (Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University). Her work investigates the democratic and egalitarian nature of rural resistance in the 1950s and 1960s in South Africa and she is particularly interested in reconceptualising notions of emancipatory politics. She has published an extended book review (based on her Honours project) entitled ‘Understanding Marikana through the Mpondo Revolts.

Notes

1 For a detailed discussion of popular politics in South Africa before the 1800s, see Landau (2010).

2 For a detailed discussion, see Bruchhausen (2014).