Imagining Civil Society in Zimbabwe and ‘Most of the World’:
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144802 , vital:38380 , ISBN 9781461482628 , DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-8262-8_11
- Description: This chapter re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) calls ‘most of the world’ (beyond the capitalist metropoles) and, in doing so, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an entry point into the literature on civil society. This chapter consists of four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically without any sustained theoretical reflections. Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within the broader international literature on civil society. These three sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil society: between civil society as a set of empirically identifiable organisational formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I reimagine civil society in relation to ‘most of the world’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144802 , vital:38380 , ISBN 9781461482628 , DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-8262-8_11
- Description: This chapter re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) calls ‘most of the world’ (beyond the capitalist metropoles) and, in doing so, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an entry point into the literature on civil society. This chapter consists of four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically without any sustained theoretical reflections. Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within the broader international literature on civil society. These three sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil society: between civil society as a set of empirically identifiable organisational formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I reimagine civil society in relation to ‘most of the world’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Being South African and belonging: the status and practice of mediated citizenship in a new democracy
- Wasserman, Herman, Garman, Anthea
- Authors: Wasserman, Herman , Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159769 , vital:40342 , ISBN 978-1-84888-186-0
- Description: Democratic South Africa, with its highly inclusive constitution and embrace of all races, creeds and colours, could be understood as having an ideal form of citizenship to be emulated by other nations. At the heart of the 1996 constitution is the eradication of apartheid separation and the provision that all South Africans have shared humanity (‘ubuntu’). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission entrenched three founding critical ideas in public life: the right to talk, the recognition of shared humanity and the impulse to speak out about the horrors of the past. As a result the public sphere is filled with a great outpouring of personal stories and experiences in both the mainstream and popular forms of media. But South Africans continue to be preoccupied with the status of their citizenship; who a South African is and who belongs is uppermost in many public conversations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Wasserman, Herman , Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159769 , vital:40342 , ISBN 978-1-84888-186-0
- Description: Democratic South Africa, with its highly inclusive constitution and embrace of all races, creeds and colours, could be understood as having an ideal form of citizenship to be emulated by other nations. At the heart of the 1996 constitution is the eradication of apartheid separation and the provision that all South Africans have shared humanity (‘ubuntu’). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission entrenched three founding critical ideas in public life: the right to talk, the recognition of shared humanity and the impulse to speak out about the horrors of the past. As a result the public sphere is filled with a great outpouring of personal stories and experiences in both the mainstream and popular forms of media. But South Africans continue to be preoccupied with the status of their citizenship; who a South African is and who belongs is uppermost in many public conversations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
How much its own and to what end?: SADC and the culture of security and regional organisation in Southern Africa
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161650 , vital:40650 , ISBN 9781134118656
- Description: This book aims to examine the conceptions and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of ‘Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements’ of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, because divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Bischoff, Paul, 1954-
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/161650 , vital:40650 , ISBN 9781134118656
- Description: This book aims to examine the conceptions and practices of security adopted by Regional Organisations (ROs) across the globe. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased focus on regions as a relevant realm for security, with actors within regional contexts identifying a significant degree of interdependency between one another. As a consequence, international security has taken on a distinct regionally institutionalised character, as seen by the increase in calls for greater utilisation of ‘Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements’ of the UN, in order to create a devolved UN-led system of global security management. However, the idea of a system of global security management is a remote prospect, because divergence seems to be as important as commonality in terms of regional security.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Navi Pillay: Realising Human Rights for All
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/157960 , vital:40134 , ISBN 978-1906413453
- Description: Navi Pillay has become one of the world's leading advocates in the field of human rights. This new biography tells the story of her humble beginnings in an Indian family in apartheid South Africa, her struggle to gain an education, and her eventual success by becoming the first black woman in the nation to set up a law practice. She defended many anti-apartheid activists and fought for the rights of the mostly political prisoners of Robben Island. In 1995 Nelson Mandela nominated Pillay as the first black female judge on South Africa's Supreme Court. This is the story of how she overcame enormous obstacles to achieve her dream of human rights.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/157960 , vital:40134 , ISBN 978-1906413453
- Description: Navi Pillay has become one of the world's leading advocates in the field of human rights. This new biography tells the story of her humble beginnings in an Indian family in apartheid South Africa, her struggle to gain an education, and her eventual success by becoming the first black woman in the nation to set up a law practice. She defended many anti-apartheid activists and fought for the rights of the mostly political prisoners of Robben Island. In 1995 Nelson Mandela nominated Pillay as the first black female judge on South Africa's Supreme Court. This is the story of how she overcame enormous obstacles to achieve her dream of human rights.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
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