http://www.edu-factory.org/edu15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116&Itemid=64

Hoisting the “knowledge bank” on its own petard: The World Bank and the double crisis of African universities

Struggle is like education and it just keeps going on.
(DERRICK GWALA of the ‘Kennedy Road Committee’)

For ‘tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, an’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon.

We are the people who don’t count” – Contesting biopolitical abandonment

by Anna Selmeczi

About a year before his lecture series “Society Must be Defended!”, in which he first elaborated the notion of biopolitics, in a talk given in Rio de Janeiro, Foucault discussed the “Birth of the Social Medicine”. As a half-way stage of the evolution of what later became public health, between the German ‘state medicine’ and the English ‘labor-force medicine’, he described a model taking shape in the 18th century French cities and referred to it as ‘urban medicine’. With view to the crucial role of circulation in creating a healthy milieu, the main aim of this model was to secure the purity of that which circulates, thus, potential sources of epidemics or endemics had to be placed outside the flaw of air and water nurturing urban life. According to Foucault (2000a), it was at this period that “piling-up refuse” was problematized as hazardous and thus places producing or containing refuse – cemeteries, ossuaries, and slaughterhouses – were relocated to the outskirts of the towns. As opposed to this model, which was the “medicine of things”, with industrialization radically increasing their presence in the cities, during the subsequent period of the labor force medicine, workers and the poor had become to be regarded as threats and, in parallel, circulation had been redefined as – beyond the flow of things such as air and water – including the circulation of individuals too (Ibid., 150). Today’s urban struggles to be discussed in this paper signify yet another model for the government of circulation; groups of individuals appear now to be included in the category of piling up hazardous refuse. Slogans such as “No relocation to human dumping grounds!” are targeted against a mode of urban governance that originate in but twisted the liberal challenge posed against the “poor laws” of the age of labor force medicine.

Cities Without Citizens: A Perspective on the Struggle of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Durban Shackdweller Movement

by Raj Patel, Chapter Three of Contesting Development Critical Struggles for Social Change, edited by Phillip McMichael, 2009

Abahlali baseMjondolo problematizes “ownership” as means of production
and self-improvement in the development narrative by investing it with the
right to a place in the city—as a question of social reproduction and cultural

The 2010 FIFA World Cup: critical voices from below

This essay presents a different perspective of the 2010 World Cup: that of critical voices which include social movements, labour formations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and ‘left’-leaning individuals. Drawing on interviews with activists, written documents, conventional and alternative media, the essay argues that criticism of the event falls within two categories. First, the tournament will not benefit the poor and the disadvantaged. On the contrary, given developments on the ground, the opposite is more likely to happen. Second, the expenditure of billions of rands on the ‘elitist’ World Cup constitutes a misdirection of resources needed to meet a wide range of pressing social needs. These ‘voices from below’ also raise important questions pertaining to the projected economic spin-offs and the alleged ‘development’ and ‘anti poverty’ component of 2010. A number of community-based activities addressing the impact of World Cup preparations on the urban working class are given attention.

eMatinini - Place of Tin

The Provision of Public Housing in South Africa: The Impact and Effect of Transit Camps on Residents and its Place in the Provision of Housing

Click here to download this paper in pdf. Contact Lenny Cohen on +1 215 805 6908 or siphossibiya [at] gmail.com

The Riverside Transit Camp, Durban

Abstract

Development in South Africa encompasses many things, and housing is one of these aspects. Post-apartheid South Africa has set out to provide housing to all, it is even a constitutional right. However there have been many problems with housing development and delivery. Transit camps, which are meant to house informal shack-dwellers temporarily, are an example of housing innovation and development. Yet they simultaneously reflect the many problems within the process, and also represent the challenges South Africa is confronting as a whole, for comprehensive development and the progress of a new, more united nation.

Click here to read this article in pdf.

Breaking the Tie: Evictions from private land, homelessness and a new normality

by Stuart Wilson

INTRODUCTION

The ‘normality assumption’ and its endurance

It used to be simple. A landowner was in law entitled to an eviction order if
he could prove his ownership and the fact of occupation of the land by the
occupier.1 Where the owner acknowledged that the occupier was in
occupation in terms of a valid lease agreement or some other legal right, the

The full article is attached, below, in pdf.

A Progressive Policy Without Progressive Politics: Lessons from the failure to implement 'Breaking New Ground'

by Richard Pithouse

“Depoliticization is the oldest task of politics.”
- Jacques Rancière (2007: 19)

This article provides a brief overview of post-apartheid housing policy. It argues that, in principle, ‘Breaking New Ground’ (BNG) was a major advance over the subsidy system but that the failure to implement BNG, which has now been followed by more formal moves away from a rights based and towards a security based approach, lie in the failure to take a properly political approach to the urban crisis. It is suggested that a technocratic approach privileges elite interests and that there could be better results from an explicitly pro-poor political approach – which would include direct support for poor people’s organisations to challenge elite interests, including those in the state, and to undertake independent innovation on their own.

The Department of Housing released a new Informal Settlement Upgrading Programme in 2004, which makes in situ upgrading of informal settlements possible with minimal disruption to residents’ lives. To date, the new programme is not necessarily the municipalities’ choice when intervening in an informal settlement. This paper presents the case of three informal settlement communities in Gauteng province, which have struggled for recognition of basic principles of the informal settlement upgrading programme. Their requests have been met with great reluctance from local government. Through these cases, the paper seeks to point to some of the critical re-skilling and capacity building areas that are necessary before local government can role out the informal settlement upgrading programme at scale.

The Role of Citizens in Post-Apartheid South Africa: a Case-Study of Citizen Involvement in Informal Settlement Projects, eThekwini

by Sarah Cooper-Knock (MA Thesis, Oxford)

Click here to read this thesis in PDF.

Sarah Cooper-Knock spent two and half months participating in the day to day activities of Abahlali baseMjondolo from August 2008.