Richard Pithouse, Mail & Guardian
On May 11, Karabo Mokoena’s body, burnt and mutilated, was found in a ditch, discarded along with the ordinary detritus of our lives, in Lyndhurst, Johannesburg. Her name took a very public place, along with Anene Booysen, Reeva Steenkamp, Nokuphile Khumalo, Rachel Tshabalala, Nosipho Mandleleni and so many others, in the grim record of what our society does to women. Continue reading
http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/every-political-murder-is-a-crisis-2026622
The ANC needs to accept that the nation exceeds the party and that people have a right to organise independently and take positions of their own choosing, writes Richard Pithouse.
Durban – In the great anti-colonial poem of his youth, Notebook of Return to my Native Land, written on the eve of World War II, Aimé Césaire wrote a profound optimism into the world.
by Richard Pithouse
This chapter provides an account of some of the contestation around a landoccupation in Cato Manor, Durban. It shows that none of the actors aspiring toexercise control – party structures, the local state, the courts, NGOs and popularorganisations – were, in the period under study, able to exercise full control over thepeople or territory in question. It also shows that actually existing forms of contestationfrequently operated outside the limits established by liberal democratic arrangements
Published in The Mercury as ‘The Dynamics of Informal Housing’ on 12 December 2015.
The Transit Camp is a Form of Social Control
Richard Pithouse
Development is often held up as the answer to some of our most pressing social problems. Corruption is often seen as a key threat to attaining the efficient ‘delivery’ of developmental gains. But development and corruption are often – although of course not always – phenomena best understood as strategies for securing political containment. Continue reading
Richard Pithouse on Frantz Fanon opens the Padkos “School of Thought 2015” on 3rd September
We had encouraging feedback after the previous padkos mailing that marked the 90th anniversary of Frantz Fanon’s birth. It’s clear that a number of us want to to engage Fanon’s ideas more, and to think them through in and for our own context. Well, here’s a great opportunity! One of South Africa’s leading Fanon scholars – and longtime CLP padkos comrade – Richard Pithouse, has agreed to spend time with us at the Church Land Programme (CLP) offices, 340 Burger Street, on 3rdSeptember at 10.30. Some good coffee will be available from 10.00 and lunch will follow the discussion. Continue reading