Gerard Gill, Interface

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) are a South African shack dwellers’ movement that struggles for land, housing, basic services and the dignity of the poor. This article explores the movement’s ideology and knowledge practices. It then relates these to broader ideas in the activist and academic world in order to suggest what these knowledge practices might contribute to that world. AbM is based around a ‘living politics’ – a politics based on the concrete experiences of the people in the movement. As such, the movement does not subscribe to any outside model or ideology, it has its own. ‘Abahlalism’ is described as a new concept to form a new ideology for the movement. It draws some of its ideas from the southern African philosophy of Ubuntu. The relationship between community and individual described in Ubuntu and the living politics of the movement greatly influence its structure and activities. While emphasis is placed on concrete lived experience, I argue that as similar ideas can be found elsewhere in social movement practices and literature, some of the lessons of the movement are broadly applicable to social movement struggles and research practices in regards to them. 

 

Attachments

Knowledge practices in Abahlali baseMjondolo