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This paper offers an approach to understanding dramatic social change, entwined with belief revision and shifting knowledge. It explores the interplay between rapidly changing material and ideological conditions through the concept of a rupture. Ruptures are breakdowns in existing social and epistemic practices and relations: periods which call into question what is normalized, such that something else can grow through the cracks. Ruptures do not guarantee any particular replacement, but rather facilitate the emergence of new practices and understandings of the world. Ruptures thus create conditions of possibility for people to explore new social relations and ideas. To develop this idea, this paper draws on Franz Fanon's writings on the Algerian anti-colonial revolution (1954–1962), as a paradigmatic rupture, as well as two smaller-scale ruptures: the student-worker movements over 2015–2016 in South Africa (#FeesMustFall) and Brazil (the primavera secundarista). In their respective contexts, each movement has substantively challenged prevailing practices and understandings that had been hegemonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil society engagement around health care and population health improvement is an important driver towards Health for All. Research can improve the effectiveness of health activism by examining the resources, structures and strategies of civil society engagement. However, research to support such engagement faces epistemological and methodological challenges which call for specific research strategies. A four year multi-country study was undertaken by the People's Health Movement, a global network working for health for all. The research took place in six countries (Brazil, Colombia, DR Congo, India, Italy, South Africa) and globally, and was directed to understanding five domains of civil society engagement: movement building; campaigning and advocacy; capacity building; knowledge generation, access and use; and engaging with governance. The research plan and methods of data collection and analysis were tailored to address the objective of improving activist practice, while negotiating research challenges identified during the design phase. Results include insights into the practice of civil society engagement in relation to the five domains of activist practice, as well as experience gained in managing six methodological challenges which we describe as: making meaning, aligning research and action, managing power relations, valuing experiential knowledges, chaos and contingency, challenging preconceptions. Researching activism can produce useful insights into practice as well as support continuous improvement in the effectiveness of such activism. However, there are significant methodological challenges that can be addressed through appropriate strategies. More research, building on the approach described in this paper, can contribute to more effective civil society activism for health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study examines shifting race relations within one of South Africa's most popular and fastest growing sports--women's netball. Drawing on political opportunity and collective identity theories as articulated by social movement scholars, this article develops an analytical strategy to elucidate how athletes and sport administrators can serve as agents of social change. This analysis relies on interview, survey, and archival data collected during 1999 and 2000. The findings show that netball athletes and administrators are contributing to nation building in post-apartheid South Africa by constructing new collective identities across historical racial boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores challenges associated with conducting research on social movements in South Africa (and beyond). Scholarship and commentary on South African social movements is a contentious and contested field. This article reflects particularly on carrying out research relating to land and housing rights and on the relationships between scholars, activists and activist-scholars working in this area. There is a particular difficulty with regard to identifying and analysing the political biases present within various opposing accounts of the social movements taking action on land and housing issues and their relationships to other actors. The article argues that there are three main pitfalls which researchers should attempt to avoid. First there is the danger of taking the claims made by social movements and by their academic advocates at face value. The second pitfall, on the other hand, relates to the danger of dismissing the praxis of these social movements altogether. The third danger surrounds the risk of the debates and disagreements between academics and commentators overshadowing discussion of the issues upon which movements work. The article suggests that it is necessary to apply a critical lens to all knowledge produced about social movements taking action on land and housing issues in South Africa and, consequently, a number of questions remain unresolved when attempting to put together an accurate picture of the relationships between and praxis of groups and organisations working in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The “elitist approach” to democratization contends that “democratic regimes that last have seldom, if ever, been instituted by mass popular actors” (Huntington 1984:212). This article subjects this observation to empirical scrutiny using statistical analyses of new democracies over the past half-century and a case study. Contrary to the elitist approach, I argue that new democracies growing out of mass mobilization are more likely to survive than are new democracies that were born amid quiescence. Survival analysis of 112 young democracies in 80 different countries based on original data shows that the longer the mobilization, the more likely the ensuing democracy is to survive. I use a case study of South Africa to investigate the mechanisms. I argue that sustained unarmed uprisings have generated the longest-lasting new democracies—largely because they are forced to develop an organizational structure, which provides a leadership cadre for the new regime, forges links between the government and society, and strengthens checks on the power of the post-transition government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study triangulates offline and online research methods to examine how and why young activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa use Facebook for political purposes. It demonstrates that like traditional participant observation, which was popularized by classical anthropologists, algorithmically ‘occurring’ data gathered through social media ethnography provides some of the richest information to burrow into the everyday political lives of young activists (who are generally presented in mainstream literature as having disengaged from traditional forms of political participation). Building on Postill and Pink’s (2012) typology of social media ethnography, this study proposes a seven stage criteria for conducting online participant observation on Facebook in the era of data ‘deluge’. These stages include: background listening, friending/liking, interacting, observing, catching up, exploring, and archiving. Based on the author’s multi-sited fieldwork experiences in Zimbabwe and South Africa, this study argues that online like offline participant observation has context specific methodological dilemmas which require innovative flexibility and ethical sensitivity on the part of the qualitative researcher. It also discusses various ethical dilemmas which the author encountered during the multi-sited fieldwork as well practical strategies other researchers can use for delurking, archiving and safeguarding participants’ privacy and confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses social movements in South Africa and social movement research. Topics discussed include social change, South African Association of Political Studies and social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM). Other topics such as academic journals, communism and social conflict are also discussed.

This paper considers how Durban citizens understand protest and what other methods of participation they employ in their pursuit of service delivery, democratic citizenship and social change. It is based on a sample of 20 households drawn from Cato Manor, a ‘hotspot’ for ‘service delivery’ protest as well as Merebank and Wentworth situated in the South Durban basin well known for its civil society/community opposition to local petrochemical refineries. The paper employs theories of ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces of participation and ‘participation as citizenship’ to understand protest and participation among Durban's low-income, urban citizens. It argues that protest and formal participation methods are used in parallel, but with differing levels of intensity across communities depending on how people view agency and democratic citizenship. The paper also considers the role of social movements and non-governmental organisations, arguing that their initiatives to effect ‘transformative’ participation have their limits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In South Africa, the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban invokes a Lefebvrian notion of the right to the city while embarking on rights-based action as one of several approaches it employs. In a recentCityarticle, Shannon Walsh frames the use of the right to the city by social movements in South Africa as having liberalizing and neutralizing effects, and as subverting the social antagonisms inherent in capitalism. This paper responds to this assertion with reference to Abahlali baseMjondolo, the movement that in South Africa is most vocal and reflected in referring to a right to the city in its urban struggles. The paper explains Abahlali baseMjondolo's philosophy as well as the context in which it invokes a right to the city. Drawing on scholars who have explored Lefebvre's use of liberal notions (humanism and rights), the relevance of his right to the city in the context of urban neoliberalism and the purposes of invoking the right to the city, the paper aims to present positions that may strengthen the discourse on the right to the city in South Africa and similar contexts of urban extremes across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions play an important role in the success or failure of social models, as they promote or limit particular political and economic activities. Central to this point is the understanding that institutions and traditions are in a constant state of flux. Taken in this light, state and non-state institutions are continually being 're-invented' to reflect a particular society's changing economic, political and cultural division of power. Immanent in this constant process of change is the possibility of transforming formal political institutions to more closely reflect the needs of human beings. The South African National AIDS Council provides a useful case study to illuminate how non-state social alliances can transform state institutions to reflect the needs of society. Through the mobilisation of non-state and community-based organisations, the South African HIV/AIDS movement successfully influenced the South African government to expand the public health response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some civil society organizations (CSOs) initially embraced the state in post-apartheid South Africa, many became increasingly disappointed with the state’s incapacity to effect meaningful and long-lasting social change. This has resulted in a range of new CSO activity, including semi-autonomous non-governmental organizations, numerous basic needs organizations, and broad based social movements. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, this article examines one CSO as a case study to highlight the emerging fractures in South Africa’s state–civil society configuration. Findings in this article suggest that some CSOs have successfully disengaged with the South African state due to its inefficient and corrupt funding practices, incapacity for effective leadership, and outright hostility towards CSOs. However, these data also indicate that problematic state–civil society relations may weaken South African CSOs’ potential to operate effectively or develop social movements which challenge the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few years have seen renewed interest in the radical social work tradition both in Britain and internationally in response to the highly negative impact of neo-liberal policies on people's lives and on the profession itself. While these perspectives are now beginning to be included within social work academic curricula, less consideration has been given within the international literature as to how they might also inform practice placements and field education. This paper outlines the findings of a small piece of qualitative research that explored the experience of one South African social work programme of placing a small group of students within campaigning organisations and social movements concerned with addressing structural issues. Based on interviews with the students, their practice teachers and agency representatives, the research addressed the extent to which students were able to draw on their teaching to make sense of these agencies and their role within them, as well as the particular challenges to which these placements gave rise. The paper concludes by suggesting that, while students undertaking such placements may require additional support and teaching in areas such as the understanding of trauma and critical political analysis, these findings suggest that this is an initiative worth repeating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the vantage point of South Africa, this article highlights a number of ethical challenges that could potentially arise in the relationship between social movement researchers and activists in the pursuit of social justice and transformation. In contrast to conventional approaches to social science more generally, we argue that a neat separation between theory and action is useful neither for producing knowledge within the academy nor for advancing the causes of social movements. The article reflects on two different research experiences in order to explain the limitations and quandaries that confront academics who seek to negotiate scholar–activist identities. In doing so, it extends the work of Croteau, who has explored the tensions between activism and scholarship. Drawing on participatory action research (PAR) approaches, including Touraine's method of sociological intervention, we suggest that a refined approach to PAR may assist in countering the inequalities that have been created in the academy between the researcher and researched, thereby alleviating some of the ethical and political concerns that inevitably confront scholar-activists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT I examine the transmission of ideas, from both scientific research and state-sponsored misinformation, with respect to AIDS in southern Africa. On the basis of research among women in AIDS support groups, advocates with South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, and global health activists, I interpret the role of grassroots social movements in relation to organic intellectuals and their abilities to address the commons from the local to the global. My research has focused specifically on how women's interests have registered in the scientific arena, in global AIDS funding, and at the local political level. As I analyze these issues, I comment more broadly on the role of public intellectuals in relation to social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses anti-apartheid movements from a transnational prospective. It characterizes the social protests aimed at toppling the apartheid regime in South Africa as a transnational social movement, possessing a large "transnational anti-apartheid network" that stretched across national boundaries. It focuses on the role that the countries of the European Community (EC) played within a globalized drive for social change. It argues that EC countries had several active anti-apartheid organizations, but that anti-apartheid activists found it difficult to affect the political decision making in South Africa.

This article discusses the concept of transnationalism from the prospective of social movements. It seeks to challenge several commonly held views about social change. It argues that the "bottom-up" approach is incorrect, that such movements are not as important or numerous as believed, and that contemporary social movements in the context of globalization cannot be merely understood as an extension of previous forms of social interactions. A wide variety of examples are presented including the Cold War, political revolution in Cuba, and anti-apartheid movements in South Africa.

A wide body of scholarly literature on social movements on an international level emphatically, but uncritically, declares that 'another world is possible'. This paper investigates this trend and its implications for political and academic practice in post-apartheid South Africa, where community-based movements have emerged primarily in order to access basic services. In particular, it highlights the pivotal role that the state and poor people's immediate basic needs play in limiting social movements' contribution towards a transformative development agenda. Paying close attention to poor people's struggles and needs, the paper argues that there is a sharp disjuncture between the ideologies manufactured by academics, and the worldviews that the working class and poor possess. It concludes by providing insight into the possibilities for post-apartheid political struggles - praxis - to lead to the formation of class consciousness and to a formidable challenge to neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political protests have visibly increased in frequency and intensity in South Africa in recent years, and they seem to indicate a more adversarial relationship between the post-apartheid state and civil society. This article uses the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, and the protests which accompanied it, to illuminate these broader trends. It analyses the legacy of the Summit as a ‘mega-event’, and highlights the importance of the ‘mega-protests’ in 2002. The most important effects are shown to be the disruption of South African extraversion; the marginalization and repression of particular social movements; and the exacerbation of broader trends toward a more polarized political landscape in South Africa. Importantly, however, the article concludes that such developments are not evidence of growing distance between the state and civil society, but rather between those considered legitimate and responsible partners, and those who are excluded from ‘normal’ politics. Thus the Johannesburg Summit illuminates broader trends toward the governmentalization and transnationalization of politics in South Africa, and destabilizes conventional understandings of what and where ‘South African politics’ actually is, as well as raising important questions regarding the impacts of such mega-events in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The significance of social movements for pro-poor political and social change is widely acknowledged. Poverty reduction has assumed increasing significance within development debates, discourses and programmes - how do social movement leaders and activists respond? This paper explores this question through the mapping of social movement organisations in Peru and South Africa. We conclude that for movement activists 'poverty' is rarely a central concern. Instead, they represent their actions as challenging injustice, inequality and/or development models with which they disagree, and reject the simplifying and sectoral orientation of poverty reduction interventions. In today's engagement with the poverty-reducing state, their challenge is to secure resources and influence without becoming themselves subject to, or even the subjects of, the practices of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to most theorists of democratization, civil society is an important force in bringing about political change. But does the advent of a democratic regime also affect the role of civil society during the consolidation of democracy? If so, what are the most relevant transformations? In order to address such research questions, this article analyses the case of South Africa and South Korea with a specific focus on how civil society has reshaped itself during the phase of democratic consolidation. A particular emphasis is put on the changing relationship with the new democratic governments since the early 1990s until now. The comparative analysis reveals common trends (e.g. risks of cooptation, changing forms of mobilization and new socio-political strategies), while it also singles out the most significant differences (e.g. the constitution of a strong middle-class civil society in South Korea vis-à-vis the crisis and resurgence of civic activism across local communities in South Africa) against the backdrop of two rather different socioeconomic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the extensive correspondence of the Griqua leader, A.A.S. le Fleur, with representatives of the South African government and the British Crown. Le Fleur's many self-help schemes often proved to be impracticable, but the author argues that previous studies which placed his struggle for recognition and respectability in the context of millenarian protest against colonial rule must be re-examined. Because of an early phase of open rebelliousness, government officials never ceased to view his activities with utmost suspicion. This article shows, however, that Le Fleur's vision of coloured socio-economic reconstruction unfolded within the given parameters of the segregationist colonial state. Although he based his influence among his marginalised followers on a loosely defined Griqua identity, he was nevertheless alert to the national and international context within which black and coloured South Africans articulated their aspirations during the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. Instead of relying on strategies of magic or 'mimicry' in order to subvert the colonial order, Le Fleur's communication with government officials and his leadership style reflected a more modern approach to South African politics in the interwar years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to explore the relationship between popular education and the changing South African political landscape through case study research of the Victoria Mxenge Housing Development Association. The research took place over an extended period of time from 1992-2003 and discusses how popular education was advocated by the South African Homeless People's Federation and its parent NGO (People's Dialogue); how it was implemented, how an increasing disjuncture between teaching and learning occurred, and how pedagogy was shaped by both political and personal factors. The paper discusses the interactions between social movements and NGOs and the limitations of social movements and popular education. It argues for a more nuanced conceptual understanding of learning in social movements within development contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I investigate responses to the humanitarian crisis that emerged following the May 2008 xenophobic violence against South African nonnationals that resulted in 62 deaths and the displacement of well over 30,000 people. I focus specifically on how a South African AIDS activist movement, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and its partners, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF—Doctors Without Borders) and the AIDS Law Project (ALP), translated a particular style and strategy of AIDS activism into legal, medical, humanitarian, and political responses to the massive population displacement. The TAC provided relief to displaced people in the form of basic needs, such as food, clothes, and blankets, as well as legal aid, and it engaged in activism that promoted the rights of the refugees. I investigate how the ideas and practices of global agencies such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) were deployed and reinterpreted by TAC activists. I also examine how TAC activists involved in assisting the refugees drew on a global humanitarian assemblage of categories, legal definitions, norms and standards, and procedures and technologies that went beyond the simple management of “bare life.” TAC's shift from fighting for antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to fighting for refugees' rights reveals a “politics of life” that spans multiple issues, networks, and constituencies. It is also a politics that, at times, strategically deploys standardized bureaucratic logics and biopolitical techniques of humanitarian aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives an ethnographic glimpse of how an urban South African school mirrored a community's sense-making during times of rapid social change. The glimpse is extracted largely from an ethnography that was composed in 2000. In this study of school life, the biennial play was central to the year's activities. In the play the tone, content and style reflected a performance of the discourse of the school community - a discourse of fear and despondency, while searching for hope in spiritual song. Today this previously all White, Afrikaner school is still predominantly White, as Black children's parents prefer English-medium schools. On the surface the school appears to be a safe haven for those who were fearful of losing their social position, their language and their way of living, but the initial breakdown of the fabric of the school does not seem to have healed during the time after the study had been completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines citizen mobilisation and activism in relation to asbestos disease and litigation. Although the litigation of Cape (plc), a British company mining asbestos in South Africa, has been seen as a success story in which local activists worked alongside international lawyers and environmental campaigners to force Cape (plc) to pay compensation to 7,500 former employees with asbestos-related diseases, many claimants experienced this case as a bitter defeat. The article explores these divergent interpretations of the same litigation case, focusing on the experiences of two towns in the Northern Cape, South Africa, namely Prieska and Griquatown and on the claimants' perspectives. The literature on social movements, political mobilisation, ethnic identity and millenarian movements is drawn upon in relation to the everyday economic and cultural experiences of people in these Northern Cape towns. In contrasting the relative isolation experienced by Griquatown residents with the networking and mobilisation process taking place in Prieska, the article argues that this isolation undermines citizens' ability to frame asbestos disease litigation as an international victory and as a case of justice being done. Instead, claimants interpret their experiences in terms of local factors, including poverty, the history of asbestos payment, religious beliefs and, ultimately, in an idiom that corresponds to their ethnic identity. In March 2003 a small community group, The Concerned People Against Asbestos (CPAA), based at Prieska in the Northern Cape, won a court case in a foreign country which may change the way in which multi-national corporations behave in the developing world. Until now the hidden costs of mining in Southern Africa have been paid for by labour. The CPAA's victory may also help to end that injustice. It is usual to depict communities like Prieska as dis-empowered and racked with problems yet despite its lack of resources the CPAA was able to synchronise an elaborate game of small and big politics. The group's victory suggests that such communities have levels of political and organisational skill which given the right alignments can be irresistible.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between public libraries and social change in South Africa during the 1980s. It focuses on libraries in selected townships on tile Cape Flats. In concludes that debates about the public library's success or failure as an instrument of social change cannot overlook the idea of contested space in which the live discussion, debate, and circulation of ideas precludes and includes the use of books and libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses movements that organize constituencies in order to allow them access to the consumption of goods and services, while rejecting at the same time their identity as consumers. Instead, they base their claims on people’s identities as citizens of the state and members of communities. Putting forward the notion of social rights, the paper examines how movements operating among marginalized communities in the post-colonial world work to define rights and entitlements, and use these to mobilize for enhancing the delivery of social services. In particular, the focus is on rights to land and to public utilities (water and electricity) in post-apartheid South Africa. Examining these in the context of political transition, the paper looks at different legal and political strategies, and the ways in which they draw on and shape discourses of power, rights, and social consumption. It concludes that meaningful social change and effective service delivery require a combined strategy, working with the courts and legal professionals, together with popular constituencies, the media, civil society organizations, academics, and state officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to better understand sexuality and social change of adolescents in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The sample included 400 male and 400 female 16 or 17 year-olds. 400 from rural and 400 from urban areas, and almost all of African descent. Participants were chosen by multi-stage cluster and quota sampling. Results indicate that urban adolescents significantly had more often engaged in petting, masturbation and anal or oral sex than rural adolescents. Over their lifetimes, urban adolescents had a significantly higher number of partners with whom they had sexual intercourse than rural adolescents. The age of first sexual intercourse was lower among urban than among rural adolescents. Urban females seem to take more initiative at first sexual intercourse than rural females. Whereas the most frequent sexual practice for rural adolescents was sexual intercourse and petting. for urban adolescents it was kissing and cuddling and petting. By better linking HIV prevention to research on human sexuality and social change, it should prove possible to advance the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which the contemporary women's movement in South Africa has been shaped by its own recent history as well as by the changes in the political landscape since 1994. The article argues that the striking feature of the past decade is the manner in which the strategy of inclusion of women in formal political institutions of state and party has tended to displace the transformatory goals of structural and social change. Both goals, of inclusion and transformation, were held to be mutually dependent by women's movement activists throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, the article shows that maintaining the strategic balance between these goals has been difficult to achieve, in large part because the women's movement has been relatively weak, apart from a brief moment in the early 1990s. The argument outlines the theoretical and strategic debates relating to definitions of the term ‘women's movement’ in South Africa, and then identifies and classifies different forms of organizations and strategies. Finally, the article argues that the realization of gender equality rests on the extent to which a strong women's movement will develop, with a clear agenda for transformation and relative autonomy from both state and other social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: South Africa has undergone one of the most drastic political changes of the late 20th century. Its 45-year tradition of public relations practice and education allows for the study of change on practice. Results indicate public relations becomes more important and strategic during times of change, and while affecting change it is also affected by change. Practitioners felt they made an important contribution to social upliftment and black economic empowerment. The more democratic political environment forced practitioners to be more aware of important political constituencies, particularly community and grassroots publics who hold high symbolic value. Cross-cultural communication became more important but also problematic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is based on research into the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa. The research investigated whether, through being active members of this social movement, HIV‐positive activists learn things they could not otherwise learn about their status and the epidemic, and how they put such knowledge to use. We show how activists develop a critical understanding of the underlying causes of their ill health and its link to economic poverty and global politics. The paper concludes by suggesting that adult educators can assume direct responsibility for poverty reduction by working in and with social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movements in South Africa, often organized around class-related issues, provide rich material to illustrate how class, intertwined with other social categories, shapes organizational and educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys South African prose in English and Afrikaans published after 1994. With the first democratic elections a new era began. The political and social changes are obviously reflected in the prose that was written in the previous decade. There are striking thematic parallels between the literary works in English and Afrikaans. The demise of apartheid led to a euphoric mood but very soon a new realism set in. A number of works appeared in which history was rewritten. Not only the immediate apartheid past but also the earlier history of South Africa is highlighted. The past is demythologised and the previously hidden sides of history are exposed. Moreover a lot of attention is paid to the new South Africa. The old parameters are no longer valid. The whites have lost their political power. This realisation often leads to a crisis of identity. New rulers also introduce new customs. The changes which have taken place are not always regarded as improvements. And then there are all the other seemingly insoluble problems such as the crime wave and the aids epidemic. But these problems are sometimes seen as catalysts for change as they can bring the races closer together. Both in English and in Afrikaans prose the hope is expressed that the transformation process will ultimately lead to a better South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into school curricula indicates an instability of focus. Curriculum may refer to a disciplinary perspective on a programme, to what practitioners ‘do’ in a programme, to programme content and its arrangement, to the hidden assumptions patterning thought and action and embedded in the discourse of a curriculum, to the historical and political context of curriculum, to the official curriculum, to the curriculum as curriculum-in-use, to combining academic disciplines in Learning Areas, school with community, or incorporating disability into the mainstream. As opposed to curriculum research being seen as an aspirant body of knowledge, it has been argued that curriculum studies may more usefully be seen as a social movement which focuses, in the first instance, on the unstable but usable arts of the practitioner, rather than on the systematic application of a discipline to elucidate programmer purposes and effects and to reflect back on the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses democratization and politics in South African townships. Demobilization is said to have been necessary in negotiated or pacted transitions, as it strengthens moderates within the incumbent elite relative to hardliners. Others have mourned the passage of protest, anticipating that this worsens the prospects for urban change and redistribution. The compromises, which make democratization possible may undermine the pressure for radical institutional reform and the redistribution of material resources. With the re-establishment of political society, elites are drawn into political parties. Social movements may even suffer from decapitation through success, as their leaders are drawn into institutionalized politics. In South Africa, as elsewhere, the decline in mass direct action within civil society appears to be linked to public confidence in political society. The crisis facing civic organizations is in large part a crisis of adjustment, as civic activists redefine their roles in the new institutional context and accept that their roles will be more limited than in specific extraordinary periods in the past.

Scholarly discussions of AIDS in South Africa fall into three categories: biomedical discourses (the most prevalent), socioeconomic/political discourses (linking poverty and disempowerment to AIDS), and women's empowerment strategies. These discourses set up the construction of women and men in different ways with relation to AIDS: biological discourses individualize sexual behavior; socioeconomic/political discourses present women and men as disempowered by poverty; and feminist/empowerment strategies come from a Western perspective and tell women to be active in their own, individual, empowerment. South African AIDS discourses focus on women, while men are culturally excused for the AIDS epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a qualitative study of the women's movement in the Republic of South Africa. The study aims to explore why South Africa is one of the few countries in the Third World where the downfall of an oppressive regime led to a revolutionary upgrading of women's legal and political status. The second aim is to use the South African women's movement as a case study for examining three currently heralded theories of social movements. Lastly, is to compare and contrast women's movement goals and grievances cited in the academic, South African, and feminist literature with those of South African activists and highlight some differences between the US, West German, and Republic of South Africa's women's movements.

The Sullivan Principles represented an attempt in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States to apply private pressure, as an alternative to government sanctions, to put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In this paper we assess the impact of the Principles on the employment practices of a sample of U.S. firms operating in South Africa that were signatories to the Principles. We examine the extent of their commitment to improving conditions of employment for their nonwhite employees, in the areas of employment growth, wages, and advancement into management and supervisory positions. Our results indicate that the impact of the Sullivan Principles was modest at best. The evidence leads to the conclusion that in this case, private pressure was not a powerful force for social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the traditions of sociological scholarship in South Africa. It traces how an inter-disciplinary and often varied project responded to the rise of social movements in the Apartheid period and discusses the turning of this "discourse" into a scholarly discipline. It finally describes the difficulties sociologists and sociology departments encounter in the post-apartheid period due to a range of unforeseen circumstances that have weakened both research and the lecturing in the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on violence by activist youth in Diepkloof , Soweto in South Africa. Youth in Diepkloof who aligned themselves with the Charterist Movement in South Africa, were engaged in a number of acts of "political violence" during the period from 1984-1993. They participated in acts of collective violence against what they perceived to be "agents of the state" such as the police, local government councilors, and even teachers and principals of schools in some instances. They also engaged in collective violence against groups and individuals who were perceived as a threat to the community in which they lived. Collective violence in Diepkloof during the period 1984-1993 took a variety of forms. In some cases, people were killed by these youth. For the most part, however, these youth made use of less severe forms of violence such .as beating, and other' forms of physical punishment. While, many may argue that violence of any sort is reprehensible, this paper has an underlying premise that collective violence is generally a forth of collective action used as last resort by, actors of social movements who believe their grievances have not, or cannot, be dealt' with through other methods of collective action.

This paper examines the case of COSATU as a social movement undergoing fundamental restructuring of its political practice and orientation. It situates the changes in COSATU within the broad context of the transitional process in South African society and compares this experience with that of similar movements in Latin America. The paper concludes that an independent and all-encompassing Workers' Party adopting an alternative strategic perspective of transformatory reform holds the most promise for the urban and rural poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution challenges some of the underlying assumptions of the paper by Desai and Habib. It questions the looseness of their definition of a social movement, criticises their use of the structure\identity dichotomy and suggests that they do not adequately account for the popularity of the ANC. Instead, this paper provides a comparative analysis of Brazil and South Africa and argues that a variety of outcomes are possible in South Africa and Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) in South Africa cannot evade an ethical choice, how best to exercise their leverage against apartheid? Disinvestment is only one, ambiguous option. MNCs need clear ethical goals and an effective strategy. Both arise from the political economy of the MNC (1). It involves 3 relationships, between the MNC parent and its subsidiary; the MNC home society and host society; and the MNC home state and host state. That political economy explains the MNC's dependency (1a) and modernization effects (1b). Those effects give foreigners some leverage against apartheid; but an effective and ethical MNC strategy is needed (2). It involves four goals: dismantling apartheid, a mixed economy, full democracy, and a negotiated peace (2a). It suggests a sequence of MNC/home state options from Do Nothing or Divest to More Corporate Activism, Home State Support, and International Sanctions (2b). But victory is not around the corner, rather, we are all condemned to freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the rise of one of South Africa's largest and most sustained post-apartheid social movements, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Zulu for `the people who live in the shacks'. The Abahlali movement began with protests from Durban's Kennedy Road settlement against their local councillor, and has since grown into a densely networked, formal social movement. This article traces through an ethnographic account the decision to first protest at Kennedy Road and the process by which this protest spawned a larger movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]