Luke Sinwell's article ‘Is “Another World” Really Possible? Re-examining Counter-Hegemonic Forces in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, published in March 2011 in the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) (No. 127), makes a useful and timely intervention into the body of scholarly literature about the country's so-called new social movements. In summary, Sinwell astutely argues that ‘there is a sharp disjuncture between ideologies manufactured by intellectuals and the world views that the working class and poor possess’ (2011, p. 62). He argues that analysts have produced romanticised accounts of these movement organisations which do not make a sustained engagement with the everyday politics that occur in these spaces. Through examining the politics of two grass-roots community organisations in Alexandra Township, Sinwell calls into question the perceived counter-hegemonic potential of such organisations and offers an insight into both the possibilities and limitations of South Africa's new social movements. Having conducted ethnographic fieldwork with one of the organisations that Sinwell makes direct reference to, the Anti Privatisation Forum (APF), I share many of his concerns and observations over the representation and analysis of such organisations, and support his call for a greater critical engagement with the internal dynamics of social movement organisations (SMOs). However, the analysis he offers does not go far enough into the internal dynamics he urges us to explore. In this response, I shall argue that, particularly with movements which draw their base from localised community-based organisations, analysts should pay greater attention to the role organisational forms have in shaping movement politics and identity. I shall also argue that our conceptualisation and understanding of resistance is often isolated from the understanding and interpretations which activists themselves hold, and the study of social movements would be strengthened if analysts paid greater attention to the messy and often contradictory realities of social movement activism. Finally, I shall argue that this will require a methodological approach that synthesises the coherent narratives of movement leaders or movement documents with other research techniques such as ethnography. The response that is offered here draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the APF between August 2009 and June 2010.
Sinwell's article suggests that much is already known about the organisation of the APF and he discusses the organisation without any analysis or description of how the APF is structured or organised. This lack of attention to the organisational features of social movements is prevalent within the literature as they are generally taken as descriptive rather than analytic features of movements. Social movement theory, derived mainly from North America and Western Europe, has generally conceived of social movement organisations as single and unitary structures. However, organisations, such as the APF with its diffuse and federated structures and based in localised community-based movements, pose particular challenges to how we analyse and understand mobilisation and movement identity. An examination of these organisational features provides an important lens though which to analyse both the ‘front stage’ of the APF and the messy and often contradictory realities of the ‘back stage’ of movement politics (Goffman 1990).
The APF can be best understood as providing a central node in an inter- and intra-movement network which weaves together a web of activists and community based organisations. This web constructs an organisation which is divided into a core of activists who occupy positions within some aspect of the formal structures of the APF (generally local affiliate leaders) and a larger periphery group of activists who remain mainly outside the formal organisation (generally the grass-roots membership of APF's affiliates). In drawing together various community struggles, the APF aims to pose a critical anti-capitalist, anti-privatisation and anti-neoliberal challenge to the current development framework of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) by collectivising ‘organisational/political resources … knowledge and experiences … [to] develop common positions and campaigns/struggles’ (APF undated). Organisations which affiliate to the APF are expected to participate and adhere to the collective decisions of the APF but retain a significant degree of organisational and political autonomy from the APF. Important organisational decisions are generally made in a consensus-driven manner within quarterly meetings attended by representatives from all affiliates. Day-to-day decisions are taken by the APF's elected leadership which are elected on a biannual basis at the annual general meeting. Affiliates to the APF vary in strength, size, political orientation and organisation, and represent a range of communities from the poorest of shack dwellers to low-income bond house residents.
As one would expect, the main impetus for community-based organisations to form arises from the immediate needs and challenges of individual communities, what Raymond Williams (1989) has described as ‘militant particularisms’. As Williams argues, movements emerge when ‘people recognize some condition and problem they have in common, and make effort to work together to change or solve it’ (1989, p. 249). There is, as Williams argues, nothing necessarily extraordinary about this unless people attempt to connect their particular struggle to a broader struggle: ‘It has set out, as a movement to make real what is at first sight the extraordinary claim that the defence and advancement of certain particular interests … are in fact in the general interest’ (ibid.). This involves a process of translating the concrete immediate needs into more general political claims. In affiliating to the APF, the opportunity emerges for grass-roots activists and community-based affiliates to begin this process of translation, and the core group of APF activists is crucial to achieving this as they provide an important link between the grass-roots base of the organisation and the formal structures of the APF and its elected leadership. These ‘bridge leaders’ play a key role in politicising the seemingly private issues of the community and linking ‘the formal movement organisation's message and the day-to-day realities of potential constituents’ (Robnett 1997, p. 92).
Although the struggles of community-based affiliates and the APF are linked, analysts of the APF and its affiliates often merge the identities of the APF and its many different affiliates without reference to the political independence and autonomy of affiliates. Sinwell makes this slippage when he criticises the ‘APF critique in Alexandra’ (2011, p. 71), when the material he presents is from the local leadership of the affiliates. Whilst there is certainly a close relationship between the activists of the community affiliates and the APF, it is also important to retain a sense of political scale when discussing the organisation. The APF has a presence on the national and transnational stage which individual affiliates are unlikely to be able to achieve. As a national and transnational actor the APF has been able to represent some of the poorest communities and advance some important critiques and arguments on their behalf. However, as Wolford (2010) argues, this claim of representation depends on ‘strategic essentialism’, so that differences between subaltern groups are temporarily put aside, creating collective identities and positions which simplify the complexity of debates but allow a far more strategic position from which to mobilise. However, as Sinwell's article argues, it is important not to take such statements at face value and uncritically present these as representative of the movement as a whole. This therefore reinforces the need to have a more nuanced understanding of the APF as a movement organisation which considers the importance of political scale.
Stoecker's (1995) concept of the social movement community introduces an understanding of scale to the traditional concept of a social movement. He suggests that SMOs which have their base within community organisations are inherently shaped by the geographical specificity, localised membership, resources and issue potential of this base and that these particular dynamics must inform our analysis of such organisations. Through his work with neighbourhood associations in Minneapolis, Stoecker develops the concept of a social movement community to provide a useful analytical lens through which to view such movements. Stoecker argues that these four spheres in which activism occurs which are analytically distinct but related to one another: the social movement community, the social movement, the social movement organisation, and the individual.
For an organisation like the APF, the direction and content of its mobilisation is structured by its relation to the communities in which the APF affiliates have their base. The wider community provides a backstage area in which social interactions and personal bonds that are forged in the course of daily life often become essential to successful mobilisation. Activists are then able to draw upon and establish cultural rituals, personal commitments and collective memories to mobilise the community. However, as Stoecker highlights, ‘the community is a place people have not usually chosen for political reasons, and it contains both activists and non-activists networked to each other, thus making political unity problematic’ (Stoecker 1995, p. 112).
For Stoecker, the lack of political unity distinguishes the social movement community from the social movement. A social movement consists of people who broadly orientate themselves toward the movement aims and participate in its demonstrations. However, as Stoecker highlights, those who identify themselves as part of a movement and participate within its demonstrations are often not involved with the organisation which is coordinating or leading an action. This, he argues, is because they identify themselves ‘with the goals and strategies of the action, not necessarily with the organisation’ (ibid.). The implications of this are that movement membership is often unstable as people drift in and out of the movement.
SMOs are distinguished from the other levels of the social movement community by their formal organisation, stable membership and sense of collective identity. Stoecker notes that SMOs are likely to consist of a much smaller number than the movement itself due to the requirement for ‘greater commitment of time, risk and energy’ (ibid., p. 113). SMOs unite activists, other SMOs and leaders from community-based organisations and therefore play a crucial role in linking the wider network of the social movement community together. The value of Stoecker's conceptualisation is that it breaks down the problematic assumption prevalent in social movement theory that movements are unified actors, and provides a dynamic way through which to view the relationship between communities, community-based organisations, movements and SMOs.
My own research with the APF has revealed that the APF means different things to different people and that community organisations are drawn to the APF for a variety of reasons:
There was no other organisation which was available for a lot of people. SANCO was pretty much out of the picture but by this stage I think people had realised clearly the ANC itself was not the place, in fact they were the ones that were doing this. They looked and they approached, they'd heard about the APF … often times if there's a struggle in a particular community, often times they almost immediately after a particular point look for others who are doing the same thing or who can provide some resources or support or who can bring together in some solidarity and the very fact that the APF is the only … in Gauteng, the only social movement of its kind. There are other smaller ones … [and it] draws people to it, inevitably. Even if they might not know much about the APF or they might not know its politics or its history it's the fact that it's there and it represents a potential home or a potential place where they can join with others. (Dale McKinley, interview, February 2010)
The APF is described by many activists as a ‘political home’ which is able to accommodate a broad range of activists. The APF thus consists of a broad continuum of participants from the highly politically motivated ‘model’ members to the ambivalent. The membership of the APF is therefore not a solid or coherent category or group of people but rather a dynamic continuum of participants who come to the movement for different reasons. Creating any sense of unity is therefore, as Melucci argues, ‘the result rather than a point of departure’ (1985, p. 793) and has implications for the kinds of resistance any movement is able to pose.
Sinwell's analysis is centred on questioning the nature of resistance within the APF's Alexandra-based affiliates. His contention is that the resistance offered by these organisations is far more limited than either scholars or movement leaders have cared to admit, and is concerned primarily with ‘imminent’ (2011, p. 71) processes of development. Sinwell's analysis highlights some important weaknesses within the resistance forged by the APF. However, the conceptualisation of resistance is limited by its isolation from the way in which activists themselves interpret their own resistance and activism.
James Scott's influential work on peasant movements questions the way in which resistance is recognised and understood by analysts arguing that much resistance, particularly by disenfranchised groups, takes place in the realm of the everyday in ways which often go unnoticed.
For a social science attuned to the relatively open politics of liberal democracies and to loud, headline-grabbing protests, demonstrations and rebellions, the circumspect struggle waged daily by subordinate groups is, like infrared rays, beyond the visible end of the spectrum. (cited in Amoore 2005, p. 7)
I contend that in order to understand the internal dynamics of movement politics, it is vital that scholars engage with the meanings which activists themselves bring to their activism, and by doing so the scope of what resistance means to activists is widened to include a consideration of the ways in which various knowledge-practices (Casas-Cortes et al. 2008) play a central role in its political praxis. Polletta argues that ‘counterhegemonic challenge comes not from some disembodied oppositional consciousness but from long-standing community institutions where people are able to penetrate the common sense that keeps most passive in the face of injustice’ (1997, p. 435).
In his article, Sinwell utilises Gramsci's theory of hegemony and analyses the role of organic intellectuals in forging counter-hegemonic resistance. However, he neglects to develop this analysis to provide an understanding of how forms of counter-hegemonic consciousness may develop. For Gramsci, embryonic forms of counter-hegemonic consciousness emerge from the contradictions of the lived experiences of the subaltern under hegemonic relations of domination (Crehan, 2002). The forms of counter-hegemonic consciousness which may emerge are therefore entangled within these contradictions which may entrench forces of hegemony whilst challenging others, leading to fragmented forms of resistance across a diffuse range of identities and interests. In order to consolidate and build upon these embryonic forms of consciousness, organic intellectuals, Gramsci argues, must work to synthesise the diverse interests of challenging groups to build ideologies which will cement and lend coherence to political action. Such challenges, Gramsci argues, are built from critiquing existing social, political and economic arrangements. How such critiques are constructed will be dependent upon the various social forces that are brought together in counter-hegemonic struggles which may or not be class-based in nature. Therefore the ideologies formed from counter-hegemonic challenges are not necessarily logical and linear in their progression but bound to the contested social forces of society. The task for Marxist theory is therefore to be able to provide critiques of the common-sense view of the world in order to allow people to begin to build what Gramsci called ‘good sense’, that is a more coherent understanding of their position within capitalist social relations (Simon 1982).
Much of the activism of the APF can be analysed as an attempt to build ‘good sense’ within the wider movement. A key organisational goal of the APF has been to propagate political responses to the private troubles of ordinary people and to build a movement and cadreship ‘that could go beyond just issue-based opposition to a particular privatisation’ (Dale McKinley, interview, February 2010). Political education has therefore formed a key part of the APF's political praxis.
In the community we are dealing with specific community issues but in the APF a whole load of issues they are now broader. They will tell you about the GEAR, they will tell you about AGISA and that's where I was growing. Because if APF was not formed I was not sure if I was going to be very clear in terms of politics.… So automatically whatever we were learning from them we were able to translate it in the community to show them in the community how are we trusting GEAR, how does GEAR affect us because people were not even understanding GEAR or AGISA they are just interested in seeing the issue of service delivery happen but we managed to consciotise [sic] them and give them direction. (Male APF activist, Interview, November 2009)
As this activist explains, the process of translation structures the relationship between the APF and its affiliates as the core group of activists translate (quite literally) the political messages of the APF into day-to-day concerns of the community. Workshops and other forums within the APF perform an important function in educating a group of core activists or bridge leaders who then undertake to ‘translate’ that learning back into their communities in order to build a critical political consciousness within the wider social movement community.
Although the affiliates that make up the APF may be engaged in material struggles to access the basic needs for life, there is also a need to recognise that this is accompanied by a broader struggle about the content and quality of post-apartheid democracy. Many of the activists and communities which come to the APF do so because they find other institutional channels of expression closed to them as people who are not ‘card-carrying ANC members’. Whilst Sinwell justifiably critiques the resistance of the APF and questions what, if any, alternatives to the neo-liberal development framework they pose, he neglects to consider how the limited resources and organisational capacity of a movement, largely made up of the poor and unemployed, constrains the development of such alternatives. Within such a context the APF identifies political education as one of its largest needs:
One of the most crucial and ongoing developmental needs of a growing APF, particularly given its base constituency of the poorest of the poor … is political education … the rapid pace of political and organisational challenges deriving from the intensified shifts/changes in the capitalist system, means that the APF will not be able to further develop its cadre base or its overall political/organisational effectiveness without forging a renewed and expanded political education project. (APF, undated)
As Paulo Freire argues, education can open the possibility of the ‘practice of freedom’ through which ‘men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world’ (2006, p. 34). Such education provides the tools from which alternatives can be constructed. Whilst Sinwell is justified in highlighting the limitations of the resistance posed by the APF, recognition must also be given to the fact that even though it is politically uneven the APF has been able to develop political responses which go beyond defending the militant particularisms of individual communities. Constructing alternative and independent outlets of political expression in communities ‘where open opposition to the ANC puts one at risk of expulsion from the community and there are communities where taking a position against the ANC puts one at real risk of violence’ (Pithouse 2010) is an undervalued and significant development on the post-apartheid political landscape.
Throughout his article Sinwell criticises other scholars for unproblematically appropriating the opinions of the APF leadership as directly representative of the organisation as a whole. As Sinwell suggests, and as I have argued throughout this response, our understanding of movements needs to be more nuanced in approach and to take into greater consideration the opinions and understandings of grass-roots activists. However, at times Sinwell slips into the same mistakes he critiques others for. He writes that the ‘APF are adamant that the test of an authentic movement … is whether it holds a vision for a socialist alternative or at least opposes the state's neoliberal growth’ (2011, p. 69). However, what Sinwell is reporting here is the analysis of Ballard and his colleagues (2006) based upon a statement made by former APF organiser Trevor Ngwane in 2003. The degree to which we can take this analysis to be a representative statement of the APF either at that time or in the current context when the APF has undergone a number of significant political and organisational changes is, I would argue, highly problematic. Sinwell's analysis of the APF would have been strengthened had he worked towards a greater synthesis between secondary commentary and statements contained within APF documents and his own ethnographic research. Documents and other written texts are rich sources of data for understanding the politics of a movement. However, the narratives they present necessarily conceal the processes of construction and contestation in which they are formed. In such circumstances the value of ethnographic data to the study of social movement organisations becomes clear as participant observation is able to provide insight not only into how activism occurs ‘as it is happening in everyday life' (Lichterman 1998, p. 410; original emphasis) but also to reveal the nature of debates and areas of tension or conflict within social movements which activists may seek to downplay or conceal in an interview setting.
Sinwell's article presents a demanding analytical and methodological challenge to analysts of any social movement but particularly the one under examination here. As I have argued, the study of social movements would be strengthened if analysts paid greater attention to the messy and often contradictory realities of social movement activism and the meanings which activists themselves bring to their activism. Furthermore, greater insight into the internal dynamics of social movement organisations can be generated from a greater critical and analytical reflection regarding how organisational forms may shape, develop, as well as constrain mobilisation. However, to meet the challenge set by Sinwell, analysts will be required to take more methodologically innovative approaches which can synthesise the coherent narratives of movement leaders or movement documents with other research techniques such as ethnography.