Struggles Around the Commodification of Daily Life in South Africa

Prishani Naidoo

Review of African Political Economy, 2007, vol. 34, issue 111, 57-66

Abstract: Post-apartheid South Africa has seen the emergence of new social and community movements making demands on the African National Congress government to deliver on its promise of ‘a better life for all’. In these struggles, the identity of ‘the poor’ has been increasingly mobilised, both by movements reminding the state of its obligations to its people, and in official policy discourse seeking to introduce neoliberal macro-economic changes. This paper explores how the category of ‘the poor’ is mobilised in struggles for basic services in urban areas in South Africa, and in state policy that seeks to draw poor people into agreements to pay for services. In doing this, it explores the possibilities inherent in capitalist society for change and the building of relations that challenge or subvert the dominant logic of commodification and, in turn, of capital.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1080/03056240701340340

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