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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Rethinking South Africa's transition: from transformative to mainstream approaches to participatory development
Author:Sinwell, LukeISNI
Year:2011
Periodical:African Studies (ISSN 1469-2872)
Volume:70
Issue:3
Pages:359-375
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:civil society
State-society relationship
action groups
popular participation
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2011.628798
Abstract:By the mid-1980s black township activists from across South Africa had risen up in an unprecedented manner to delegitimize and challenge the apartheid State. By the end of 1985, a new era in politics emerged in Alexandra, a small and densely populated township northeast of Johannesburg, under the ideology of 'people's power'. Perhaps more than any other place in the country, the Alexandra Civic Organization's (ACO's) ideology of 'people's power' was underlined by a socialist and participatory approach to solving local problems and resisting apartheid, and these politics quickly became deeply embedded in the community. The dawn of a new democratic dispensation in 1994 meant that the practices could have evolved into a transformative application of participation in development that would improve the lives of the previously marginalized majority. Many therefore hoped that these traditions of participation would be nurtured by the postapartheid government, but this did not happen. By paying particular attention to the height of 'people's power', which offered a unique and radical approach to the practice of participation, this article argues that authors have not paid adequate attention to the decline of a particular kind of civic participation and the mainstream version of participation and model of citizenship that has been adopted by the ANC government. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract]
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