Anna Selmeczi
Biographic Data
| ID | 214800 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna Selmeczi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna |
| FAMILY NAME | Selmeczi |
| SIGNATURE | SELMECZI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Fort Hare |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9495-2525 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
At the heart of knowing the city
In this commentary, we expand on Narayanan's argument for ontological locationality by drawing on our long-term South African project, Knowing the City: Urban Scholarship from Apartheid to Democracy , which drew together cross-generational groups of South African urban studies scholars to build dialogues across our field. Resonating with Narayanan's push for more diverse and plural ‘formats, methods, and theories’, in this project we trace multip…
Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics
Power of Human Rights/the Human Rights of Power
Art/work
Who is the subject of neoliberal rights? Governmentality, subjectification and the letter of the law
Motivated by the litigious politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, this paper enquires into the knowledge dynamics implied by the governmentality literature’s take on the (neo)liberal deployment of (human) rights. It suggests that by implicitly constructing the freedom of codified rights as illusionary and opposed to the reality of neoliberal rationalities of government, this scholarship posits a cognitive h…
The power of human rights/the human rights of power
The contributions to this volume eschew the long-held approach of either dismissing human rights as politically compromised or glorifying them as a priori progressive in enabling resistance. Drawing on plural social theoretic and philosophical literatures – and a multiplicity of empirical domains – they illuminate the multi-layered and intricate relationship of human rights and power. They highlight human rights’ incitement of new subjects and mo…
Haunted by the Rebellion of the Poor
Intrigued by the so-called "rebellion of the poor," this paper traces back the current South African concern with popular protest to its reconfiguration during the last years of the apartheid order. Focusing on the discourse around grassroots resistance in the mid- to late-1980s, I begin by showing how, in juxtaposition to an ideal notion of civil society, popular mobilization had been largely delegitimized and the emancipatory politics of ungove…
Abahlali's Vocal Politics of Proximity
Using as its point of departure the claim that today the urban is the main site for the abandonment of superfluous people, this article explores the emancipatory politics of the South African shack-dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Based on a notion of political subjectivization as the appropriation of excess freedom, I argue that Abahlali disrupt the order of the 'world-class city' when they expose the contradiction between the democrat…
We Are Being Left to Burn Because We Do Not Count”∗
Starting from the puzzle posed by the ultimate aim of modern governmental rationality to nurture the population and its tendencies to exclude large parts of the same population from the spectrum of its care, this article argues that abandonment is always already inscribed into this rationality. In contradiction to Agamben, abandonment here is not attributed to the sovereign exception but is traced back to modern processes transforming the politic…
Abahlali's Vocal Politics of Proximity
Using as its point of departure the claim that today the urban is the main site for the abandonment of superfluous people, this article explores the emancipatory politics of the South African shack-dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Based on a notion of political subjectivization as the appropriation of excess freedom, I argue that Abahlali disrupt the order of the 'world-class city' when they expose the contradiction between the democrat…
We Are Being Left to Burn Because We Do Not Count”∗
Starting from the puzzle posed by the ultimate aim of modern governmental rationality to nurture the population and its tendencies to exclude large parts of the same population from the spectrum of its care, this article argues that abandonment is always already inscribed into this rationality. In contradiction to Agamben, abandonment here is not attributed to the sovereign exception but is traced back to modern processes transforming the politic…
Haunted by the Rebellion of the Poor
Intrigued by the so-called "rebellion of the poor," this paper traces back the current South African concern with popular protest to its reconfiguration during the last years of the apartheid order. Focusing on the discourse around grassroots resistance in the mid- to late-1980s, I begin by showing how, in juxtaposition to an ideal notion of civil society, popular mobilization had been largely delegitimized and the emancipatory politics of ungove…
The power of human rights/the human rights of power
The contributions to this volume eschew the long-held approach of either dismissing human rights as politically compromised or glorifying them as a priori progressive in enabling resistance. Drawing on plural social theoretic and philosophical literatures – and a multiplicity of empirical domains – they illuminate the multi-layered and intricate relationship of human rights and power. They highlight human rights’ incitement of new subjects and mo…
We Are Being Left to Burn Because We Do Not Count”∗
Starting from the puzzle posed by the ultimate aim of modern governmental rationality to nurture the population and its tendencies to exclude large parts of the same population from the spectrum of its care, this article argues that abandonment is always already inscribed into this rationality. In contradiction to Agamben, abandonment here is not attributed to the sovereign exception but is traced back to modern processes transforming the politic…
Abahlali's Vocal Politics of Proximity
Using as its point of departure the claim that today the urban is the main site for the abandonment of superfluous people, this article explores the emancipatory politics of the South African shack-dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Based on a notion of political subjectivization as the appropriation of excess freedom, I argue that Abahlali disrupt the order of the 'world-class city' when they expose the contradiction between the democrat…
Who is the subject of neoliberal rights? Governmentality, subjectification and the letter of the law
Motivated by the litigious politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, this paper enquires into the knowledge dynamics implied by the governmentality literature’s take on the (neo)liberal deployment of (human) rights. It suggests that by implicitly constructing the freedom of codified rights as illusionary and opposed to the reality of neoliberal rationalities of government, this scholarship posits a cognitive h…
The power of human rights/the human rights of power
The contributions to this volume eschew the long-held approach of either dismissing human rights as politically compromised or glorifying them as a priori progressive in enabling resistance. Drawing on plural social theoretic and philosophical literatures – and a multiplicity of empirical domains – they illuminate the multi-layered and intricate relationship of human rights and power. They highlight human rights’ incitement of new subjects and mo…
Haunted by the Rebellion of the Poor
Intrigued by the so-called "rebellion of the poor," this paper traces back the current South African concern with popular protest to its reconfiguration during the last years of the apartheid order. Focusing on the discourse around grassroots resistance in the mid- to late-1980s, I begin by showing how, in juxtaposition to an ideal notion of civil society, popular mobilization had been largely delegitimized and the emancipatory politics of ungove…
Art/work
Power of Human Rights/the Human Rights of Power
Critical Methods for the Study of World Politics
At the heart of knowing the city
In this commentary, we expand on Narayanan's argument for ontological locationality by drawing on our long-term South African project, Knowing the City: Urban Scholarship from Apartheid to Democracy , which drew together cross-generational groups of South African urban studies scholars to build dialogues across our field. Resonating with Narayanan's push for more diverse and plural ‘formats, methods, and theories’, in this project we trace multip…
Politics (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · South African History and Culture (4 works) · Foucault, Power, and Ethics (3 works)