Hassim
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 9289 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Hassim |
| SOBRENOME | Hassim |
| ASSINATURA | HASSIM |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5816-1291 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 41 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 195 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 38 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 3 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1988 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Handbook on Politics and Society
Pluralizing social reproduction approaches
The concept of social reproduction (SR) has gained renewed interest in the past decade. Discussed and elaborated by generations of feminists, the concept offers a rejection of productivism and the possibility of (re)telling the history of capitalism and its contemporary dynamics through the work and practices of “life making.” Yet, it is undeniable that much of the “old” and “new” theorizing around SR comes predominantly from the Global North. He…
An interview with Shireen Hassim
South Africa, 1994 + 30
In this wide-ranging conversation, six scholars of South Africa detail threads of continuity and change in the historiographies, popular memories, archives, research agendas, methodologies, and within the South African academy and historical professional since the end of formal apartheid in 1994
How Jacob Zuma Revitalized Feminism in South Africa
On August 6, 2016, the week of the South African public holiday Women’s Day, an extraordinary protest held the nation spellbound. Then president Jacob Zuma was announcing the results of local government elections live on national television when four young women walked out of the throng of election officials and politicians. They stood in front of the president, silent but visible on the televised screen. They held up placards: “I am 1 in 3,” “Te…
The Impossible Contract
Winnie and Nelson Mandela had one of the most iconic political marriages in history. For most commentators, this was a one-sided marriage in which Nelson was by far the more significant actor and Winnie was the burden he had to bear. However, it is not possible to conceive of the public persona of Nelson Mandela after his imprisonment on Robben Island without also understanding Winnie’s role, not merely as upholder of the family name but also in …
Decolonising equality
South Africa has taken centre stage in most accounts of the synergistic potential of law and politics: it is seen to be a case which demonstrates that human rights can be made real, with the favourable combination of institutional and political conditions. Among these conditions, from a feminist perspective, are the inclusion of equality and socio-economic rights in the Constitution, high levels of representation of women in parliament and the bu…
Not Just Nelson's Wife
The late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a political figure who excited strong views; these continue in the immediate aftermath of her death. Most analyses of her utilise the binary trope of good/bad mother and wife, and seek either to excoriate or to sanctify her. In this article, I re-examine the key incidents in her 'fall' from political grace, when the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) embarked on a series of violent actions in the mid 1980s.…
Critical Thoughts on Keywords in Gender and History
This introduction lays out the key themes addressed in the Forum and emphasises the importance of understanding historical description and theory as mutually constitutive. The contributions to the Forum interrogate key categories of analysis in feminist history including the gender binary, gender crisis, agency and intersectionality. The articles show how the study of historical events and processes in their particular detail reframes the categor…
Texts and tests of equality
South African struggles for gender equality have been embodied in two charters produced in 1954 and 1994. To the extent that there is a manifesto of the South African women's movement, it may be found in these documents. The charters articulate a vision for a democratic society, and give content to the idea of gender equality as it may be achieved in the specific context of a postcolonial, post-apartheid future. This article argues that the chart…
Who's Afraid of Feminism? South African Democracy at 20
This is the 100th issue of this journal since the first Agenda appeared in 1987. It coincides with the celebration of 20 years of democracy, a moment in which there is national reflection on the achievements and setbacks on the path to a more just and equal society. In this issue we look at the past 20 years through the lens of feminism, reminding ourselves of the dreams and strategies of women's movements in the country and analysing how far we …
Persistent Inequalities
Debates about the nature and impact of quotas tend to focus on national parliaments, and for the most part tend to debate theoretical assumptions within the disciplines of political science and political philosophy. This article suggests that there is much to be gained in understanding how quotas work by a lateral examination of literature in development studies, and by comparative work on countries that are in the postcolonial global south. Draw…
Violent Modernity
In May 2012, an artwork on President Zuma caused a public storm about the relationship between freedom of expression, dignity and the rights of the artist. In subsequent political debates on Brett Murray's Spear, art and politics met in a heightened clash that embodied all the tensions of a country moving imperfectly towards an imagined state of democracy. In that clash, what was said mattered no less than who said it, and the significance of the…
Political Representation
Political representation lies at the core of modern politics. Democracies, with their vast numbers of citizens, could not operate without representative institutions. Yet relations between the democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political representation have never been well defined and remain the subject of vigorous debate among historians, political theorists, lawyers, and citizens. In this volume, an eminent group of scholars move for…
Towards gender equality
Towards gender equality: South African schools during the HIV and AIDS epidemic, by Robert Morrell, Debbie Epstein, Elaine Unterhalter, Deevia Bhana and Relebohile Moletsane, Pietermaritzburg, UKZN
After Apartheid
Framing essay
Democracy's Shadows
This article examines the implications of the trial of Jacob Zuma, current president of the ANC, for sexual and gender politics in South Africa. The article argues that a central, contested issue in public debates on the trial was the relationship between public and private spheres in society. This article was written in honour of my dear friend and mentor, Professor Jacklyn Cock, on her (putative) retirement in 2007. Thanks, as always, to WUJWG …
Go Home or Die Here
xenophobic attacks that started in Alexandra, Johannesburg in May 2008 before quickly spreading around the country caused an outcry across the world and raised many fundamental questions: Of what profound social malaise is xenophobia - and the violence that it inspires - a symptom? Have our economic and political choices created new forms of exclusion that fuel anger and distrust? What consequences does the emergence of xenophobia hold for the id…
Social justice, care and developmental welfare in South Africa
One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives…
Global Constraints on Gender Equality in Care Work
Gornick and Meyers offer proposals for advancing gender egalitarianism in care of children and in the labor market. This article examines the extent to which these proposals can be extended beyond the United States and other wealthy countries. I argue that the Gornick and Meyers proposals are dependent on a particular set of global and national labor market factors, and on a peculiar configuration of institutions and political forces. The article…
Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context
Social Policy in a Development Context is a new series which places social policy at the centre of research while maintaining the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)'s unified approach to social development. The series provides a new and exciting contribution to the literature in economic development and social policy. In economic development, social policy has been recognized as an integral part of development, but …
Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context
Social Policy in a Development Context is a new series which places social policy at the centre of research while maintaining the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)'s unified approach to social development. The series provides a new and exciting contribution to the literature in economic development and social policy. In economic development, social policy has been recognized as an integral part of development, but …
Democratization
Voices, Hierarchies and Spaces
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…
Democracy's Shadows
This article examines the implications of the trial of Jacob Zuma, current president of the ANC, for sexual and gender politics in South Africa. The article argues that a central, contested issue in public debates on the trial was the relationship between public and private spheres in society. This article was written in honour of my dear friend and mentor, Professor Jacklyn Cock, on her (putative) retirement in 2007. Thanks, as always, to WUJWG …
Voices, Hierarchies and Spaces
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…
Pluralizing social reproduction approaches
The concept of social reproduction (SR) has gained renewed interest in the past decade. Discussed and elaborated by generations of feminists, the concept offers a rejection of productivism and the possibility of (re)telling the history of capitalism and its contemporary dynamics through the work and practices of “life making.” Yet, it is undeniable that much of the “old” and “new” theorizing around SR comes predominantly from the Global North. He…
A Conspiracy of Women
Because transition politics are periods of crisis and thus of intense politicization, they bring new ideas and institutions into political life . . . they provide a rare window on how social structures underlie political structures and practices . . . (Jacquette and Wolchik, 1998: 4). THE “success story” of the South African women’s movement in the transition to democracy is by now a familiar one to feminist scholars and activists. Unlike many ot…
Violent Modernity
In May 2012, an artwork on President Zuma caused a public storm about the relationship between freedom of expression, dignity and the rights of the artist. In subsequent political debates on Brett Murray's Spear, art and politics met in a heightened clash that embodied all the tensions of a country moving imperfectly towards an imagined state of democracy. In that clash, what was said mattered no less than who said it, and the significance of the…
From Presence to Power
Family, Motherhood and Zulu Nationalism
In 1975, Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe (National Cultural Liberation Movement), under the charismatic leadership of Mangosutho Buthelezi, was launched in Natal. Although it put itself forward as a national movement, its location within a bantustan (KwaZulu), its links with the administration and politics of that bantustan through its control of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, and its very heavy reliance on Zulu symbolism and political imagery lim…
Global Constraints on Gender Equality in Care Work
Gornick and Meyers offer proposals for advancing gender egalitarianism in care of children and in the labor market. This article examines the extent to which these proposals can be extended beyond the United States and other wealthy countries. I argue that the Gornick and Meyers proposals are dependent on a particular set of global and national labor market factors, and on a peculiar configuration of institutions and political forces. The article…
Nationalism, feminism and autonomy
There is a strong feminist scholarship that examines the fraught relationship between feminism and nationalism. The African National Congress (ANC) stands out as a nationalist movement that has gone further than most in transcending the tendency of nationalist organisations to reinforce women's status as secondary political subjects. Yet there has been little analytical attention to how the ANC operates as a political organisation. This article a…
Not Just Nelson's Wife
The late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was a political figure who excited strong views; these continue in the immediate aftermath of her death. Most analyses of her utilise the binary trope of good/bad mother and wife, and seek either to excoriate or to sanctify her. In this article, I re-examine the key incidents in her 'fall' from political grace, when the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) embarked on a series of violent actions in the mid 1980s.…
Who's Afraid of Feminism? South African Democracy at 20
This is the 100th issue of this journal since the first Agenda appeared in 1987. It coincides with the celebration of 20 years of democracy, a moment in which there is national reflection on the achievements and setbacks on the path to a more just and equal society. In this issue we look at the past 20 years through the lens of feminism, reminding ourselves of the dreams and strategies of women's movements in the country and analysing how far we …
Fragile Stability
This article adopts a 'state-in-society' approach in order to take account of the impact of the transition to democracy in South Africa on social groups and their engagement with the state. The article suggests that democratic consolidation involves not only building a new state but also new interfaces between state and society. We use the term 'fragile stability' to characterise the contradictory nature of South Africa's transition a decade afte…
Redefining the public space
This article addresses the relationship between civil society and the women's movement in South Africa. It argues that civil society is not a gender‐neutral concept, but is founded on the separation between public and private as two distinct arenas in society. Women's movements in South Africa have constantly challenged these boundaries. The article also explores the emergence of a gender consciousness within South African women's movements. The …
A Bit on the Side
engaged in a creative dialogue to formulate policies to effect the transition to a 'post-apartheid' state and to adopt forms of organization and strategy consistent with and complementary to such policy. Until recently, however, a consideration of gender has been lacking in this exciting debate.' This is not simply the result of a dominant androcentric discourse, but must also be attributed to gaps and shortcomings in the analysis of women's oppr…
Texts and tests of equality
South African struggles for gender equality have been embodied in two charters produced in 1954 and 1994. To the extent that there is a manifesto of the South African women's movement, it may be found in these documents. The charters articulate a vision for a democratic society, and give content to the idea of gender equality as it may be achieved in the specific context of a postcolonial, post-apartheid future. This article argues that the chart…
The dual politics of representation
This article examines the politics of women's representation in South Africa. It argues that there has been a significant shift since 1994 in the ways in which women's organisations have articulated women's electoral interests. While women's organisations and women within political parties have been outwardly in agreement about the need for increasing women's representation, there are differences in their policy positions with respect to strategi…
Women's studies and the women's movement in South Africa
Equality versus authority
Inkatha' s political programme contains contradictions. The movement presents itself as a modernising, liberalising force while simultaneously developing a conservative, precapitalist ideology to retain its rural political base. These tensions are exemplified in Inkatha's attempts to engage women politically. Two instances are examined: the replacement of the Natal Code of Bantu Law by the KwaZulu Code, which removed the minority status of Africa…
Persistent Inequalities
Debates about the nature and impact of quotas tend to focus on national parliaments, and for the most part tend to debate theoretical assumptions within the disciplines of political science and political philosophy. This article suggests that there is much to be gained in understanding how quotas work by a lateral examination of literature in development studies, and by comparative work on countries that are in the postcolonial global south. Draw…
Decolonising equality
South Africa has taken centre stage in most accounts of the synergistic potential of law and politics: it is seen to be a case which demonstrates that human rights can be made real, with the favourable combination of institutional and political conditions. Among these conditions, from a feminist perspective, are the inclusion of equality and socio-economic rights in the Constitution, high levels of representation of women in parliament and the bu…
Social justice, care and developmental welfare in South Africa
One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives…
Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements
Shireen Hassim Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements: Women and Welfare Provision in Postapartheid South Africa THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA WAS MARKED BY THE extent to which women mobilized to ensure that the new political system would be accessible to women's participation and that policy outcomes would be gender equitable.' Arguments for gender equality were pursued in tandem with those for social rights. As a consequence, bot…
After Apartheid
Politicising the subject
South Africa, 1994 + 30
In this wide-ranging conversation, six scholars of South Africa detail threads of continuity and change in the historiographies, popular memories, archives, research agendas, methodologies, and within the South African academy and historical professional since the end of formal apartheid in 1994
Reinforcing Conservatism
A Bit on the Side
engaged in a creative dialogue to formulate policies to effect the transition to a 'post-apartheid' state and to adopt forms of organization and strategy consistent with and complementary to such policy. Until recently, however, a consideration of gender has been lacking in this exciting debate.' This is not simply the result of a dominant androcentric discourse, but must also be attributed to gaps and shortcomings in the analysis of women's oppr…
Equality versus authority
Inkatha' s political programme contains contradictions. The movement presents itself as a modernising, liberalising force while simultaneously developing a conservative, precapitalist ideology to retain its rural political base. These tensions are exemplified in Inkatha's attempts to engage women politically. Two instances are examined: the replacement of the Natal Code of Bantu Law by the KwaZulu Code, which removed the minority status of Africa…
Women's studies and the women's movement in South Africa
Family, Motherhood and Zulu Nationalism
In 1975, Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe (National Cultural Liberation Movement), under the charismatic leadership of Mangosutho Buthelezi, was launched in Natal. Although it put itself forward as a national movement, its location within a bantustan (KwaZulu), its links with the administration and politics of that bantustan through its control of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, and its very heavy reliance on Zulu symbolism and political imagery lim…
Filling the Gaps
Last year, women activists came together for a weekend of anecdotes, analysis and strategising on the interaction between gender, development and the environment. SHIREEN HASSIM reports on the gender and environment workshop, hosted by the Environmental Monitoring Group
Redefining the public space
This article addresses the relationship between civil society and the women's movement in South Africa. It argues that civil society is not a gender‐neutral concept, but is founded on the separation between public and private as two distinct arenas in society. Women's movements in South Africa have constantly challenged these boundaries. The article also explores the emergence of a gender consciousness within South African women's movements. The …
Politicising the subject
From Presence to Power
The dual politics of representation
This article examines the politics of women's representation in South Africa. It argues that there has been a significant shift since 1994 in the ways in which women's organisations have articulated women's electoral interests. While women's organisations and women within political parties have been outwardly in agreement about the need for increasing women's representation, there are differences in their policy positions with respect to strategi…
The Women's Movement in the Democratic State
SHIREEN HASSIM reports on a debate on the state of the women's movement. She writes that there is a need to understand the current conditions both inside and outside the women's movement, and the impact of economic changes on women
A Conspiracy of Women
Because transition politics are periods of crisis and thus of intense politicization, they bring new ideas and institutions into political life . . . they provide a rare window on how social structures underlie political structures and practices . . . (Jacquette and Wolchik, 1998: 4). THE “success story” of the South African women’s movement in the transition to democracy is by now a familiar one to feminist scholars and activists. Unlike many ot…
Sociological dilemmas in a local context
The theme of this year's meeting of the powerful 13,000 member strong American Sociological Association (ASA) was ‘public sociologies’. The term public sociology was invented in the United States to criticise and counter mounting professionalisation. In many countries of today the term public sociology is not necessary as sociology is presumed to be public. In order to illustrate this point the ASA invited representatives from different regions o…
Nationalism, feminism and autonomy
There is a strong feminist scholarship that examines the fraught relationship between feminism and nationalism. The African National Congress (ANC) stands out as a nationalist movement that has gone further than most in transcending the tendency of nationalist organisations to reinforce women's status as secondary political subjects. Yet there has been little analytical attention to how the ANC operates as a political organisation. This article a…
Voices, Hierarchies and Spaces
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…
Fragile Stability
This article adopts a 'state-in-society' approach in order to take account of the impact of the transition to democracy in South Africa on social groups and their engagement with the state. The article suggests that democratic consolidation involves not only building a new state but also new interfaces between state and society. We use the term 'fragile stability' to characterise the contradictory nature of South Africa's transition a decade afte…
Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements
Shireen Hassim Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements: Women and Welfare Provision in Postapartheid South Africa THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA WAS MARKED BY THE extent to which women mobilized to ensure that the new political system would be accessible to women's participation and that policy outcomes would be gender equitable.' Arguments for gender equality were pursued in tandem with those for social rights. As a consequence, bot…
Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context
Social Policy in a Development Context is a new series which places social policy at the centre of research while maintaining the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)'s unified approach to social development. The series provides a new and exciting contribution to the literature in economic development and social policy. In economic development, social policy has been recognized as an integral part of development, but …
Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context
Social Policy in a Development Context is a new series which places social policy at the centre of research while maintaining the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)'s unified approach to social development. The series provides a new and exciting contribution to the literature in economic development and social policy. In economic development, social policy has been recognized as an integral part of development, but …
Democratization
Go Home or Die Here
xenophobic attacks that started in Alexandra, Johannesburg in May 2008 before quickly spreading around the country caused an outcry across the world and raised many fundamental questions: Of what profound social malaise is xenophobia - and the violence that it inspires - a symptom? Have our economic and political choices created new forms of exclusion that fuel anger and distrust? What consequences does the emergence of xenophobia hold for the id…
Social justice, care and developmental welfare in South Africa
One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives…
Global Constraints on Gender Equality in Care Work
Gornick and Meyers offer proposals for advancing gender egalitarianism in care of children and in the labor market. This article examines the extent to which these proposals can be extended beyond the United States and other wealthy countries. I argue that the Gornick and Meyers proposals are dependent on a particular set of global and national labor market factors, and on a peculiar configuration of institutions and political forces. The article…
After Apartheid
Framing essay
Sociology (38 obras) · Political science (37 obras) · Politics (31 obras) · Law (29 obras) · Gender Studies (24 obras) · Gender Studies (19 obras) · Democracy (18 obras) · Gender Politics and Representation (17 obras) · Law (15 obras) · South African History and Culture (15 obras)