Slow Activism in Fast Times
Reflections on the Politics of Media Spectacles after Apartheid
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4603720 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven Robin, Steven Robins (Stellenbosch University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 91-110 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057070.2014.889517 |
| OpenAlex | W2058009953 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 27 |
Academics and journalists in South Africa routinely reproduce stark oppositions between ‘radical’ social movements that embrace the spectacular revolutionary politics of the barricades, and those that work within the ‘reformist’ logic of the law, liberalism, constitutional democracy and the bureaucratic state. These strikingly different activist strategies also seem to manifest themselves as contrasts between the politics of the instant media spectacle and the patient, long-term organisational work of ‘slow activism’. At one level, the slow and patient styles of activism of South African civil society organisations such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Equal Education (EE) can indeed be contrasted with the spectacle of the burning barricades typically associated with ‘service delivery protests’ and the illegal wildcat strikes that spread throughout the mining and transport sectors in 2012. However, this contrast can also be misleading. By focusing on the case study of the Social Justice Coalition in Khayelitsha in Cape Town, this paper shows that, notwithstanding these apparent differences of political style and repertoire, ‘reformist’ social movements are not averse to using media-friendly spectacles of civil disobedience campaigns to highlight service delivery problems, structural inequalities and social injustices. The SJC case study is specifically concerned with how this particular organisation has drawn on a variety of activist traditions that use media campaigns and the politics of the spectacle as part of a rich repertoire of modes of mass mobilisation
Media studies · Political activism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Gender Studies · Law · Public Spaces through Art · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
Policy engagement as ‘empowered representation’
After the Riot? Rancière, Hamilton, and Radical Politics
Hydropolitical potentialities in a post-'Day Zero' Cape Town
Stamina and the embodiment of expertise
No Overactivism
A multimodal reading of public protests
The Portable Flush Toilet
The limits of participatory democracy and the rise of the informal politics of mediated representation in South Africa
Discourses of ‘service delivery protests’ in South Africa
Reflecting critically on the researcher-participant encounter in focus groups
Poverty, corruption and democracy
Making Power Visible
Third Time Lucky
Efficacy in Action
“We’re making the town dirty”
Slums of hope
If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”? Popular education in the shadows of global reporting on adult learning and education
MbokodoLeadUs
Analyzing Discursive Constructions of Community in Newspaper Articles
The Poolitical City
South Africa’s protest tactics
Shrinking South Africa
The violence of space and spaces of violence
Of Holy Cows and Unholy Politics
Strategic protest and the negotiation of legibility in Cape Town
Making sense of the politics of sanitation in Cape Town
Working time' in environmental activism
| Unique citing works | 27 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,7 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 24 |