Kirk Helliker

Civil society and state-centred struggles

This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the boundaries of civil society. This civil society-state discussion frames the second section of the article, which looks specifically at Zimbabwe. It details civil society as contested terrain (from the late 1990s onwards) within the context of a scholarly debate about agrarian transformation and political change. This debate, which reproduces (in theoretical garb) the key political society (or party) fault-lines within Zimbabwean society, has taken place primarily within the restricted confines of state-centred discourses.

Radical Thinking in South Africa’s Age of Retreat

This article traces the rise and fall of radical praxis in South Africa and offers a critique of the prevailing practices of former Marxists under post-apartheid conditions. Western Marxism emerged in the 1970s in South Africa and Marxist activists became deeply involved in the liberation movements. With the unravelling of apartheid, the main liberation forces made a social pact with capitalist forces and former Marxists embraced a statist project. In the context of the rise of ‘new’ social movements, radical thinking of a more Libertarian kind is emerging in contemporary South Africa.

Transcending Objectifications and Dualisms: Farm Workers and Civil Society in Contemporary Zimbabwe

In the academic literature, civil society is often conceptualized in terms of objectifications and subject—object dichotomies. This is the case with regard to both social movements and non-governmental organizations. This article seeks to transcend such argumentation by providing ‘thick descriptions’ of the agency of farm workers and civil society in the context of land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe. We examine a land-based social movement (and the role of farm workers within it) and the involvement of a particular non-governmental organization in farm worker livelihoods. On this basis, we offer a re-formulation of civil society as a social field marked by ambivalences and tensions.

Patriarchy, Women, Land and Livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe

In this article, we focus on patriarchy, women, land and livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe which arose from the fast track land reform programme. There is now significant literature on A1 farms in Zimbabwe. These studies include a number of ethnographic and comparative studies but this literature does not give sustained attention to patriarchy and women. In addition, though, a small number of works have appeared based upon a more focused gender analysis. We draw upon this more focused literature and offer fresh fieldwork evidence based on recent studies undertaken by two of the authors, in Goromonzi and Mazowe districts. At times, radical socio-spatial reorganisation such as fast track may destabilise systems of patriarchy. In the case of fast track, there has been a reconfiguration of relations between men and women yet this is uneven and contradictory and remains within the confines of patriarchal structures, practices and discourses. At the same time, women have manoeuvred and negotiated at local levels to enhance their lives and livelihoods.

NGOs and rural movements in contemporary South Africa

This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in agrarian transformation.

Imagining Civil Society in Zimbabwe and 'Most of the World'

This chapter re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) calls ‘most of the world’ (beyond the capitalist metropoles) and, in doing so, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an entry point into the literature on civil society. This chapter consists of four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically without any sustained theoretical reflections. Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within the broader international literature on civil society. These three sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil society: between civil society as a set of empirically identifiable organisational formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I reimagine civil society in relation to ‘most of the world’.

Marxisms past and present

Marxism was central to the understanding of South Africa’s struggle for freedom. This article provides a critical analysis of Marxist literature on South Africa since the 1970s, drawing out its relevance for contemporary analyses of the post-apartheid state and for radical politics today. It suggests that while the literature offered important insights into the character of the apartheid state, it failed to provide a critical appraisal of the state per se. Moreover, the capturing of state power by the liberation movement was not grounded in an understanding of the oppressive character of the state-form. The undermining of mainstream Marxism under neo-liberalizing conditions in post-apartheid South Africa has opened up the prospects for anti-statist radical libertarian thinking (including autonomist Marxism), and this thinking is consistent with the practices of certain autonomist popular politics currently emerging. Social theorizing on South Africa has had a complex relationship with Marxism. This article is interested in drawing on this experience in an effort to understand its implications for the ‘new’ South Africa where, 20 years after apartheid’s formal ending, social transformation remains caught in the logic not of Marxism but neo-liberalizing capitalism.

South African marxist state theory — a critical overview

Abstract The article provides a critical analysis of Marxist work on the South African state. It first examines the early Poulantzian‐State Derivationist debate on the relation between state and society, and then discusses the ‘new directions’ which focus on the state itself. The sensitivity of the ‘new directions’ to the traditional Weberian concern about state bureaucracy is important for enriching Marxist theory. But the article concludes by suggesting that a comprehensive dialectical Marxist approach to the South African state still awaits development.

The Party-State in the Land Occupations of Zimbabwe: The Case of Shamva District

There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state’s fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations, but this literature is concerned mainly with post-occupation developments on fast-track farms. This article seeks to contribute to resolving the controversy surrounding the party-state and the land occupations by examining the occupations in the Shamva District of Mashonaland Central Province. The fieldwork for our Shamva study focused exclusively on the land occupations (and not on the fast-track farms) and was undertaken in May 2015. We conclude from our Shamva study that involvement by the party-state did not take on an institutionalised form but was of a personalised character entailing interventions by specific party and state actors.

A feminist perspective on autonomism and commoning, with reference to Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This article engages with the autonomist Marxism of John Holloway from a feminist standpoint. The positions developed by this feminist critique are used to shed new light on the land occupations in contemporary Zimbabwe. Though sympathetic to his work, we argue that Holloway does not sufficiently address gender identity with specific reference to social reproduction and women. The notions of the commons and the process of commoning are consistent with Holloway’s autonomist framework and its complementarities to Silvia Federici’s Marxist feminist lens on the commons is highlighted. Against a tendency within autonomist and commoning theories, we argue for a pronounced identitarian politics as grounded in localised struggles undertaken by women as women. We privilege the significance of women asserting and revaluing their identities as part of a possible project of transformation. For us, struggling against and beyond what exists is invariably rooted in struggles within what exists (including identities).