Natascha Mueller-Hirth

Corporate Social Responsibility and Development in South Africa: Socio-economic Contexts and Contemporary Issues

This chapter will discuss historical contexts and contemporary issues in Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa. Here, the private sector has been forced to adopt socially responsible policies that are more advanced than those in many of the richer economies; spending in Corporate Social Investment (CSI) far exceeds that of wealthier countries. This is due to the adoption of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) legislation, the set of affirmative action policies adopted by the post-apartheid government to give historically disadvantaged groups economic opportunity. Relationships between business and society in South Africa are thus significantly shaped by the country’s divided history of colonialism and apartheid, as well as by its present developmental challenges. Indeed, given that big business was one of the main beneficiaries of the Apartheid regime, it was ironically apartheid and the social unrest that it brought about that first stimulated corporate social responsibility practices in the country. Today, any South African company’s performance is rated on a number of BEE scorecards, with companies collecting points for Corporate Social Responsibility. Although corporate involvement in development is usually portrayed as diametrically opposed to the state’s involvement, the South Africa government has a very active role in defining and motivating CSR. At the same time, CSR funding is becoming ever more vital for the non-profit sector, with NGOs receiving an average of 20 % of their income from corporations. Moreover, CSI spending in 2012 by the top 200 South African companies alone amounted to a total of R7 billion, of which over a third was channelled through non-profit organisations. These complex intersectoral relationships under the banner of CSR have led to a maturing and professionalisation of companies’ CSR strategies and practices in recent years, which this chapter will outline with reference to recent scholarship and to original research by the author.

Women’s experiences of peacebuilding in violence-affected communities in Kenya

Abstract Despite the attention to gender and conflict in empirical positivist peace research, and the interest in local agency in recent peacebuilding literature, women’s understandings and lived experiences of peacebuilding are not necessarily well accounted for. This article, drawing on interviews, focus groups and observation research with 57 female victims/survivors of post-election violence in Kenya, provides an ethnographic study of women’s largely informal peacebuilding activities, ranging from mediation and dialogue to economic empowerment. It analyses women’s constructions and ways of making sense of being peacebuilders, demonstrating that, while participants employed dominant gender frames, they exerted considerable transformative agency in their communities. It argues that their ‘gendered responsibility for peace’ at community level is simultaneously empowering and disempowering. The research aims to increase understanding of the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the ways in which women exercise peacebuilding agency through a focus on their own voices and lived experiences.

Sri Lankan Voices

This chapter gives voice to the sample of Sri Lankan victims. It addresses how the sample was obtained and studied before giving a historical account of Sri Lanka’s conflict and the ambivalence of its ‘victor’s peace’. The impact of the victor’s peace on the double victimhood of Tamils is the central motif for understanding the victimhood experience of Tamils. The victimhood experiences of Sinhalese victims are not ignored but they are contrasted with the double victimhood of Tamils. The chapter addresses the standard themes for capturing the voice of victims, including topics like competitive victimhood, attitudes towards the erstwhile enemy, their emotional landscape, such as feelings of anger, hope forgiveness and compromise, and grief and loss. The structural inequalities faced in particular by Tamils are addressed for their impact on the victimhood experience.

South African Voices

This chapter gives voice to our sample of South African victims and explains the South African sample of victims. The chapter begins with a history of South Africa and the development of policies of racial segregation under the British and apartheid under Afrikaner nationalism. It then proceeds to develop the same themes that South Africa’s victims gave voice to, such that the chapter discusses South African victims’ notions of competitive victimhood, their emotional landscape, exploring the meaning of forgiveness, hope and the future in a South African context. Victims’ attitudes towards Whites are addressed as a legacy of apartheid, and the impact of this legacy is shown in the ambivalence victims have toward hope and the future. The structural inequalities faced by most first generation victims of apartheid are highlighted as they impact on victims’ hopes for the future.

Northern Ireland Voices

This chapter gives voice to our sample of Northern Irish victims. After a historical survey of the Northern Irish conflict and ‘the Troubles’, this chapter introduces the Northern Irish sample of victims and focuses on the central themes that they gave voice to. These include their understanding of the victim category and whether or not they understood this competitively to be inclusive or restricted, how they coped with stress and difficult memories, their emotional landscape, such as the meanings they attributed to compromise, hope, forgiveness, and the future, as well as their attitudes toward erstwhile enemies and ‘the other’, the reciprocity of the peace agreement and the fairness of the peace settlement, and their attitudes towards the past.

Forgiveness and the Practice of Compromise in Post-apartheid South Africa

This chapter examines one of the mediators of compromise, the capacity for forgiveness. Three dominant understandings of forgiveness emerged from the narratives of South African victims of human rights violations interviewed for this research: religious forgiveness, secular forgiveness, and forgiveness as coping. While there were relatively high levels of forgiveness among the victims interviewed for this study, personal or interpersonal forgiveness is not a necessary condition for the practice of compromise, whereas third-party forgiveness is. What is more, the chapter demonstrates that forgiveness is contingent on senses of reciprocity, the fairness of the peace process, and contemporary experiences of social justice, and can wane or be withdrawn even years after the formal end of violence. Contrary to a supposed linear temporality of peace processes within which healing takes place progressively such that forgiveness and trust increase with the passage of time, contemporary victimisation experiences can bring back negative emotions about the past that can shape individuals’ capacity for forgiveness. The conditions that sustain forgiveness therefore need to be continually supported.

Everyday Life Peacebuilding

The victims’ voices captured in the previous three chapters are used in this chapter to develop the conceptual argument about the nature, limits and strengths of everyday life peacebuilding. A review and critique is given of the concept of everyday life peacebuilding as it has developed in International Relations Studies. The chapter argues that sociology’s special understanding of the nature of everyday life adds to discussions in International Relations Studies and elaborates the process in positive ways. Examples are given from the empirical data to show how sociologically, everyday life is not only a space where certain forms of peacebuilding are done, but a mode of reasoning, in which ‘getting along’ with one another after conflict as a way of thinking is made normal, routine and everyday.

Centring Victims in Peacebuilding

The silencing of victims in peace processes is contrasted with the need to mainstream or centre them in peacebuilding. This mainstreaming is done via the idea of everyday life peacebuilding by victims. This chapter introduces the idea of everyday life. It explores how conflict brutalizes everyday life and looks at how this brutalization is manifested in Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and South Africa. Sociological approaches to everyday life are outlined and the chapter explores how sociological understandings broaden the understanding and range of everyday life peacebuilding. A sociological lens is used to help us understand the victim category and how victimhood is socially constructed. The social construction of victims as a ‘problem’ in peace processes, although of different sorts, is contrasted with their role as moral beacons, which requires victims and victim issues to be mainstreamed rather than side lined in peace processes.

Business and Social Peace Processes: How Can Insights from Post-conflict Studies Help CSR to Address Peace and Reconciliation?

Private sector activities have often been linked to the fuelling of conflict and violence. At the same time, there has been growing interest in the contributions that the business sector can potentially make to peace, both from within academia (for example the ‘peace through commerce’ literature) and in the global institutional realm (for example the Business for Peace agenda). Proponents of such approaches claim that businesses have roles to play not only in contributing to growth and socio-economic development, but also in resolving or preventing conflict.