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Title:A 'political war of words and bullets': defining and defying sides of struggle for housing in Crossroads, South Africa
Author:Benson, Koni
Year:2015
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies (ISSN 1465-3893)
Volume:41
Issue:2
Pages:367-387
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:women's organizations
political action
gender relations
gender inequality
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2015.1013358
Abstract:This article looks at contemporary activism in Crossroads, South Africa, a famous symbol of women's defiance as one of the longest-surviving squatter camps under apartheid. In 1998 the Women's Power Group staged a four-month sit-in at City Council offices, demanding accountability for undelivered housing and public services. This was one of the first and most prolonged of what have become known as the post-apartheid or neoliberal period 'new social movements'. The occupation unravelled into a year of violent conflict in the township and a subsequent Commission of Enquiry into the events. Official documents, even those that revolve around actions taken by women, focus on men acting violently. However, life histories of Women's Power Group (WPG) members tell a very different story about what women were thinking and doing. The author first pieces together the unfolding events, then turning from looking at the history of struggle to looking at the struggle over history, where women's struggles were reframed in an official discourse of naive pawns of shacklords at best, and undeserving, impatient troublemakers at worst. Women's leadership was demobilised, depoliticised, and dislocated from the issues they stood up for and from the celebrated history of women's mobilising in Crossroads. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]
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