Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Can rights-based activism be tranformative? Analysing grassroots mobilisation in the Anti-Privatisation Forum
Author:Runciman, Carin
Year:2014
Periodical:Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa (ISSN 0258-7696)
Issue:84
Pages:31-52
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:political action
action groups
social change
External link:https://muse.jhu.edu/article/545096
Abstract:This article challenges the distinction often made in the literature about South Africa's new social movements between those which pursue a rights-based approach to collective action and those that advocate wider transformative economic, political and social change. It argues that this dichotomy is based on a narrow interpretation of the content of rights-based activism and counter-hegemonic challenges which belie the messy everyday realities of how political mobilisation is forged in the entangled relations between hegemony and counter-hegemony. Through an analysis of the collective-action frames of two affiliates of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), the article shows how rights and anti-capitalism were understood within each organisation. It also demonstrates how the differing interpretations were forged in interaction with the localised political-opportunity structure. In so doing, this article expands the empirical analysis of grassroots community-based organisations in South Africa and contributes to debates on the counter-hegemonic potential of rights-based activism. Bibliogr., notes, ref. sum [Journal abstract]
Views
Cover