Description
Book SynopsisThis fifth volume in the
New South African Review series takes as its starting point the shock wave emanating from the events at Marikana on 16 August 2012 and how it has reverberated throughout politics and society. some of the chapters in the volume refer directly to Marikana. In others, the influence of that fateful day is pervasive if not direct.
Marikana has, for instance, made us look differently at the police and at how order is imposed on society. Monique Marks and David Bruce write that the massacre ‘has come to hold a central place in the analysis of policing, and broader political events since 2012 …’.
The chapters highlight a range of current concerns – political, economic and social. David Dickinson’s chapter looks at the life of the poor in a township from within. in contrast, the chapter on foreign policy by Garth le Pere analyses south Africa’s approach to international relations in the Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma eras. Anthony turton’s account, ‘When gold mining ends’ is a chilling forecast of an impending environmental catastrophe. Both Devan Pillay and noor nieftagodien focus attention on the left and, in different ways, ascribe its rise to a new politics in the wake of Marikana.
The essays in Beyond Marikana present a range of topics and perspectives of interest to general readers, but the book will also be a useful work of reference for students and researchers.
Trade ReviewGilbert M Khadiagala is the Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations at the university of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits).
Prishani Naidoo, Devan Pillay and
Roger Southall are all based at the Department of Sociology at Wits.
Table of ContentsNew political directions?: Post-Marikana Reconstituting and Re-imagining the Left: Prospects and Challenges; Labour and Community Struggles in Post-apartheid South Africa; The Numsa Moments and the Prospects of Left Re-vitalisation in South Africa. Economy, ecology and labour: The South African Economy; Between a Rock and a Hard Place: State-business Relations in the South African Mining Sector; From Wiehahn to Marikana: The Platinum Belt Strike Wave and the Breakdown in Institutionalisation of Industrial Conflict; Pulling a Rabbit from the Proverbial Hat: Dealing with Johannesburg's Slow Onset Uranium Disaster. The state and society: Constitutionalism in South Africa: An 'Unqualified Human Good'?; People's Parliament? Do Citizens Influence South Africa's Legislatures?; Corruption in South Africa: Perceptions and Trends; Groundhog Day? Public Order Policing Twenty Years into Democracy; 'In December We Are Rich, in January We Are Poor': Consumption, Saving, Stealing and Insecurity in the Kasi. SA in the international arena: The Evolution of South Africa's Foreign Policy: A Thematic Essay; South Africa, the BRICS and Human Rights: In Bad Company?; Trading with the Frienemy: How South Africa Depends on African Trade.
