Ccs Events and Activities, May - August 2006
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
How Society Subsidizes Big Food and Poor Health Invited Commentary
How Society Subsidizes Big Food and Poor Health Invited Commentary Invited Commentary How Society Subsidizes Big Food and Poor Health Raj Patel, PhD Approximately 80% of calories eaten in the United States are Farmer debt has increased since the farm crisis of the mid- grown domestically.1 Yet, the US diet is a leading cause of mor- 1980s. Subsidies are vital for highly indebted farmers to pay bidity. The analysis by Siegel et al2 in this issue of JAMA Internal their creditors. Not all farmers benefit from government sup- Medicine suggests that through commodity subsidies that encour- port: previous Farm Bills have supported approximately 40% age poor diet we are, in part, paying for our own demise. of US farmers, with the rest being ineligible for subsidy. Al- However, commodity subsidies are a small part of a big- though some among the beneficiaries are larger-scale enter- ger problem. From 2014 to 2023, the 2014 US Farm Bill will cost prises, many are not. Yanking away the income on which many $956 billion (letter from D. W. Elmendorf to Frank D. Lucas, depend will do little to help and may cause harm. chair of the House Commit- Our food policies must also take farmworkers into ac- tee on Agriculture; http: count. Agricultural laborers earn a mean annual salary of Related article //www.cbo.gov/sites/default $19 300 in the United States.4 Farmworkers in the United States /files/cbofiles/attachments are not covered by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (Na- /hr2642LucasLtr.pdf), of which direct support for commodity tional Labor Relations Act of 1935. -
The Long Green Revolution
The Journal of Peasant Studies ISSN: 0306-6150 (Print) 1743-9361 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjps20 The Long Green Revolution Raj Patel To cite this article: Raj Patel (2013) The Long Green Revolution, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 40:1, 1-63, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2012.719224 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2012.719224 Published online: 16 Nov 2012. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 9735 View related articles Citing articles: 28 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fjps20 Download by: [The University of Edinburgh] Date: 17 January 2016, At: 10:55 The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2013 Vol. 40, No. 1, 1–63, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2012.719224 The Long Green Revolution Raj Patel To combat climate change and hunger, a number of governments, foundations and aid agencies have called for a ‘New Green Revolution’. Such calls obfuscate the dynamics of the Green Revolution. Using Arrighi’s analysis of capital accumulation cycles, it is possible to trace a Long Green Revolution that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Such an analysis illuminates common- alities in past and present Green Revolutions, including their bases in class struggles and crises of accumulation, modes of governance – particularly in the links between governments and philanthropic institutions – and the institutions through which truths about agricultural change were produced and became known. Such an analysis also suggests processes of continuity between the original Green Revolution and features of twenty-first-century agricultural change, while providing a historical grounding in international financial capital’s structural changes to help explain some of the novel features that accompany the New Green Revolution, such as ‘land grabs’, patents on life, and nutritionism. -
Anna Selmeczi Central European University Selmeczi [email protected]
“We are the people who don’t count” – Contesting biopolitical abandonment Anna Selmeczi Central European University [email protected] Paper to be presented at the 2010 ISA Convention in New Orleans, February 17-20th Panel: Governing Life Globally: The Biopolitics of Development and Security Work in progress – please do not cite without the author’s permission. Comments are most welcome. 2 “We are the people who don’t count” – Contesting biopolitical abandonment 1. Introduction About a year before his lecture series “Society Must be Defended!”, in which he first elaborated the notion of biopolitics, in a talk given in Rio de Janeiro, Foucault discussed the “Birth of the Social Medicine”. As a half-way stage of the evolution of what later became public health, between the German ‘state medicine’ and the English ‘labor-force medicine’, he described a model taking shape in the 18th century French cities and referred to it as ‘urban medicine’. With view to the crucial role of circulation in creating a healthy milieu, the main aim of this model was to secure the purity of that which circulates, thus, potential sources of epidemics or endemics had to be placed outside the flaw of air and water nurturing urban life. According to Foucault (2000a), it was at this period that “piling-up refuse” was problematized as hazardous and thus places producing or containing refuse – cemeteries, ossuaries, and slaughterhouses – were relocated to the outskirts of the towns. As opposed to this model, which was the “medicine of things”, with industrialization radically increasing their presence in the cities, during the subsequent period of the labor force medicine, workers and the poor had become to be regarded as threats and, in parallel, circulation had been redefined as – beyond the flow of things such as air and water – including the circulation of individuals too (Ibid., 150). -
Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa
“WHERE THERE IS FIRE, THERE IS POLITICS”: Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa KERRY RYAN CHANCE Harvard University Together, hand in hand, with our boxes of matches . we shall liberate this country. —Winnie Mandela, 1986 Faku and I stood surrounded by billowing smoke. In the shack settlement of Slovo Road,1 on the outskirts of the South African port city of Durban, flames flickered between piles of debris, which the day before had been wood-plank and plastic tarpaulin walls. The conflagration began early in the morning. Within hours, before the arrival of fire trucks or ambulances, the two thousand house- holds that comprised the settlement as we knew it had burnt to the ground. On a hillcrest in Slovo, Abahlali baseMjondolo (an isiZulu phrase meaning “residents of the shacks”) was gathered in a mass meeting. Slovo was a founding settlement of Abahlali, a leading poor people’s movement that emerged from a burning road blockade during protests in 2005. In part, the meeting was to mourn. Five people had been found dead that day in the remains, including Faku’s neighbor. “Where there is fire, there is politics,” Faku said to me. This fire, like others before, had been covered by the local press and radio, some journalists having been notified by Abahlali via text message and online press release. The Red Cross soon set up a makeshift soup kitchen, and the city government provided emergency shelter in the form of a large, brightly striped communal tent. Residents, meanwhile, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 30, Issue 3, pp. 394–423, ISSN 0886-7356, online ISSN 1548-1360. -
Community Struggle from Kennedy Road Jacob Bryant SIT Study Abroad
SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Fall 2005 Towards Delivery and Dignity: Community Struggle From Kennedy Road Jacob Bryant SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Politics and Social Change Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Bryant, Jacob, "Towards Delivery and Dignity: Community Struggle From Kennedy Road" (2005). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 404. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/404 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TOWARDS DELIVERY AND DIGNITY: COMMUNITY STRUGGLE FROM KENNEDY ROAD Jacob Bryant Richard Pithouse, Center for Civil Society School for International Training South Africa: Reconciliation and Development Fall 2005 “The struggle versus apartheid has been a little bit achieved, though not yet, not in the right way. That’s why we’re still in the struggle, to make sure things are done right. We’re still on the road, we’re still grieving for something to be achieved, we’re still struggling for more.” -- Sbusiso Vincent Mzimela “The ANC said ‘a better life for all,’ but I don’t know, it’s not a better life for all, especially if you live in the shacks. We waited for the promises from 1994, up to 2004, that’s 10 years of waiting for the promises from the government. -
The Struggles of Abahlali Basemjondolo As an African Philosophy in the Making
A journal dedicated to the scholarship of teaching and learning in the ‘global South’ Volume 4 , Issue 1 April 20 20 Pages: 26 -36 Peer-reviewed article Living Ubuntu: The struggles of Abahlali BaseMjondolo as an African philosophy in the making Motlatsi Khosi University of South Africa [email protected] Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology Abstract What does it mean to engage in a philosophy of struggle and emancipation in our South African context? As part of my MA research I took an internship with Abahlali BaseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement whose office is based in central Durban. Their members reside in various settlements within KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape. Whilst interning at the movement I conducted interviews with some of their members, using this experience to gain insight into the movement’s theory and philosophy. Here I was challenged by what it means to do research using narrative as the foundation of my work. It is through narrative that one can tackle the problematic representations of black people in academia and society. I argue that in this movement a philosophy is at work. Their philosophy is based on the lived experience of struggle. As producers of knowledge, I argue that they represent the workings of Ubuntu. Using Maboge B. Ramose’s (2002) explanation of ‘Ubuntu as philosophy’ I show how it can help us understand what it means to be human and how this is being affirmed in spaces of struggle. As agents of struggle we (black people) must be recognised for how we create knowledge. -
You'll Never Silence the Voice of the Voiceless
YOU’LL NEVER SILENCE THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS CRITICAL VOICES OF ACTIVISTS IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA Kate Gunby Richard Pithouse School for International Training South Africa: Reconciliation and Development Fall 2007 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………..2 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………3 Background……………………………………………………………………………………4 Abahlali………………………………………………………………………………..4 Church Land Programme…..…………………………………………………….........6 Treatment Action Campaign..…………………………………………………….…...7 Methodology…………………………………..……………………………………………..11 Research Limitations.………………………………………………………………...............12 Interview Write-Ups Harriet Bolton…………………….…………………………………………………..13 System Cele…………………………………………………………………………..20 Lindelani (Mashumi) Figlan...………………………………………………………..23 Gary Govindsamy……………………………………………………………….........31 Louisa Motha…………………………………………………………………………39 Kiru Naidoo…………………………………………………………………………..42 David Ntseng…………………………………………………………………………51 Xolani Tsalong……………………………………………………………….............60 Reflection and Discussion...……………………………………………………………….....66 Teach the Masses that Everything Depends on Them…………………………….....66 The ANC Will Stay in Power for a Long Time……………………….......................67 We Want to be Treated as Decent Human Beings like Everyone Else………………69 Just a Piece of Paper Thrown Aside……………………….........................................69 The Tradition of Obedience……………………………………………………….....70 The ANC Has Effectively Demobilized and Decimated Civil Society……………...72 Don’t Talk About Us, Talk To -
Impact Campaigns, Summarised in Impact Reports Which Are Published on Our Website
@britdoc britdoc.org 2 The Art of Impact. STORIES CAN CONQUER FEAR, YOU KNOW. THEY CAN MAKE BEN OKRI POET THE HEART LARGER. 04 The Art of Impact. The Impact of Art. 05 OUR ABOUT FUNDS OUR BRITDOC p34 p06 FILMS p40 Helping good films be great Engaging new HELLO partners GOOD PITCH p82 IMPACT Sharing our FIELD GUIDE learning p124 We are a nonprofit, founded in 2005, committed to enabling great Building new documentary films and connecting audiences them to audiences. Doing and measuring Based in London and New York, we work with filmmakers and partners globally, reaching IMPACT DOC audiences all over the world. AWARD ACADEMY p118 p94 In this book you can find out SOMETHING more about what we do and IMPACT REAL how it fits into our five DISTRIBUTION p102 interconnected strategic areas. p106 06 The Art of Impact. The Impact of Art. 07 “For many years, BRITDOC has spotted and supported the most urgent projects – OUR MISSION OUR DRIVING PRINCIPLE nurturing them with love, ensuring they make a difference. But gradually We befriend great filmmakers, Great documentaries enrich BRITDOC became more support great films, broker the lives of individuals. They than a fund. It is, by now, new partnerships, build have a unique ability to the forum for our most important conversations new business models, share engage and connect people, in nonfiction cinema.” knowledge and develop transform communities and Joshua Oppenheimer Director audiences globally. improve societies. “ BRITDOC are experts in We aim to lead by example — That’s why we are dedicated collaboration, innovation and rapid prototyping.” innovate, share and be copied, to the Impact of Art, and the Cara Mertes and innovate again. -
Shack Fires Are No Accident by Raj Patel and Richard Pithouse Before the Treatment Action Campaign Successfully Politicised AIDS
Shack Fires are No Accident by Raj Patel and Richard Pithouse Before the Treatment Action Campaign successfully politicised AIDS it was widely assumed that people killed by the HI virus had died from natural causes. Now, outside of the Presidency, it is widely accepted that people who die from AIDS are most often killed by a profoundly immoral policy rather than a treatable virus. A similar politicisation needs to be fought for with regard to shack fires. Disastrous fires are regular events in shack settlements. People are regularly killed and badly burnt. They are also subject to the major set backs that follow from a total loss of property, including things like I.D. books and school uniforms that are necessary to access the resources that the state does provide to the poor. In Durban shack dwellers often do everything that they can to cope with the constant danger of fires. In many settlements there are volunteers who take turns at standing watch for fires. When half of the Lacey Road settlement in Sydenham burnt down last month the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, was able to able to send in teams of relief workers from nearby settlements to clean up and reconstruct the settlement and to use various networks in and outside of the settlements to arrange large donations of food, clothing, blankets and building materials. Abahlali baseMjondolo have also invested a lot of time in looking for safer options for cooking and lighting. Recently, a promoter of a new fuel - ethanol (a sop for SA's sugar cane industry) - came to the Kennedy Road settlement, to advertise a stove that is supposedly cleaner, safer and cheaper than paraffin. -
Izwi Labampofu
December 06 Volume 1, Issue 1 Mahala Free: Please read and pass on 86 Kennedy Road, Clare Estate IZWI LABAMPOFU Durban 4098 South Africa www.abahlali.org Editorial Collective For This Issue: System Cele, M’du Hlongwa, Fazel Khan, VOICE of THE POOR Mnikelo Ndabankulu, Zama Ndlovu, Richard Pithouse, Antonis Vradis & Thoko Zikode, Special thanks to Daniel Bailey, COHRE. Newspaper of the Abahlali Basemjondolo Movement Thanks also to Anthony Collins for use of his house and eqipment. Funeral). Bazibophezele ukulwela Ngakusasa bavela e nkantolo belimele umhlaba nezindlu,ukususwa ngenk- ngenxa yokushaywa kanzima ama- Abahlali Bayanda! ani. Emashini eyasukela ku Foreman phoyisa. Unsumpa wale police station u Abahlali abawu 45.Sebeke bamenywa Glen Nayeger wathwetshulwa amanye Inhlangano yaBahlali baseMjondolo la kuKennedy wathi bakhathele ukudlala kwi nkulumo mpikiswano ne Meya ye amaphoyisa eshaya ngesihluku o Sbu no inhlangano enkulu yabantu abampofu amakhansela ebadayisa .etshela intatheli Theku u Obed Mlaba ku Asikhulume Philani ebangqubuza ezindongeni nokwa eNingizimu Afrika. Akusiyo inhlanga- u-Fred Kockott emva kwalokho Abahlali uhlelo olukumabonakude.Ngo Sep- holela ekutheni u Philani aquleke. Nase Mo- no yezepolitiki. Isebenzisana nabanye abawu1200 kuKennedy bamasha befuna themba 11, I GAGASI FM lamema u tala Heights kwenziwa isihluku esifanayo Abahlali baseMjondolo okubalwa kubo kudedelwe amalungu abo awu 14 kodwa Sbu Zikode no Philani Zungu kanye sokuhlukunyezwa kwabantu amaphoyisa, nabadayisi basemgwaqeni, Inamalungu avinjwa ngamaphoyisa ngezinja nesisa no Mnikelo Ndabankulu,ukuthi bacha- nakweminye imijondolo eminingi.Lolu emijondolo engu 34 eyehlukene .Ikhule esikhalisa unyembezi. Ngalobobusuku za kabanzi ngomzabalazo wabahlali. dlame olubhekiswe kwabampofu lusho ngokuqala kubhikishwe eKennedy Road uSbu Zikode owayengusihlalo ngaleso- Kodwa ababange besafi ka ngenxa ukuthi Abahlali Base Mjondolo basahlalel- ngoMashi 2005. -
Journal of Asian and African Studies
Journal of Asian and African Studies http://jas.sagepub.com/ Abahlali's Vocal Politics of Proximity: Speaking, Suffering and Political Subjectivization Anna Selmeczi Journal of Asian and African Studies 2012 47: 498 DOI: 10.1177/0021909612452703 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jas.sagepub.com/content/47/5/498 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Journal of Asian and African Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jas.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jas.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jas.sagepub.com/content/47/5/498.refs.html >> Version of Record - Oct 1, 2012 What is This? Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com at Rhodes University Library on October 19, 2012 JAS47510.1177/0021909612452703Journal of Asian and African StudiesSelmeczi 4527032012 Article J A A S Journal of Asian and African Studies 47(5) 498 –515 Abahlali’s Vocal Politics of © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: Proximity: Speaking, Suffering sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0021909612452703 and Political Subjectivization jas.sagepub.com Anna Selmeczi Central European University, Hungary Abstract Using as its point of departure the claim that today the urban is the main site for the abandonment of superfluous people, this article explores the emancipatory politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Based on a notion of political subjectivization as the appropriation of excess freedom, I argue that Abahlali disrupt the order of the ‘world-class city’ when they expose the contradiction between the democratic inscriptions of equality and the lethal segmentation of the urban order. -
'Choice Lite' – Food Politics on the Global Stage
Power Politics, Agribusiness, and 'Choice Lite' – Food Politics on the Global Stage From Foreign Policy magazine - “The New Geopolitics of Food” and “How Food Explains the World” • “Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally.” • Comparing the current situation with the global food crisis of 2007-2008 • “Civilization can survive the loss of its oil reserves, but not the loss of its soil reserves.” • “Everything from falling water tables to eroding soils and the consequences of global warming means that the world's food supply is unlikely to keep up with our collectively growing appetites.” ◦ What is behind this precipitous rise in demand? • Global food yields are no longer going up, up, up – why not? • Food and water scarcity as a microcosm of the 'coming resource wars' • “As land and water become scarcer, as the Earth's temperature rises, and as world food security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. Land grabbing, water grabbing, and buying grain directly from farmers in exporting countries are now integral parts of a global power struggle for food security.” Framing International Development: Neoliberalism vs. the Anti-Globalization Movement • It's important to understand that Raj Patel is firmly on the side of the rural poor, and that there are arguments to be made in favor of neoliberal economic globalization ◦ Going back to the start: understanding comparative advantage ◦ Bretton Woods, the international financial institutions, and the Washington Consensus ▪ The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization • The role of Structural Adjustment Programs (Patel 94-95) Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power, and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System Introduction • “That geography matters so much rather overturns the idea that personal choice is the key to preventing obesity.” (re.