AF/PO/HS 352 POWER & PROTEST: TO PRESENT IES Abroad Cape Town

DESCRIPTION: Protest is a fundamentally embodied act: it draws its meaning and power from the body’s visibility (and often audibility) in a symbolic choice of space. This course begins, therefore, with a contextual grounding in the meaning of bodies and voices in a South African context. Simply put, a history of life possibilities being tied to minute embodied differences mean that South Africans see bodies very particularly: as powerful (and dangerous) living texts.

This course will consider protest in as both a fundamental part of historical record, charting some of the major turning points, movements and state responses including Soweto, the Women’s March and Sharpeville, as well as a vital contemporary means of empowering active and engaged citizenship.

Students will begin to understand protest not merely as a social act, but as a staged choreography of dissent, using performance theory to unpack how and why protest movements achieve their efficacy. We will consider various methods of South African protest, from the more traditional toyi toyi and range of protest songs to the creative use of space, as employed particularly recently by the Fallists and Reclaim the City activists.

Throughout this course, students will be encouraged to visit places at the heart of past protest action and speak to activists.

CREDITS: 3

CONTACT HOURS: 45

LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATION: English

ADDITIONAL COST: None

PREREQUISITES: None

METHOD OF PRESENTATION: One lecture and one two-hour workshop per week

REQUIRED WORK AND FORM OF ASSESSMENT: • Weekly pop quiz on reading content. 10 formative assessments - 20% • One 2500 word essay - 40% • One 20 minute presentation demonstrating research on a contemporary Capetonian protest - 40%

Course Participation Students are required to attend one weekly lecture and one practical workshop weekly. Students who do not attend class presentations during the final three weeks when they are not presenting their own projects will be subject to a mark deduction for lack of group participation.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of the course students will be able to: • Identify a range of key South African protests and connect socio-historical conditions with protest action • Conceptualize cultural sensibilities around embodied spectacle • Analyze and critique the efficacy of performative techniques in South African protest • Evaluate critical arguments around protest tactics, efficacy and representation • Synthesize their own research into an engaging group presentation

CONTENT:

Week Content Assignments

Week 1: 1. Session 1: This introductory lecture Readings

situates South African protest history Understanding Protest, against an oppressive socio-political • https://www.youtube.co Understanding history of colonial and Apartheid rule. m/watch?v=MOA66AOG5 South Africa It considers retrospective struggle 2M. narratives as perpetuated in popular culture and explores Lars Buur’s • Arendt, Hannah. 1958. argument that, despite popular ‘Power and the Space of narratives of stoic peaceful Appearance’ in The resistance, the most successful of Human Condition. protest tactics often included University of Chicago campaigns of civil disobedience and Press. Pp 199 – 206. the more militant actions of armed resistance wings such as Umkhonto • Buur, Lars. 2009. ‘The we Sizwe. The legacy of these Horror of the Mob: The historical contexts will be explored in Violence of Imagination relation to contemporary South in South Africa’ in African protest psychology and Critique of Anthropology. tactics Volume 29, Number 1. Pp 5-24.

• Connerton, Paul. 1989. 2. Session 2 and 3: Workshop Selected excerpts from How Societies Discussion of lived Apartheid Remember. Cambridge realities. Screening of documentary University Press. clips e.g. The Film Archives. 2012. Apartheid in South Africa Laws, History: Documentary Film - Raw Footage (1957).

Assigning of working groups, • ‘Introduction’. Pp 1 – 23 establishment of class expectations, and ‘Understanding the backgrounds and exercises laying of Right to Protest in South emotional and group trust Africa’. Pp 36 – 41. Both groundwork for semester’s in Duncan, Jane. 2016. excursions and talks. Protest Nation. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg.

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 2: 3. Session 4: This lecture seeks to Readings

situate when anthropologist Clifford South African sensibility Geertz would understand to be a • Foster, Susan Leigh. unique South African cultural ‘Choreographies of sensibility – a feeling for and Protest’ in Theatre understanding of life. Through case Journal. Volume 55, studies drawn from music, sport, art Number 3. October and, inevitably, politics it will suggest 2003. Available online: that, for reasons both practical and https://muse.jhu.edu/art historical, any South African icle/47705 sensibility manifests in an acute affinity for spectacles of embodied • Gray, Anne-Marie. 1999. anxiety. “Liberation songs sung by black South Africans during the 20th Century” in International Journal 4. Session 5 and 6: Workshop. Using of Music Education. our understanding of South Africa’s Volume 33, Issue 1. Geertzian sensibility and Susan Leigh Foster’s seminal work on • Jolaosho, Omotayo. choreographies of protest as a guide, 2015. ‘Political aesthetics we will explore the centrality of song and embodiment: Sung and movement in South African protest in post-apartheid protest. South Africa’ in Journal of Material Culture. Pp 1- 16. Sage Press.

• Muyanga, Neo (FMR). 'Revolting Music: Songs of Protest in the Global South'. Available online: https://player.fm/series/ fine-minds/revolting- music-songs-of-protest- in-the-global-south-by- neo-muyanga

• Pan African Space Station. 2015. Revolting Songs: Black Music and the Aesthetics of Protest with Neo Muyanga. Available online: https://www.mixcloud.co m/chimurenga/neo- muyanga-revolting- songs-2/.

Deliverables

• Quiz

Week 3 5. Session 7: Where better to begin Readings

than in the classroom itself? This Education week’s lecture considers youth • Heffernan, Anne and protests around education – long a Nieftagodien, Noor. flash point for some of the most 2016. Students Must devastating confrontations with the Rise: Youth Struggle in South African state. This lecture will South Africa Before and establish an understanding of the so- Beyond Soweto ’76. Wits called Bantu education policy and, University Press. inevitably, focus on the 1976 as a central tenant for understanding the stakes of South African education protests.

6. Session 8 & 9: Education reform has • Brockman, Brad. "Every long been set as a national priority; generation has its indeed, post-Apartheid, basic struggle": A brief history education was enshrined in section of 29 as a fundamental constitutional (2008-15)” in Heffernan, right. This workshop will debate Anne and Nieftagodien, conditions and challenges, looking Noor. 2016. Students particularly to activist organisation Must Rise: Youth Equal Education. Various position Struggle in South Africa papers from their 2015 publication Before and Beyond Taking Equal Education into the Soweto ’76. Wits Classroom University Press. (https://equaleducation.org.za/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/EE-in-the- Deliverables classroom_EBook.pdf) will be distributed and debated. Quiz

Week 4 7. Session 10: April 2015 saw the Readings

performative and fiercely contested Education beginnings of the Fallism movements • Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. of #RhodesMustFall and “Disruption as a #FeesMustFall. As students communicative strategy: undertaking higher education in The case of South Africa, it is both appropriate #FeesMustFall and and indeed necessary that you are #RhodesMustFall aware of, and responsive to, the students’ protests in ongoing campaigns of practical and South Africa” in Journal philosophical engagement that you of African Media Studies. will find yourselves in. This week’s Volume 9, Number 2. Pp lecture will carefully contextualize the 351 – 373. Intellect context and trajectory of the protests Publishing. so far. Though theoretical reading is prescribed for the week, students would do well to approach their • Naidoo, Leigh-Ann. semester abroad as a remarkable “Contemporary student opportunity for extended experiential politics in South Africa learning. The rise of the black-led student movements of #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall in 2015” 8. Session 11 & 12: Workshop. Q&A in Heffernan, Anne and with education activists OR, as Nieftagodien, Noor. appropriate, campus visits to analyze 2016. Students Must artwork and representation. Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76. Wits University Press.

Recommended for reference:

• SERI. September 2017. Student Protests: A Legal and Practical Guide. Available online: http://www.seri- sa.org/images/Students _rights_guide_FINAL_for _web.pdf

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 5 9. Session 13: We will trace the historic Readings

roots of gender-based activism in Gender South Africa, considering the roles • ‘Riot Porn: Media played by major activist Coverage of Protests and organisations such as the South Africa’ in Duncan, Movement and the ANC Women’s Jane. 2016. Protest League, as well as the significance of Nation. University of the 1956 Women’s March. Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. Pp 142 10. Session 14 & 15: Workshop. – 162. Contemporary and historical media analysis of gender representation, as Deliverables well as coverage of GBV and LGBTIQ issues Quiz

Essay One due end of week 5. Week 6 11. Session 16: Lecture. In the wake of Readings

President ’s presidency,

Gender ushered in on the back of a • Moffett, Helen. ‘Sexual controversial rape trial, we will Violence, Civil Society consider the escalation of and the New contemporary activism around the Constitution’ in Britton, complex intersectional relationship Hannah; Fish, Jennifer between race, class and gender. The and Meintjes, Sheila. frequency and context of gender- 2008. Women’s Activism based violence will be established, in South Africa: Working and several successful protest Across Divides. Pp 154 – campaigns will be studied, including 184. the so-called ‘panty protests’, the ‘Remember Khwezi’ intervention and • Dlavaku, Simamkele the ‘1 in 9’ campaign. (City Press). 14 August 2016. We Came as Four 12. Session 17 & 18: Workshop. Q&A but Stood as 10 000. with activists. Available online: http://city- Site Visit: Triangle Project/Rape press.news24.com/Voice Crisis/ Sonke Gender Justice s/khwezi-protest-we- came-as-4-but-stood-as- 10-000-20160814.

• Nicolson, Greg (Daily Maverick). 8 August 2016. #RememberKhwezi: it worked like a beautiful theatre piece. Available online: https://www.dailymaveri ck.co.za/article/2016- 08-08rememberkhwezi- it-worked-like-a- beautiful-theatre- piece#.WfWOlCN97R0

• Pather, Ra’eesa. (Mail & Guardian). 6 Aug 2016. Four Women, the President and the Protest that Shook the Results Ceremony. Available online: https://mg.co.za/article/ 2016-08-06-four- women-the-president- and-the-protest-that- shoock-the-election- results-ceremony

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 7: 13. Session 19: Service delivery protests Readings

have dramatically escalated in Service Delivery frequency and ferocity post Apartheid • Colvin, Christopher J. restrictions on group gatherings. This and Robins, Steven. week’s lecture considers the context “Drug Patents and Shit behind this, focusing particularly on Politics: Refiguring the sanitation as a human rights issue, Politics of the ‘Scientific’ as well as the particular scatological and the ‘Global’ in Global tactics employed by protestors in Health Interventions” in recent years. Bulled, Nicola. 2017. Thinking Through 14. Session 20 & 21: Discussion on Resistance: a Study of Social Justice Coalition Oppositions to Contemporary Public Site Visit: Social Justice Coalition in Health Practice. the Isivivana Centre and go on their Routledge, New York. organized ‘shit tour’.

• Hay, Mark (Vice). 8 April 2015. A Brief History of People Protesting Stuff with Poop. Available online: https://www.vice.com/e n_us/article/wd7n8z/a- brief-history-of-people- protesting-stuff-with- poop-197.

• Isaac, Louis and Geffen, Nathan (GroundUp). 30 April 2014. Portapotties Hit Bishopscourt. Available online: https://www.groundup.o rg.za/article/porta- potties-hit- bishopscourt_1743/.

• Robins, Steven. 2014. “Poo Wars as matter out of place: ‘Toilets for Africa’ in Cape Town” in Anthropology Today. Volume 30, Number 1.

• Thompson, Lisa and Nleya, Ndodana. ‘Passivity or Protest? Understanding the Dimensions of Mobilisation on Rights to Services in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’ in Coelho Schatten, Vera and von Lieres, Bettina (eds). 2010. Mobilizing for Democracy. Zed Books, New York. Pp 223 – 242.

• West Cape News. 30 April 2014. Poo protestors Cold Shouldered by Bishopscourt. Available online: http://westcapenews.co m/?p=6882.

• Robins, Steven. 2014. “Slow Activism in Fast Times: Reflections on the Politics of Media Spectacles after Apartheid” in Journal of Southern African Studies. Pp 91 – 110.

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 8: 15. Session 22: The lecture Readings

contextualizes the complex, ongoing Space legacy of Apartheid’s designed spatial • Lodge, Tom. 2011. politics, beginning with protest “Voices from a Massacre” against the Group Areas Act and the in Sharpeville: A pass system and its tragic conclusion Massacre and its in the . It will Consequences. Oxford situate students within a parallel University Press. Pp 1 – urban geography, one whose overlay 27. with the current city of Cape Town will be unpacked and critically • Miller, Johnny. Unequal examined. Scenes: South Africa From the Air. Available 16. Session 23 & 24: Workshop. Guest online: speaker: Johnny Miller https://www.lensculture. com/articles/johnny- miller-unequal-scenes- Site Visit: Homecoming south-africa-from-the- Centre and Museum. air.

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 9 17. Session 25: Gentrification is a Readings

complex global phenomenon, Space presenting challenges to sustainable • Abdullah, Mohammed development and dangerously Jameel. 18 April 2017. increasing urban inequalities, even as What exactly is spatial it brings wealth and regeneration into apartheid and why is it suburban areas. Whilst most cities in still relevant in 2017? the world experience problems Available online: associated with gentrification, not https://www.thedailyvox every city in the world was built with .co.za/what-exactly-is- such a blatant, and recent, racially spatial-apartheid-and- oriented design. Continuing with why-is-it-still-relevant- week eight’s theme, we trace the in-2017-mohammed- continuing legacy of spatial Apartheid jameel-abdulla/. in Cape Town that have been exacerbated by gentrification • Frith, Adrian. 2017. Dot processes and examine some of the Maps of Racial activist tactics currently challenging Distribution in South the situation. African Cities. Available online: 18. Session 26 & 27: Workshop / Site https://adrianfrith.com/d Visit ot-maps/. Woodstock guided walk and a visit to the Reclaim the City ‘Occupy • Reclaim the City. 2017. University’ at Cissie Gool House, Reclaim the City 2016: formerly the Woodstock Hospital. the Year in Photos. Available online: http://reclaimthecity.org .za/reclaim-the-city- 2016-the-year-in- photos/

• Reclaim the City. 2017. Commute in an Apartheid City. Available online: http://reclaimthecity.org .za/commute/

Deliverables

Quiz

Week 10: 19. Session 28: This lecture considers Readings

protests for state accountability. It State Transparency will specifically target the highly • Lever, Carla. 2016. performative tactics utilized by the ‘Interlude 3’ in Over the EFF opposition party in protesting the Rainbow? Performing Zuma Presidency, but also look at Contemporary South mass mobilization amongst citizens. Africa. PhD thesis. It will critically assess the appropriation of the #MustFall • ‘Dying By Degree: imperative, where a language of Activist Experiences of intertextual protest reference has the Right to Protest’. Pp swiftly developed. 111 – 128.

20. Session 29 & 30: Workshop. Miners • ‘The Police and the Right Shot Down documentary screening to Protest’. Pp 129 – and discussion. 141. In Duncan, Jane. 2016. Protest Nation. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg.

• Wasserman, Herman. 2015. “Marikana and the Media: acts of citizenship and a faith in democracy-to-come” in Social Dynamics. Volume 41, Number 2. Routledge. Pp 375 – 386.

Deliverables Quiz

Week 11: 21. Session 31: Present and receive Deliverables

feedback on research projects. Student presentations Quiz 22. Session 32: Present and receive feedback on research projects Presentation

23. Session 33: Present and receive feedback on research projects

Week 12 24. Session 34: Present and receive Deliverables

feedback on research projects. Student Presentations Quiz 25. Session 35: Present and receive feedback on research projects. Presentation

26. Session 36: Present and receive feedback on research projects.

Week 13 27. Session 37: Tying together the Deliverables

threads from the previous weeks’ Consolidation themes, this lecture will consolidate Final essay due protest from historical to contemporary experiences, revisit some of the earlier case studies and attempt to draw students back to their initial Geertzian notion of cultural sensibility, in the light of more recent class experiences. It will offer final reflection on the values and costs of protest conflict for active citizenship within a democratic system.

28. Session 38 & 39: Workshop: Group debrief session, where students are encouraged to share their personal responses to the material, as well we link their experiences to their own contexts in the States.

FIELD STUDIES • Triangle Project / Rape Crisis /Sonke Gender Justice • Social Justice Coalition in the Isivivana Centre • District Six Homecoming Centre and Museum • Woodstock Guided Walk and a visit to the Reclaim the City ‘Occupy University’ at Cissie Gool House, formerly the Woodstock Hospital.

REQUIRED READINGS • Arendt, Hannah. 1958. ‘Power and the Space of Appearance’ in The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press. Pp 199 – 206. • Buur, Lars. 2009. ‘The Horror of the Mob: The Violence of Imagination in South Africa’ in Critique of Anthropology. Volume 29, Number 1. Pp 5-24. • Connerton, Paul. 1989. Selected excerpts from How Societies Remember. Caridge University Press. • ‘Introduction’. Pp 1 – 23 and ‘Understanding the Right to Protest in South Africa’. Pp 36 – 41. Both in Duncan, Jane. 2016. Protest Nation. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. • Foster, Susan Leigh. ‘Choreographies of Protest’ in Theatre Journal. Volume 55, Number 3. October 2003. Available online: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/47705 • Gray, Anne-Marie. 1999. “Liberation songs sung by black South Africans during the 20th Century” in International Journal of Music Education. Volume 33, Issue 1. • Jolaosho, Omotayo. 2015. ‘Political aesthetics and embodiment: Sung protest in post-apartheid South Africa’ in Journal of Material Culture. Pp 1-16. Sage Press. • Heffernan, Anne and Nieftagodien, Noor. 2016. Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76. Wits University Press. • Brockman, Brad. "Every generation has its struggle": A brief history of Equal Education (2008-15)” in Heffernan, Anne and Nieftagodien, Noor. 2016. Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76. Wits University Press. • Mpofu, Shepherd. 2017. “Disruption as a communicative strategy: The case of #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall students’ ” in Journal of African Media Studies. Volume 9, Number 2. Pp 351 – 373. Intellect Publishing. • Naidoo, Leigh-Ann. “Contemporary student politics in South Africa the rise of the black-led student movements of #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall in 2015” in Heffernan, Anne and Nieftagodien, Noor. 2016. Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto ’76. Wits University Press. • SERI. September 2017. Student Protests: A Legal and Practical Guide. Available online: http://www.seri-sa.org/images/Students_rights_guide_FINAL_for_web.pdf • ‘Riot Porn: Media Coverage of Protests and South Africa’ in Duncan, Jane. 2016. Protest Nation. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. Pp 142 – 162. • Moffett, Helen. ‘Sexual Violence, Civil Society and the New Constitution’ in Britton, Hannah; Fish, Jennifer and Meintjes, Sheila. 2008. Women’s Activism in South Africa: Working Across Divides. Pp 154 – 184. • Dlavaku, Simamkele (City Press). 14 August 2016. We Came as Four but Stood as 10 000. Available online: http://city-press.news24.com/Voices/khwezi- protest-we-came-as-4-but-stood-as-10-000-20160814 . • Nicolson, Greg (Daily Maverick). 8 August 2016. #RememberKhwezi: it worked like a beautiful theatre piece. Available online: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-08-08rememberkhwezi-it-worked- like-a-beautiful-theatre-piece#.WfWOlCN97R0 • Pather, Ra’eesa. (Mail & Guardian). 6 Aug 2016. Four Women, the President and the Protest that Shook the Results Ceremony. Available online: https://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-06-four-women-the-president-and-the-protest- that-shoock-the-election-results-ceremony • Colvin, Christopher J. and Robins, Steven. “Drug Patents and Shit Politics: Refiguring the Politics of the ‘Scientific’ and the ‘Global’ in Global Health Interventions” in Bulled, Nicola. 2017. Thinking Through Resistance: a Study of Oppositions to Contemporary Public Health Practice. Routledge, New York. • Hay, Mark (Vice). 8 April 2015. A Brief History of People Protesting Stuff with Poop. Available online: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wd7n8z/a-brief- history-of-people-protesting-stuff-with-poop-197 • Isaac, Louis and Geffen, Nathan (GroundUp). 30 April 2014. Portapotties Hit Bishopscourt. Available online: https://www.groundup.org.za/article/porta- potties-hit-bishopscourt_1743/ • Robins, Steven. 2014. “Poo Wars as matter out of place: ‘Toilets for Africa’ in Cape Town” in Anthropology Today. Volume 30, Number 1. • Thompson, Lisa and Nleya, Ndodana. ‘Passivity or Protest? Understanding the Dimensions of Mobilisation on Rights to Services in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’ in Coelho Schatten, Vera and von Lieres, Bettina (eds). 2010. Mobilizing for Democracy. Zed Books, New York. Pp 223 – 242. • West Cape News. 30 April 2014. Poo protestors Cold Shouldered by Bishopscourt. Available online: http://westcapenews.com/?p=6882. • Robins, Steven. 2014. “Slow Activism in Fast Times: Reflections on the Politics of Media Spectacles after Apartheid” in Journal of Southern African Studies. Pp 91 – 110. • Lodge, Tom. 2011. “Voices from a Massacre” in Sharpeville: A Massacre and its Consequences. Oxford University Press. Pp 1 – 27. • Miller, Johnny. Unequal Scenes: South Africa From the Air. Available online: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/johnny-miller-unequal-scenes-south-africa- from-the-air. • Abdullah, Mohammed Jameel. 18 April 2017. What exactly is spatial apartheid and why is it still relevant in 2017? Available online: https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/what-exactly-is-spatial-apartheid-and-why-is-it- still-relevant-in-2017-mohammed-jameel-abdulla/. • Frith, Adrian. 2017. Dot Maps of Racial Distribution in South African Cities. Available online: https://adrianfrith.com/dot-maps/. • Reclaim the City. 2017. Reclaim the City 2016: the Year in Photos. Available online: http://reclaimthecity.org.za/reclaim-the-city-2016-the-year-in-photos/ • Reclaim the City. 2017. Commute in an Apartheid City. Available online: http://reclaimthecity.org.za/commute/ • Lever, Carla. 2016. ‘Interlude 3’ in Over the Rainbow? Performing Contemporary South Africa. PhD thesis. • ‘Dying By Degree: Activist Experiences of the Right to Protest’. Pp 111 – 128. • ‘The Police and the Right to Protest’. Pp 129 – 141. In Duncan, Jane. 2016. Protest Nation. University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. • Wasserman, Herman. 2015. “Marikana and the Media: acts of citizenship and a faith in democracy-to-come” in Social Dynamics. Volume 41, Number 2. Routledge. Pp 375 –

Documentary • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOA66AOG52M • Miners Shot Down

Online Podcasts • Muyanga, Neo (FMR). 'Revolting Music: Songs of Protest in the Global South'. Available online: https://player.fm/series/fine-minds/revolting-music-songs-of- protest-in-the-global-south-by-neo-muyanga • Pan African Space Station. 2015. Revolting Songs: Black Music and the Aesthetics of Protest with Neo Muyanga. Available online: https://www.mixcloud.com/chimurenga/neo-muyanga-revolting-songs-2

ATTENDANCE POLICY: Students are expected to attend all classes. Should a student be too ill to attend a class, they must inform the lecturer and Academics Manager before class begins. A letter from a doctor may be requested, particularly where more than one class has been missed.

Pending approval by Curriculum Committee Version date: 11.8.17