Writing the Ancestral River is an illuminating and unusual biography of the Kowie River in the Eastern Cape. This tidal river runs through the centre of what used to be called the Zuurveld, a ...formative meeting ground of different peoples who have shaped South Africa's history: Khoikhoi herders, Xhosa pastoralists, Dutch trekboers and British settlers. Their direct descendants continue to live in the area and interact in ways that have been decisively shaped by their shared history. Besides being a social history, this is also a natural history of the river and its catchment area, where dinosaurs once roamed and cycads still grow. As the book shows, the natural world of the Kowie has felt the effects of human settlement, most strikingly through the establishment of a harbour at the mouth of the river in the 19th century and the development of a marina in the late 20th century. Both projects have had a decisive and deleterious impact on the Kowie. By focusing on this 'little' river, the book raises larger questions about colonialism, capitalism, 'development' and ecology. In particular, it asks us to consider the connections between social and environmental justice and injustice. As the author says, 'around the world people are increasingly reconnecting with nature and justice through rivers. Unlike other bodies of water, such as dams, oceans and lakes, rivers have a destination and we can learn from the strength and certainty with which they travel. I believe this learning is valuable because acknowledging the past, and the inter-generational, racialised privileges, damages and denials it established and perpetuates, is necessary for any shared future'.
This article argues that a transformative model of the green economy could potentially benefit labour and provide an alternative, socially just and ecologically sustainable development path in South ...Africa. However, realizing this potential depends on an effective challenge to the 'corporate capture' of the green economy discourse. This could emerge from the deepening of an embryonic alliance between the labour and environmental movements. While historically relations between the two movements in South Africa have been disconnected - and even antagonistic - attempts by unions to formulate environmental policies and joint action on two issues, 'climate jobs' and rising electricity prices, are challenging the 'jobs-versus-the-environment' binary and creating new solidarity networks which are promoting radical alternatives.
Coal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, ...initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a 'counter-power' which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the 'social power' approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal - organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations - cohere into a vision of a 'just transition'. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.
This paper argues that increasing threats to our survival call for a deeper sociological engagement with environmental issues. The argument is presented in different sections: firstly, the need for a ...reorientation of the discipline around the complex interrelation and interdependence of society and nature. This reorientation could build on the sociologial work on environmental risks by Ulrich Beck and that on "slow violence" by Rob Nixon, both of which acknowledge the power of class relations. The injustices this involves suggest the need to re-examine sociological research practice from "extracting" information from "informants" to empowering relations of mutual exchange and reciprocity. The challenges this involves are illustrated by an account of "exchange workshops" in mining-affected communities. The paper ends with a call for more sociological involvement in social movements, particularly for a just transition from fossil fuels.
Women's responses to the food crisis in contemporary South Africa raise important questions for feminism. The realisation of the 'right to sufficient food' enshrined in the post-apartheid ...constitution is central to achieving an active, gendered citizenship. However grassroots mobilisation is necessary to give such justiciable socio-economic rights substantive content. As part of that struggle women are driving alternatives to the neo-liberal food regime, developing different forms of power, new forms of organisation and counter narratives of 'food justice' and 'food sovereignty'. However they are generally not doing so in the name of 'feminism' although women's involvement in food production, procurement and preparation is a fundamental feminist issue. The article explores why this is the case and concludes by asking whether a 'transformative feminism' could emerge and give strength and coherence to these anti-hegemonic struggles to realise the 'right to sufficient food' and simultaneously lead to the re-energising of feminist politics.
This article focuses on the activities of a modest feminist initiative called "The Feminist Table." Established in 2012, it is one of a number of initiatives trying to develop grassroots eco-feminist ...solidarity among black women in contemporary South Africa. It uses the Marxist feminist notion of social reproduction, i.e. the unpaid care work which these women do outside the market, both in their households and in their communities. This work is both essential to sustaining capitalism and has potential to contribute to its overcoming. By focusing on the legacy of colonialism and the apartheid, and by drawing on black women's experiences of socially and ecologically destructive capitalism in contemporary South Africa, we aim to contribute to the literature on eco-socialist feminist struggles and resistance from a Southern perspective. This paper draws on informal conversations and key informant interviews, as well as on our experience of participation in various initiatives trying to develop eco-socialist feminism in South Africa during the last five years.
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