This article considers the problems of water in Mpumalanga
Township in Durban, South Africa, and examines the emergence and activities of
the Concerned Citizens Forum (CCF), for whom activism around water services was
centrally important. It contributes to the debate over the backlog in municipal
services delivery and the attendant emergence of new social movements in
post-apartheid South Africa. Set against a background of changes in water
policy, a profile of the water industry and the drive to cost recovery, the
article provides an account of collective action in Durban, by investigating
the history and activities of the CCF. The article questions the standing of
the movement and argues that the CCF is given to ‘crowd renting’, lacks
transparency, and is prone to disorderly decision-making and racial and
leadership crises. The article contextualises CCF’s collective action
programmes, including its activism over water disconnections, by situating them
in Mpumalanga’s neighbourhood politics. By doing so, the reader encounters
councillors of the ruling and opposition parties, CCF city-based
intellectual-cum-activists, African township youth activists and local council
officials and bureaucrats. The collusion and conflicts between these various
parties highlight political opportunism, careerism, and the ruthless pursuit of
self-enrichment, revealing the complexities of collective action and the
contentious politics of new social movements. The article also highlights the
looming crisis of the breakdown of social citizenship in relation to cost
recovery and the struggles over water services.
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