Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois
“Revolution” Theme Lecture: Richard Pithouse
“Thought Amidst Waste: Politics in Shack Settlements in South Africa"
by Richard Pithouse (Political and International Studies, Rhodes University)
by Richard Pithouse (Political and International Studies, Rhodes University)
Date: March 7, 2013
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
Co-sponsored by IPRH and the Spurlock Museum.
A reception will follow the lecture.
This event is free and open to the public.
About the event:The shack settlement has often become a site of acute political intensity in post-apartheid South Africa. There were also moments when this was the case during and before apartheid. This paper gives a broad outline of the political history of the shack settlement in South Africa and seeks to bring this history, as well the experience of contemporary shack dwellers’ struggles, into dialogue with an international debate about the prospects for an emancipatory politics in the shack settlement. It argues that the shack settlement needs to be understood as a site in which people inhabit a particular situation and not, as is frequently the case, a site inhabited by a set of people with particular ontological characteristics. It also makes some remarks about the political possibilities, dangers and limits arising from some aspects of that situation.
Wednesday 6 March
Panel on Urbana and Housing Activism From Below
* Richard Pithouse Durban and South Africa
* Asef Bayat Tehran
* Ken Salo Chicago and Western Cape
* Tariq Ali Housing Agency among 19th-20th century South Asian Jute Workers
* Asef Bayat Tehran
* Ken Salo Chicago and Western Cape
* Tariq Ali Housing Agency among 19th-20th century South Asian Jute Workers
