Review: From ‘Foreign Natives’ to ‘Native Foreigners’

by Catherine Cunningham 

In From ‘Foreign Natives’ to ‘Native Foreigners’, Michael Neocosmos traces the events which led up to the May 2008 xenophobic attacks in South Africa. In doing this, Neocosmos uncovers the manifold ways in which ‘citizenship’ has been defined, in South Africa, over time. For Neocosmos, despite the inclusive definition of citizenship which was made manifest throughout the liberation struggle, a more exclusive understanding has now become dominant. Such a conception of citizenship is not spontaneous, however, but is reinforced by discourses originating from multiple actors such as: government officials, the media, civil society and society at large. These discourses overlap and reinforce each other, culminating in what Neocosmos calls ‘a politics of fear’. It is this fear, rather than economic deprivation and an influx of foreigners, which helps to explain the events of 2008. In order to counter this widespread fear, Neocosmos suggests that we need to reaffirm an inclusive understanding of citizenship in order to transcend fundamentally oppressive categorisations.

Does civil society automatically represent the will of the people?

by Catherine Cunningham

The very idea that ‘the will of the people’ can be represented assumes that a common will can actually exist. Within contemporary theory, the possibility of a collective will has been widely deliberated. This essay, in accordance with Peter Hallward’s article entitled The Will of the People: Notes towards a dialectical voluntarism, argues that a common will can be made manifest when one reconciles the perceived theoretical dichotomy between agency and structure. Having ascertained the possibility for a collective will, this essay seeks to evaluate the neo-liberal state, and consequently, the supposed need for civil society. As such, this essay will contend that the state, which acts in accordance with what Foucault denotes as ‘governmentality’, justifies itself insofar as it provides for its citizens (Chatterjee, 2004: 34). This is problematic as it reduces political agents to passive recipients of policies. Furthermore, it is only where state provision of welfare is insufficient that the perceived need for civil society, most prominently conceptualised as NGOs (Neocosmos, 2009: 7) emerges.