Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment

Onodera, Henri (Ed.); Kaskinen, Martta (Ed.); Ranta, Eija (Ed.) Book Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment Routledge Studies in Political Sociology Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Onodera, Henri (Ed.); Kaskinen, Martta (Ed.); Ranta, Eija (Ed.) (2025) : Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment, Routledge Studies in Political Sociology, ISBN 978-1-040-27519-1, Routledge, Oxford, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003378891 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/312741 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Citizenship Utopias in the Global South offers a timely and engaging work that combines critique with action. This compelling volume that models transnational scholarship, portrays how citizen activists from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia imagine, reinvent, and challenge reactionary and unjust forms of power. Through “imaginative forms of creative activism” they strive to overcome the disillusionment of contemporary politics. Chapters on digital communications, new youth movements, anticorruption campaigns, anti-racism, non-violent strategies, to name a few, convey how people join forces to forge alternative futures grounded in dignity and justice. A valuable addition to the work on new youth movements, political change, and alternative activism in the Global South.” Linda Herrera, Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA “In the era of post-pandemic dystopias, this book offers a myriad of citizens’ utopias emerging from the Global South. It collects the voices of young feminists, ecologists, anti-racists, pacifists, queer individuals, students, and trade unionists from a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, who engage to build micro-utopian communities from below. Lessons for a period of old fears and new hopes.” Carles Feixa, Professor of Social Anthropology, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Citizenship Utopias in the Global South Citizenship Utopias in the Global South is an edited collection of empirical research that explores emergent forms of activism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in times of multiple crises. At the intersection of hope and disillusionment, the diverse and thought-provoking chapters investigate emerging forms of activism in the Global South – including youth activisms, anti-racism struggles, feminist initiatives, online dissent, and Indigenous movements. In the 2020s, many parts of the world are witnessing contradictory processes of popular claims to rights, livelihoods, and social justice, and subsequent forms of populist authoritarianism and the securitization of civil society. Previously hopeful calls for dignity, democracy, and social justice – through protesting, strikes, civil society campaigns, legal reforms, and elections, for example – have been met with disdain and civic disengagement. This book investigates the re-imagination and pursuit of citizen activism in such times of popular disillusionment. It explores citizenship utopias as social imaginaries that are enacted and that articulate an ideal social order or democratic polity with ideal forms of experiencing citizenship. Its chapters interrogate conventional approaches to citizenship by introducing a nuanced and empirically grounded exploration of the complex ways in which people experience, negotiate, and engage in the societal changes that they aspire towards. The examination of citizenship utopias outlines contemporary signals for transformative futures and their possibilities. The book undertakes a fresh effort at contributing to the shifting terrain of critical development studies, political anthropology, political sociology, and decolonising scholarship by engaging in discussions about citizenship, activism, disillusionment, and future societal alternatives in times of multiple global challenges. Henri Onodera is a University Lecturer in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. Martta Kaskinen is a PhD Researcher in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki. Eija Ranta is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki. Routledge Studies in Political Sociology This series presents the latest research in political sociology. It welcomes both theoretical and empirical studies that pay close attention to the dynamics of power, popular protest and social movements, as well as work that engages in debates surrounding globalisation, democracy and political economy. European Lobbying An Occupational Field between Professionalism and Activism Christian Lahusen Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance Solidarity in a Changing World Edited by Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco Understanding Individual Commitment to Collective Action Theoretical and Methodological Approaches Carlos Andrés Ramírez Intimate Communities of Hate: Why Social Media Fuels Far-Right Extremism Anton Törnberg and Petter Törnberg COVID-19 and the Left The Tyranny of Fear Elena Louisa Lange and Geoff Shullenberger The Class Gap in Protest Participation The Comparative Case of Central Eastern and Western Europe Viktoriia Muliavka Navigating Civil Resistance Unravelling Mobilization Dynamics, Goals, and Strategies in Nepal Johannes Vüllers Citizenship Utopias in the Global South The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment Edited by Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta For a full list of titles in this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ sociology/series/RSPS Citizenship Utopias in the Global South The Emergent Forms of Activism in an Era of Disillusionment Edited by Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen and Eija Ranta First published 2025 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Any third party material in this book is not included in the OA Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Please direct any permissions enquiries to the original rightsholder. This open access book publication was funded by the National Research Council of Finland and Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9781032458311 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032458335 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003378891 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003378891 Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books Contents List of tables ix List of contributors x Acknowledgements xiv List of abbreviations xvii 1 Citizenship utopias in the Global South: Emerging activisms, re-imagining citizenships 1 HENRI ONODERA, MARTTA KASKINEN AND EIJA RANTA PART I Activism in times of disillusionment 19 2 Activist contestations in contemporary socio-political change making in Kenya 21 MARTTA KASKINEN AND JOB MWAURA 3 Disavowing politics: An alternative way of doing politics for young Algerians 38 YAHIA BENYAMINA 4 Communication in the coronavirus crisis: A case study of communication practices of activists in Johannesburg in the COVID-19 pandemic 53 ANGELA CHUKUNZIRA 5 The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements 68 GEOFFREY PLEYERS Acknowledgements The beginning and making of this book coincided with the precarious years of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Amid health emergencies and increasing death rates, the pandemic also deeply impacted livelihood opportunities and exacerbated poverty, threatening social welfare everywhere in the world. Most particularly, however, it affected lives in the Global South, as global responses to the pandemic highlighted and deepened global inequalities, while demonstrating the need and yearning for solidarity and justice struggles on a global scale. Since then, the political and economic impacts and colonial continuities related to the Russian war on Ukraine and the Israel– Palestine conflict, along with accelerating autocratisation around the world, have further intensified geopolitical tensions and reorganisations. In a postpandemic global context distinguished by multiple crises, complex citizenship dynamics and a multitude of social struggles for democracy, justice, and equality have arisen. Thinking critically about citizenship utopias and investigating transformative alternatives have thus become more crucial during the making of this book than what we could ever have anticipated. We are indebted to many individuals and institutions who have provided assistance and support, making this book possible. Listing all of them would be impossible, so here we wish to acknowledge a few individuals and groups of people who have engaged with this edited volume particularly strongly. First and foremost, we acknowledge the foundational significance of the feminist, youth, anti-racism, queer, Indigenous, and human rights activists, along with the social movement representatives and trade unionists, whose lived struggles for more just and democratic societies are discussed in the pages of this book. We are immensely grateful to them for sharing their views, experiences, and lives with the authors and the world. Most chapters are based on long-term ethnographic engagements and epistemic collaborations between researchers and activists. Many activists are also academic scholars, and some feature as authors in this book: we acknowledge that their multiple positionalities have been particularly challenging during the pandemic. We hope that we can do justice to these diverse struggles by highlighting the complexities and contextual nuances of social activism and citizenship in various parts of the Global South, while also delineating some Acknowledgements xv of the structural conditions and contemporary phenomena that tie them together. Second, we acknowledge the significance and the endurance of the authors who contributed to this book despite the challenging conditions presented by pandemic lockdowns and economic and health-related uncertainties during its making. The chapters of the book are products of both new and preexisting academic collaborations and networks. We believe that each chapter, and the book as a collaborative effort, pushes forward a critical and nuanced scholarship of activism and citizenship that speaks broadly to contemporary issues of diversity, decoloniality, and democracy. This book is the end product of research conducted within the project “Citizenship Utopias in the Global South: The Pursuit of Transformative Alternatives in Times of Civic Disillusionment” (2019–2024, project number 1323051) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. We acknowledge the National Research Council of Finland for financing and supporting the research project and this edited volume. Ranta’s other research project, “Social Justice and Raciality in Post-Utopian Latin America” (2021–2026, project number 1346411), which is also funded by the National Research Council of Finland, must also be mentioned. Furthermore, Onodera worked part-time on “What Works? Youth Transitions from Education to Employment in the Middle East and North Africa” (2018–2023), a project led by Päivi Honkatukia at the University of Tampere, Finland, and financed by the Academy of Finland programme for development research (Develop). Onodera and Ranta also acknowledge the epistemological influence and intellectual value of their previous research experiences within the research project “Youth and Political Engagement in Contemporary Africa”, led by Elina Oinas at the Swedish School of Social Sciences, Finland, and Leena Suurpää at the Finnish Youth Research Network. The findings of this book have been presented at several conferences and workshops, in which many scholars and activists have participated. Many sessions on the theme of civil society have been organised in collaboration with Tiina Kontinen from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, but also on the topic of hope in social struggles with Henni Alava from the University of Tampere, Finland, and on the topic of democracy in the Global South with Liisa Laakso from the Nordic Africa Institute. The Finnish Society for Development Research, in which Onodera and Kaskinen have been active members, has been the host of many conferences and events related to the topics of this edited volume. We have also learned from the sharing of experiences on the study of utopias with a group of researchers on political imagination and alternative futures, led by Suvi Salmenniemi, at the University of Turku. The discipline of Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki, where all three of us currently work, has been an inspiring place for critical thinking and collaborative research engagements. During the courses “Social Movements, Power, and State in Global South”, taught by Ranta, xvi Acknowledgements and “Youth and Development in the Global South”, taught by Onodera, many of the topics of this book have been nourished through the active engagement of students of Global Development Studies and other related disciplines at the University of Helsinki. Over the years, we have had the pleasure of working with many wonderful research assistants, including Mira Hämäläinen, Hely Marttinen, Hanna Pulkkinen, Henna Sarkkinen, and David Caicedo Sarralde. During the final editing process, the active engagement and enthusiasm of research assistants Isla Arnivaara and Eliana Tarnaala were invaluable. We also acknowledge Marie-Louise Karttunen from Emelle’s Editing Services, copy-editor Hamish Ironside, and the professionals at the Language Centre of the University of Helsinki for their language editing services. Finally, warm thanks are due to Neil Jordan and Alice Salt, the senior editors in sociology at Routledge, as well as Gemma Rogers and Kriti Rana, the editorial assistants at Taylor & Francis, for their initiative, advice, and assistance during the process. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers who reviewed this edited volume before its publication. Publishing it as open access was possible with the support of the National Research Council of Finland and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, Eija Ranta Helsinki, Finland 5 June 2024 List of abbreviations ADAM Association ADAM pour l’Égalité et le Développement ADD Association pour la promotion du Droit à la Différence ADS Social Development Agency ANC African National Congress ANGEM National Agency for the Management of Microcredit ANSEJ National Youth Employment Support Agency AUCC Asamblea de Unidad Cantonal de Cotacachi BJP Bharatiya Janata Party BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa C19PC C-19 People’s Coalition CAA Citizenship Amendment Act CDR Comités de Defensa de la Revolución CNAC National Unemployment Insurance Fund CNES Conseil National des Professeurs du Supérieur CNDDC Comité National pour la Défense des Droits des Chômeurs COSAS Congress of South African Students COVID-19 coronavirus disease 2019 COWG Community Organising Working Group CSO civil society organisation CTC Central de Trabajadores de Cuba EU European Union FEBAC Federación de Barrios de Cotacachi FGD Focus Group Discussions FIS Front Islamique du Salut FMC Federación de Mujeres Cubanas FMF Fees Must Fall FTDES Forum Tunisien des Droits Economiques et Sociales GEAR growth, employment and redistribution GNC gender non-conforming community HCMC Ho Chi Minh City HDP Halkların Demokratik Partisi HE higher education HRD human rights defender xviii List of abbreviations ICC International Criminal Court IMF International Monetary Fund ILO International Labour Organization IMF International Monetary Fund IOM International Organization for Migration ITUC International Trade Union Confederation IVD Instance Verité et Dignité LGBTQIA+ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual LTDH Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme MENA Middle East and North Africa MSJC Mathare Social Justice Centre MP member of parliament MRG Minority Rights Group NCA National Constituent Assembly NDA National Democratic Alliance NDP National Development Plan NGO non-governmental organisation NRC National Register of Citizens PAD Points Anti-Discrimination Network PAM Plan Nacional para el Avance de las Mujeres PCC Partido Comunista Cubano PIC Partido Independiente de Color PNCRD Programa Nacional contra el Racismo y la Discriminación Racial PPE personal protective equipment RDC Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique RDP reconstruction and development programme RMF Rhodes Must Fall SAP structural adjustment programme SAPS South African Police Services SARS Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SASO South African Student Organisation SFI Students Federation of India SIT Syndicat Islamique du Travail SJCWG Social Justice Centres Working Group SMILE Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise SNAPAP Syndicat National Autonome des Personelles de l’Administration Publique TISS Tata Institute of Social Sciences TUT Tshwane University of Technology UCM University Christian Movement UGTA Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens UGTT Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens List of abbreviations xix UN United Nations UNEAC Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba UNORCAC Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi USA United States of America VGCL Vietnam General Confederation of Labour VCP Vietnamese Communist Party WB World Bank Wits University of the Witwatersrand WTO World Trade Organization 1 Citizenship utopias in the Global South Emerging activisms, re-imagining citizenships Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen and Eija Ranta Introduction Many parts of the world have been witnessing bursts of popular uprisings and emergent activism in recent years (Alvarez 2019; Muggenthaler, Bringel, and Martínez 2021), while at the same time authoritarian populism, ethnic nationalisms, and religious conservatism are also on the rise (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019; Scoones et al. 2018). No matter which democracy index is discussed, the worldwide decline of democracy is a clear trend, one that was further reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic at the outset of the 2020s and the restrictions on movement, assembly, and livelihood that accompanied it (Cooper and Aitchison 2020). The pandemic also rendered visible and exacerbated existing inequalities between and within societies in the Global North and Global South. Transformative processes in the 2010s, such as the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and the construction of plurinational states in Latin America, had raised people’s aspirations for equality, justice, and democracy, but, a decade later, these hopes had been replaced by widespread disillusionment, disdain, and civic disengagement (Onodera et al. 2020; Radcliffe 2015; Ranta 2023a; Spierings 2020). In other words, the previous optimistic calls for dignity, democracy, and social justice – through, for example, protests, strikes, civil society campaigns, legal reforms, and elections – have increasingly been encountering state repression. In these volatile circumstances, imaginative forms of creative activism, collaboration, and articulation are needed within and beyond formal avenues of political participation. This complex phenomenon calls for research on the potentials, conditions, and difficulties of emergent activisms and their transformative alternatives. This book investigates the re-imagination and pursuit of citizen activism in times of disillusionment. It examines the ways in which intertwining processes of populist authoritarianism, securitisation of civil society, and pandemic conditions shape political actors’ social fields and transformative action. The contributions explore emergent forms of activism that challenge the deep structures of state governance and the economy in the context of shared disillusionment with state promises of equal citizenship, social justice, DOI: 10.4324/9781003378891-1 2 Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta and representative democracy. The empirical contexts involve, but are not exclusive to, youth activism, anti-racism struggles, feminist initiatives, online dissent, and Indigenous movements. Together, the chapters interrogate conventional approaches to citizenship by introducing nuanced and empirically grounded explorations of the complex ways in which people experience, negotiate, and engage with the societal changes to which they aspire. As we elaborate further below, our approach to “citizenship utopia” in this context builds on the notion of utopia as the imaginary reconstitution of society and, as such, it involves critical examination of implicit imaginaries of the ideal society, and their practical realisation and envisioned memberships (Levitas 2013). In this introductory chapter, we start by discussing diverse conceptualisations of utopia, after which we address the book’s focus on citizenship utopias in the Global South. The remaining three sections introduce the book’s chapters in the course of examining the interrelated themes of emerging activisms in times of disillusionment, decolonising the state, and re-imagining citizenships. Whither utopias? There are many definitions of “utopia”, and its meanings are contested in both scholarly and everyday discussions. It was first used as the title of the novel by Renaissance humanist Thomas More, published in 1516, which portrayed the imaginary island of Utopia as an ideal society, thus providing a satirical critique and counter-image of political life in England and Europe at the time. Partly inspired by Plato’s Republic, the communal life on Utopia was characterised by equality, collective property, and material abundance (Beauchesne and Santos 2011, 2), and it “was to become a model for future political constellations, investing the concepts of ‘utopia’ and ‘utopianism’ with the temporal dimension of the belief in a dreamworld to come” (van Ruler and Sissa 2017, 7). Since then, the notion of utopia has inspired fiction writers and critical social theorists alike. Despite diverse interpretations, the commonality in the ways in which utopia is discussed relies on its critique of the present and “the desire for a better way of being and of living” (Levitas 2013, xii). In addition to implying the imagination of better futures, utopia can also refer to concrete social initiatives that create and prefigure alternative lifestyles and practices such as communal living, time banking, and ecovillages. As spaces where new practices of politics and citizenship are constructed and exercised, they can be perceived as radical alternatives to mainstream society (Firth 2012). These alternative projects notwithstanding, utopia can also refer to more comprehensive and holistic societal changes and the construction of alternative social systems through, for example, popular revolutions (Levitas 2013, xiii–xiv). Revolutionary holistic or systemic utopias were largely considered to be over by the 1990s; with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Citizenship utopias in the Global South 3 European socialist bloc, it was proclaimed that humanity had reached its final stage or “the end of history”, according to Fukuyama’s (1992) conceptualisation. The horizon of revolutions seemed to be withering away as liberal democracy and capitalism (in the form of neoliberal globalisation) emerged as the hegemonic pillars of the “new world order” in the making. In the post-Cold War era, as Scott (2014, 4) argues, “there arose, as a seemingly single and natural horizon, the new utopia of liberal democracy, its dogma of human rights, and the disciplining and governmentalizing technologies to urge and enforce its realization”. While several countries were democratised from the 1970s to the 1990s – at times called the “third wave of democratization” (Huntington 1991) – global “messianic” beliefs in democracy’s potential and real-life fulfilment were also criticised (Abrahamsen 2000). For many, democracy in itself continues to be a distant utopia, in a process that never fulfils its justification, particularly its radical promise to provide economic and social equality and justice to citizens (Eskelinen 2019; Holston 2008). As Eskelinen puts it, “no other political concept in contemporary society is, simultaneously, as radical and compromised” (Eskelinen 2020, 151, italics in original), and democratic practices have increasingly surrendered to the logics of global capitalism since the turn of the millennium. Furthermore, the deepening inequalities and the concentration of wealth due to neoliberal reforms have eroded democracy’s popular appeal by creating, for example, an uneasy association between liberal democracy and economic austerity measures (Ranta 2021, 45). It is an important reminder that while utopian thinking is often attached to socialist or green politics, neoliberalism also implies a certain utopianism when it comes to rethinking and reconciling the exigencies of the state and the global markets (Levitas 2013, xiii). While dreams of overarching revolutions and systemic utopias may have waned, many scholars have argued for a more empirically grounded focus on “concrete utopias” as hopeful and imaginable future horizons. This reorientation suggests a focus on utopian visions that promote attainable transformative alternatives in the framework of what exists and what is possible, thereby positioning “abstract utopias” as unrealisable visions that have little transformative potential in practice (Bloch 1986; Elder-Vass 2022; Vogt 2005). In her defence of the contested concept, Levitas (2013) argues that utopia should be understood less as a descriptive imaginary of entire social systems, and more as a method at the core of sociological thinking. Such a perspective allows utopias to be explored wherever futures are imagined, regardless of how fragmentary, elusive, and provisional those imaginaries might be (Levitas 2013, 4). Cooper (2014) also conceptualises “everyday utopias” as viable practices and social projects which open spaces in the present for imagining largerscale utopian futures. In her view, everyday utopias consist of networks of people and spaces that perform social life as it could be through communal practices that radically differ from those of mainstream society and its values. Everyday utopias do not comprise activism or public advocacy per se, nor 10 Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta of the state while often fundamentally contesting its withering legitimacy. Thus, in this sense, citizenship utopias evolve on a normative terrain in which state apparatuses play a role in securing the citizens’ equal access to justice and welfare. This is conspicuous, as the advent of neoliberal globalisation has tied state governance intimately to the undemocratic operations of transnational corporations, banks, and other agencies (Sharma and Gupta 2006). Furthermore, many activists operate beyond statist realms, if only globally by digital means, while international institutions and standards, such as the United Nations and international human rights mechanisms, provide them with valuable, albeit sometimes contested, tools and frameworks for action and protection. The global trend of increasing authoritarianism and declining democracy indicates, however, that states are increasingly becoming sources of disillusionment. Thus, we suggest that states are of growing importance as sites of contestation and objects of utopian imagination in the Global South. While state governance invites a myriad of aspirations for better futures, the practical realisation of these aspirations is becoming ever-more distant. In some sense, the once “concrete utopias” of building and designing state institutions that ensure welfare, justice, and equality have become increasingly unrealisable. In this context, seemingly conventional claims related to the defence of people’s power and democracy, the rule of law, and rights and freedoms in civic spaces have become ever-more pertinent for utopian activism. Although activists may not promote systemic utopian visions as such, their operational contexts have been so altered that these claims are being reinvigorated with more radical, existential meanings. In other words, citizenship utopias are utopian insofar as the existing social, political, and economic conditions have pushed their ideals further away from the realm of perceived possibilities. What is more, processes of state formation and policy making in the Global South are being contested by aspirations to decolonise state structures and struggle against intersecting inequalities and marginalisation. In such countries as Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador, Indigenous peoples and Afrodescendants have lobbied for the construction of plurinational states that recognise and include their cultural and racial diversity. In the name of decolonising states, new visions, stemming from Indigenous peoples’ worldviews and cosmologies, of the forms and practices of state institutions have materialised. For example, the Quechua concept of sumak kawsay, which has been translated – depending on the context – into Spanish as vivir bien/buen vivir (good life, living well), means “life in fullness” (Cubillo-Guevara and Hidalgo-Capitán 2015; Cuestas Caza 2020), thus drawing close to what is generally considered to be characteristic of utopian futures: life lived to the full in an idyllic community without private property or material deprivation (Beauchesne and Santos 2011, 2). In Chapter 6, Radcliffe examines the practical implementation of “decolonising utopias” in Ecuador, where the notions of sumak kawsay and buen vivir, enshrined in the national Citizenship utopias in the Global South 11 constitution since 2008, “propel social activism into institutionalising and social embedding a break from historically entrenched exclusionary citizenship”. In addition to the institutionalisation of “good life” policies in some Latin American countries, vivir bien/buen vivir thinking continues to inspire social movements and activists throughout the region (Habersang 2022), although their state co-optation has also been contested and opposed (Ranta 2023b). Thus, we need to be attentive to criticism of large scale or systemic utopian projects for their totalitarian tendencies (Sorensen 2011) or lack of freedom in the Arendtian sense (Arendt 1990 [1963]). Utopian ideals have often implied that a world without power relations could exist; however, envisioning a “power-free utopia” can potentially lead to fundamentalism, totalitarianism, and attempts to homogenise the citizenry, which obscures intersecting inequalities and, ultimately, silences and invisibilises marginal groups, including women, sexual minorities, ethnic groups, and Indigenous peoples (Allen 2015, 525; also Brown 2005). Certain kinds of idealism and romanticisation have accompanied many revolutionary projects that aimed at classless societies, as, for example, in the case of the Cuban revolution (Morales Domínguez 2002, 76). As the state-led discourses of equality have been so overpowering, the specific economic and social hardships, discrimination, and racism that Black and Mixed-Race populations have faced, particularly since the pro-market reforms of the 1990s, have gone unnoticed. Consequently, the hopes and expectations of Afro-Cubans in regard to the “socialist utopian horizon” in Cuba have decreased, or even disappeared (Zurbano 2021, 156). In Chapter 7, Rodríguez Malagón and Ranta discuss this situation from the perspective of Black feminists, who find themselves caught in complicated dynamics between socialist mass organisations and emergent autonomous organising. Meanwhile, although the case of Cuba is unique, feminist organising is booming throughout Latin America. Reacting to the rise of patriarchal authoritarianism and the shrinking space for civil society, new feminist formations are appearing “outside/beyond the state, beyond institutionalised interactions, in the streets, in the realms of media, culture, meanings and representations” (Alvarez 2019, 307–308), bringing together activists, artists, and scholars to address intersecting inequalities based on gender, sexuality, age, race, and ethnicity, to name a few. Much of the booming feminist activism is part of much wider social and political mobilisation promoting decolonisation, anti-imperialism, and the restructuring of unequal power relations between the Global South and Global North. One of the most emblematic recent struggles has been the South African student movement, which has advanced the processes of decolonising systems of higher education. In Chapter 8, Nyundu and Hosseini discuss how the parallel processes of neoliberal reforms and authoritarianism have resulted in the failure of the post-apartheid state to keep its promise of providing quality education to university students. The introduction of increasing tuition fees in 2015 instigated strong opposition among students, 12 Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta many of whom were already providing for their families –in the form of the so-called “Black Tax”–who have been structurally impoverished for decades under apartheid. Since then, demands and movements for decolonising the university have spread to many parts of the world (Bhambra, Gebrial, and Nisancioglu 2018). Discussions of anti-racism and racism, as well as struggles for racial equality and justice, are at the centre of decolonial movements and activism. While the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired racial justice movements the world over since 2013, concrete forms of collective action remain rooted and articulated in the local contexts and histories in which they unfold. In Tunisia, as Onodera and Garfi discuss in Chapter 9, everyday racism is connected to the legacy of slavery in the region, and Black Tunisians, augmented by migrants from elsewhere in Africa, have historically faced discrimination and marginalisation based on socially reproduced racial hierarchies. While the Tunisian Revolution of 2010–2011 opened new spaces and opportunities for anti-racist activism, with actors and civil society networks managing to push racism into public debate and even legal reforms, in retrospect this has yielded few tangible changes. Nonetheless, despite experiencing setbacks, activists have persisted in public life and diversified the scope and content of what being a Tunisian could mean. Re-imagining citizenships Citizenship implies the notion of political belonging in important ways, and thus its examination produces knowledge of “how we live with others in a political community” (Lazar 2013, 1). From a sociological perspective, Isin and Nyers (2014, 1) note that citizenship can be seen as “an ‘institution’ mediating rights between the subjects of politics and the polity to which these subjects belong”, with institution referring to a broad set of processes whereby “something is enacted, created, and rendered relatively durable and stable but still contestable, surprising, and inventive”. By talking about political subjects they distance the notion from the implication of national belonging inherent to the concept of citizen, while polity transcends the state frame to include transnational actors and rights conventions (Isin and Nyers 2014, 1). Some caution in this context is needed, however. In a sense, the concept of citizenship can be seen as intimately tied to the idea of the modern nationstate and European/North American traditions of liberalism, making it something of an accomplice to processes of imperialism and colonialism in the Global South (Shindo 2022; Smith 2012; Smith and Rogers 2015). Instances where states promote rigid identities at the core of citizenship may also produce highly exclusive, ethnic nationalisms, which have at times led Indigenous peoples to produce their own framings of citizenship as alternatives to the state-sanctioned memberships. Simpson (2014, 109) refers to these as “feeling citizenships” that emerge in the “present space of Citizenship utopias in the Global South 13 intracommunity recognition, affection, and care, outside the logics of colonial and imperial rule”. Globally, as Boatca ˘ and Roth (2016, 192) suggest, the notion of citizenship can also be seen at the core of global inequalities, as “its institutionalization in the West has gone hand in hand with the legal (and physical) exclusion of non-European, non-White and non-Western populations from civic, political, social and cultural rights”. Talking about citizenship utopias that articulate utopianism with the notion of citizenship, as we do in this book, may in this light seem an oxymoron. As noted above, however, our interest lies in the exploration of ideal experiences of being and acting as a citizen. We also hope to take part in attempts to decolonise citizenship discussions and make them more relevant globally (Smith and Rogers 2015). In this sense, our approach to citizenship utopias allows, first, a critical scrutiny of the deterministic accounts of a “good citizen” that are conveyed, often in contradictory ways, through state policy and rhetoric, on the one hand, and state practices, on the other. Secondly, the focus on citizenship utopias opens up potential ways of imagining transformative and decolonising futures beyond the parameters of contemporary populist authoritarianism, exclusive nationalism, or post-pandemic economies. At the same time, most of the movements and activists discussed in this book are not promoting radically new definitions of citizenship. As we shall see, theirs is a defence of the principles of welfare, justice, equality, recognition, and the right to have rights (Arendt 1985 [1951]) and to engage in public processes that intimately reverberate in people’s everyday lives. From this perspective, citizenship utopias can both be reconciled with and transcend the ontology of democratic state, while leaving their precarious positions unresolved at the margins of what is imaginable and what is actually possible. In the Global South, the public debate about encounters between the state/ polity and political subjects is notoriously complex. Terms such as citizenship, nation, and state are profoundly contested, and political subjects may enjoy – or suffer from – multilayered political belongings and “multiple and segmented sovereignties” (Hansen and Stepputat 2006, 305). If, for the protagonists, the state has always appeared distant, corrupt, clientelist, and/or ethnically biased, it may seem utopian to hope it could ever bestow upon citizens ideal forms of societal change, belonging, and action. In Chapter 10, Zakhour explores the narratives of state corruption among youth living in the marginalised regions of Tunisia, demonstrating that by naming the faults and shortcomings of a state claiming to be democratising, they hold the state to account. While he examines what could be termed the “generational narratives of systemic failure” (Murphy 2012) that persisted after the Tunisian revolution, the pessimism and disdain of the coercive state also suggests hope for a better state of affairs and ways of being citizens. In Algeria, where the Arab Spring uprisings did not yield a popular revolution, the Hirak movement emerged in 2019 and ousted President Bouteflika from office, widening its demands to include the rule of law and an end to corruption. In Chapter 14 Henri Onodera, Martta Kaskinen, and Eija Ranta 11, Maïche explores the roles of autonomous trade union activists in building the culture of protest in the run-up period to Hirak mobilisation. He pays attention to the performative dimension of citizenship, as activists constituted themselves as citizens through various “acts of citizenship” (Isin and Nielsen 2008) while operating on the fringes of formal trade union activism and state-centric webs of patronage and control. In this book, Algeria, Tunisia, and South Africa each provide the empirical background for two separate chapters. This serves to illustrate, we hope, how the different and multiplex processes take place within any given national context. In authoritarian contexts and one-party states, the institutionalised practices of citizenship tend to correspond to the ideological needs and perspectives of state actors in terms of the ideal of a “good citizen”. Yet, as contemporary communist countries, such as China, have started to embrace state-led capitalism, the relationships between ordinary citizens and state officials and institutions have changed considerably (Chen 2014, 191). In highly centralised communist decision-making, citizens were expected to participate in mass organisations and submit complaints and petitions at various levels in the nonbinding consultations of socialist democracy. Now, however, as ordinary people have lost many of the benefits and much of the security offered by the previous system (Chen 2014, 190–191), they are forced to address government officials directly through collective action and petitioning, which Chen (2014) describes as “contentious authoritarianism”.In Vietnam, as Le and Nicolaisen describe in Chapter 12, the communist state has assumed the role of an educator that teaches its citizens morally correct behaviour through the mechanisms of reward and punishment. Meanwhile, responding to increasing state repression during the COVID-19 pandemic, small-scale everyday resistance and citizen activism has emerged beyond state control in support of the most marginalised groups, while large-scale protests or public mobilisations have not taken place. Beyond one-party states, the question of citizenship and belonging has become a tool for nationalist leaders in an increasing number of countries where ethnic nationalism and autocratisation are on the rise. Such is India, where diverse activists struggle between contradictory and controversial solidarities and forms of belonging, including class, caste, and gender. As Ghosh explains in Chapter 13, Indian queer activists have gradually promoted new visions of rights and privileges with the support of local, national, and global organisations. Some members of gender non-conforming communities, who have been historically marginalised and dispossessed, have simultaneously found refuge in Hindu nationalist circles, while others detest the latter’s xenophobic and polarising politics. Finally, the contributions in this book bear witness to the complex entanglements of emergent activisms that articulate ideal societal orders with reimaginations of what citizenship means and how it is performed, enacted, and transformed in diverse contexts in the Global South. While the chapters are rich in historical and contextual description, they collectively contribute Citizenship utopias in the Global South 15 to greater understanding of the contemporary global dynamics around utopias, activism, and disillusionments. By highlighting different aspects of what we call “citizenship utopias”, they engage in outlining contemporary signals for transformative futures and their possibilities. References Abrahamsen, R. 2000. 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Part I Activism in times of disillusionment 26 Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura Following Mathare’s footsteps, numerous other informal settlement communities formed justice centres in Nairobi and other cities and counties, and today there are at least 50 centres across Kenya (OHCHR 2019). The community-based centres form a national Social Justice Centres Working Group (SJCWG), which has two representatives from each centre and functions as the collective voice and coordinator of justice centres in the Kenyan civil society. SJCWG is further divided in geographical chapters, such as the Nairobi chapter and the Western chapter that covers the Western counties in Kenya. Within the chapters, there are thematic committees that work on specific topics, such as gender-based violence or police brutality. While the social justice movement is based on volunteer work and does not require qualifications that are valued in formal civil society organisations, such as NGOs, it is a highly sophisticated collaborative network that aims at more straightforward and radical activism than what the NGO framework would enable. For example, the justice centres play a crucial role in organising the annual Saba Saba march, and the SJCWG has composed the official Saba Saba petition since 2018. Most activists in justice centres are young and most are women, which makes the centres a peculiarity in established ways of civil society or political organising in Kenya, which are usually senior male dominated. According to an interviewee from MSJC, the centre’s leadership was composed of six women and one man in 2022. This, according to interviews, has contributed to issues such as gender-based violence being central in many centres’ agendas, and to a feminist framework being incorporated in centre policies. In addition to women, the centres also enable young and poor people to have access to spaces where they can get a sense of agency not possible in other forms of socio-political changemaking. For example, becoming involved with Kenyan party politics requires capital and patron–client affiliations that may compromise radical political ambitions, which often leaves young people with first-hand experience of poverty without opportunities (Ranta 2017). Kenyan post-colonial activist movements have tended to claim affiliation with historical symbols of political opposition – such as the Mau Mau insurrection against the British colonial regime – and strategically combined those symbols to the international human rights discourse (Pommerolle 2006). The combination of a socialist revolutionary discourse and a human rights discourse was strongly embraced in the justice centres: graffiti and quotes by international and national independence leaders and socialist figures decorated the walls of MSJC and other justice centres, next to NGO banners and information about human rights and the Kenyan Constitution. In interviews, the justice centre activists cultivated a discursive mixture of left-wing revolutionary rhetoric and human rights jargon when describing their activism and referred to themselves as HRDs. According to Mutunga (2015), the community-level activists fighting for better living and working conditions in Kenya have largely adopted a human rights discourse framework for their activism, while the limitation of that framework has not been critically assessed much. However, the justice centre Activist contestations in socio-political change making in Kenya 27 activists we interviewed were critical of NGO frameworks, while emphasising the need to operate within those frameworks for strategic reasons, as will be discussed in more detail next. Vertical dynamics within the activist ecosystem Activism in social movements and advocacy in Kenya are shaped by a range of issues. Mwaura (2019) argues that class, ethnicity, and political affiliations shape the social and political life of many Kenyans. The main issue that distinguishes community-based and NGO activists is the issue of social stratification – class. While the NGO activists possess financial resources and assets (mainly from donor funding), they also have cultural capital: higher levels of education and local and international networks, which provide them with a lot of power and influence in the civil society. Activists and social movement groups at the community level in informal settlements, on the other hand, are less privileged. Financial resources such as donor funding, are difficult to access because the activists’ educational achievements are comparatively lower. While their greatest asset is social capital, through which they are able to resonate, advocate, and build stronger networks in the communities, they often still consider themselves to be of a lower class than the NGO activists. These dynamics that project differences of superiority and inferiority, where activists are devalued or valued depending on wealth, class, resources, education, and cultural dynamics, is what we refer to here as vertical dynamics within the activist ecosystem. In an in-depth interview conducted in early 2019 with an activist from MSJC, the respondent lamented about the disconnect between NGO activists and grassroots activists and mentioned the following: There is a class disconnect between us as grassroots activists and activists operating within the NGO sector. When they hold important forums that affect the people we advocate for, they hold the meetings in flashy hotels located in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi. Not everyone can access these hotels, particularly because one needs financial resources to access them. Also, their style of advocacy is a bit distant from ours. While we are on the ground with the communities we fight for, the NGO activists operate mainly on digital media, and people in these underprivileged communities cannot afford a smartphone or data to participate in the discussions online. (Interview, 9 January 2019) Despite the perceptions of a disconnect, community-based activist networks have had to find ways of working in collaboration with the “formal” side of Kenyan civil society, namely, NGOs and UN organisations, for various reasons. As social justice centres operate fully with a volunteer force and are composed of people living in informal settlements, resources for working on larger scale campaigns are limited. According to the interviewees, many 28 Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura campaigns and protests that require material resources and legal support are conducted in collaboration with funded NGOs, who may provide training, cater for travel expenses, and organise t-shirts, banners, or other supporting material for street protests. Additionally, NGO presence is crucial for grassroots protection in protests in which conflict with the police is probable – such as Saba Saba – as they can provide legal support and financial assistance in paying for bail for those arrested. While the community-based activist movement benefits from such collaboration materially and legally, the movement is also crucial for NGOs, as funders require their work to be anchored in grassroots realities. This is sometimes perceived as ingenious from the community-level perspective, as NGOs are seen working from ivory towers and their work at the grassroots level might not reflect the realities or might set boundaries to how that work should be executed (Jones, Kimari, and Ramakrishnan 2017). During the earlier-discussed civil society “boom” of the 1990s, NGOs laid strategies that would give them an edge while seeking funding and other resources in Kenya. One of the things they did was to establish offices in upmarket urban centres in Nairobi and elsewhere, hire national and international professional staff in various portfolios like fundraisers, accounts managers, projects managers, community workers, communication officers, among others. The focus of their advocacy also broadened first, by focusing on bigger geographical areas, and second, by including a mix of focus areas such as health, gender, and governance. While some of the issues of NGO advocacy focused on solving practical problems of low-income Kenyans, they also included agendas that were driven by donor ideologies. In line with many other critics, Wright (2012) argues that while donors gained the power to set the development agenda, NGOs became Trojan horses for global neoliberalism. These NGO transformations towards elitism and professionalism, while not necessarily bad in their own right, necessitated two things. First, it made NGOs run like corporate businesses, in which elite jobs would be found. Second, and as Lehr-Lehnardt (2005, 22) notes, NGOs began to have a very different outlook from their intended beneficiaries and became detached from poor, uneducated, and marginalised communities. This resulted in disillusionment with the NGO sphere among poor communities and especially the youth, as many of them felt neglected in civil society discussions. In effect, this contributed to the establishment of community-based movement centres like MSJC, to push for the grassroots agenda especially in informal settlements (Jones, Kimari, and Ramakrishnan 2017). Our research unearthed perceptions of a class disconnect and contestations between community-based social justice activists and NGO activists. Overriding sentiments captured in interviews revolved around funding and cultural capital. The interlocutors mentioned that: NGOs have financing, and they have the power to dictate which issues are advocated for. Sometimes grassroots activists feel this may direct Activist contestations in socio-political change making in Kenya 29 them away from the main goals they see most relevant from their perspective, as funders’ perspectives may differ … Money is a big factor. They [NGO activists] have divided the human rights activists and all these organisations because the NGOs are fighting social justice because of money. The human right defenders even within themselves are fighting each other … (FGD, MSJC, 25 February 2022) In addition, many of the justice centre activists had post-secondary school qualification, which was not sufficient to allow them to work in highly professionalised NGOs. In the NGO sector, employees are required to have higher education qualifications and academic level proficiency in English – which most young people and activists in informal settlements would be unable to fulfil. However, such qualifications are not needed for becoming involved with community-level human rights activism, in which the understanding of human rights and the local context and having passion for them is considered enough to join the movement. One activist noted that while their education levels were not enough to work in an NGO, it was more important to understand the grassroots realities in activism: For someone to work as a human rights defender in the NGOs, one has to have a certain education qualification which can also attract funding. But from our experience, we do not need the expected education qualification – but only need an understanding of human rights and an understanding of the context you are working on. The understanding can be gained in various ways other than by holding formal education qualification. (FGD, MSJC, 25 February 2022) These trends of domination, class, and power play in human rights and social justice activism between NGO activists and community-level activists is what we refer to as vertical dynamics here. These different levels of organising civil society have profoundly different starting points for human rights activism, as the professional NGOs work within the frameworks of global institutional structures that have foundations in postcolonial and neoliberal inequalities, while the justice centres have roots in social justice struggles. Despite the frustration many community-based social justice activists articulated about this disconnect, they acknowledged that collaboration with NGOs is necessary and at best is fruitful for their agendas, too. Next, we will scrutinise how these vertical dynamics reflect on contesting dynamics on a horizontal level among justice centre activists. “Horizontal violence” in justice centre activism In addition to the mutually beneficial but at times, delimiting relations between NGOs and the community level in social justice activism, 30 Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura contestations also occurred within the justice centre activist spaces horizontally. In a FGD with activists from MSJC and in some interviews, tensions were described as common between different activist communities, such as justice centres or other community-level activist initiatives, and often referred to as “horizontal violence”. An important aspect of the context for such tensions was competition for limited resources that are needed for running costs and campaigning. Usually, resources have come from cooperation with NGOs in specific initiatives, which has caused both opportunities and feelings of being bypassed, as was discussed above. However, activists mentioned that justice centre initiatives are now getting direct funds for their operations too, for example from UN institutions and Global North based NGOs. But because justice centres have expanded across the country during the past decade and donor funding has dwindled, funds for community-level activist operations have become increasingly difficult to access. Thus, several justice centre initiatives are campaigning for the same cause, for example creating competing hashtags for social media, and not collaborating even if that were beneficial for the outreach. This way, one activist noted, one group aims to gain recognition over the other: “It’s not like we – as human rights activists – we fought this, but we want recognition. We want that recognition that we are the people promoting these things” (FGD, MSJC, 25 February 2022). According to some activists, the competition for funds has led to activist communities filing public complaints against each other to damage their reputation, in order to eliminate them from the funding competition. One male justice centre activist described what commonly happens when an activist community raises allegations against another: So, you have tarnished the other movement, so that they don’t access funds. Then you will not say that we are doing the same thing. “So please, help us with funds.” So, it’s a horizontal violence, where activists are fighting against each other for survival, because this space is where our passion is. And most of us, if not all, are not in formal employment. So, we survive in our activism. If money comes, that’s where fighting comes. (FGD, MSJC, 25 February 2022) An efficient way to “tarnish” another initiative’s reputation was mentioned as being reports on sexual harassment among activists. As the above quoted activist said, sexual harassment is “a new trend that people are taking to fight the movement”, in which activists are reporting on each other from different communities of sexual harassment, which hampers other centres’ funding opportunities. Although investigating the motives behind the complaints on sexual harassment and reports was beyond the focus of our research, it was evident in our data that activists, both male and female, perceived the phenomenon negatively. However, the context for competition among activist groups also forced them to take any allegations seriously, Activist contestations in socio-political change making in Kenya 31 regardless of what they personally thought. For example, a female activist in a leadership position in MSJC explained the contradictory feelings that sexual harassment allegations within the network cause: You’re like portraying a bad picture with the donors. Personally, I will say most of it is propaganda, but because we’re still in the growth process, we usually take these matters very seriously. If I talk about Mathare Social Justice, we don’t condone [sexual harassment] … we make sure every member signs the Code of Conduct. And we have people commit to the sexual harassment policy. When you break it, we usually suspend you. (Interview, 3 March 2022) Her views indicate that even if she and others in the centre may not believe in the honesty of all reported allegations, they still feel obliged to go through with investigations and give sanctions when needed. However, sexual harassment policies and codes of conduct do not always lead to consequences in the justice centres, as for example, the above interviewee also mentioned that many women drop allegations due to lacking evidence. Nevertheless, there was a shared understanding among activists fighting for resources at the community level that donor institutions do not favour collaborating with grassroots initiatives when harassment occurs. As Jones, Kimari, and Ramakrishnan (2017) note, volunteer-based activist organising tends to mirror bureaucratic institutional structures often seen in human rights institutions’ policy frames, even when activists are partly driven by disillusionment with those exact structures. The justice centres’ sexual harassment policies can be interpreted as such mirroring, especially as most of our interlocutors considered them more as a necessary evil than as policies that might support the integrity of the movement. Some scholars have identified infighting and other within-movement tensions as major causes of burnout in activists (Gorski 2019; Plyler 2009). For many activists, oppressive societal contexts, or fear of being arrested or even killed may not cause as much stress as internal conflicts between peers (Plyler 2009). In the Kenyan social justice movement, many activists articulated frustration with horizontal contestations, as the struggles and activist work are similar across the movement. As one respondent put it: “We are at the same level, we should be fighting for a common goal, but I’m seeing you as the enemy”.The competitive framework for funding creates distrust and division among activists, which may lead to activists dropping out as their life situations are often burdensome even without additional stressors caused by internal conflicts. Nevertheless, focusing on tackling the issues that cause tensions, such as sexual harassment allegations may at best force the movement to become more sensitive about such issues. This can be essential for movement growth in the long term, as creating safer and more regulated spaces may encourage inclusion as more young women from different backgrounds have lower thresholds to 32 Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura become involved in justice centre activism. Next, we will look at how activist dynamics at vertical and horizontal levels appear in the case of an annual protest that is planned and executed by multiple actors in the Kenyan human rights and social justice activist movement. Saba Saba March for Our Lives as a stage for community ownership of activism The annual Saba Saba march creates an arena for Kenyan human rights activists to work together for a common goal, despite contestations at both vertical and horizontal levels. Each year, the protest focuses on specific themes or human rights violations that have been topical especially for the informal settlement communities that year. In 2020, the COVID-19 restrictions had changed the already challenging situation in informal settlements to almost unbearable. The curfew that hindered people’s livelihoods and compulsory use of masks were not possible to follow for many, which resulted in increasing police brutality. Additionally, people staying home increased gender-based violence. (Mutahi and Wanjiru 2020; Rockowitz et al. 2021.) Against these circumstances, the 2020 Saba Saba march focused especially on police brutality and the violation of the constitutional right to basic needs (Mathare Social Justice Centre 2020). Because of COVID-19 restrictions, public gatherings had been banned, which gave the police an excuse to arrest 56 protesters, while using teargas and violence to disperse the protest. According to interviewed activists, this was one of the more memorable and violent Saba Saba marches in near history, while at the same time, it was also recalled with pride and feelings of solidarity. Police brutality during the protest only strengthened protesters’ sense of unity against a common enemy, bringing activists from different community level networks together. As an activist from the Kayole Community Justice Centre put it: During 2020 Saba Saba, what inspired me was the fact that yes, we can have people power in this country, and it can reduce a lot of violence in our areas. It’s because there was a lot of solidarity, people coming together. At that moment people are not even looking who you are working with. We were sharing this moment together. (Interview, 11 March 2022) While the 2020 Saba Saba was perceived as a culmination of solidarity from a community-level perspective due to shared frustration during the extraordinary pandemic context, such unity does not occur every year. Many respondents described lack of clear focus being a common problem in Saba Saba marches, as activists may release various parallel petitions that conflict with the agenda agreed in the planning. Additionally, female activists mentioned gender-related tensions as being central in organising the Saba Saba march. While women form the majority of activists in justice centres and Activist contestations in socio-political change making in Kenya 33 their role is remarkable in putting together the protests, they argued that women’s role is not recognised as visibly as that of male activists. However, there were more concerns related to the vertical contestations in Saba Saba that reflected wider dynamics within the human rights activist sphere. Many justice centre activists problematised branding during the protest, as NGOs, political parties and other institutions’ visibility in the march may compromise community ownership of the protest. As a male activist from MSJC put it: Because the reason why we are not branding, we’re not carrying flags, we’re not singing social justice, is because we want the common mwananchi [citizen] to feel that this is part of their problem. And it’supto them to come to the streets. (FGD, MSJC, 25 February 2022) Along the same lines, the presence of elite activists, such as the internationally recognised activist Boniface Mwangi, caused contradictory responses from respondents. On the one hand, they attract media attention and can be helpful with their long experience in protesting. On the other hand, elite activists may provoke police violence in the protest while themselves enjoying security by their fame, as one female activist pointed out: So, he [Boniface Mwangi] can talk to them [the police] any way he wants, then they’re like “we cannot touch you”. So, he can do whatever he wants. You cannot touch him, but the police get angry. Because they don’t have the power. For me it’sdifferent, I’m arrested again before I get out of the police station. (FGD, 8 July 2021) In general, activists recalled the 2020 Saba Saba march as especially powerful because all community-level activists had a clear, common agenda that was provoked by the effects of COVID-19 measures. Solidarity and anger among protesters were only strengthened by the excessive police violence, while viral video clips of angry protesters – such as the one described at the beginning of this chapter – filled Kenyan social media spaces during and after the protest. While at an everyday level, collaborating with NGOs and other donor institutions creates the need for social justice activists to use the rhetorical frame of institutionalised human rights policy strategically, this was hardly the case for them during the Saba Saba march. Rather, the annual protest was perceived as a stage for poor and working-class activists to unite and fight for more political agendas and in more radical forms than usually seen in the human rights activist framework. It was thus important for the activists that the “common mwananchi” has ownership of the protest, instead of NGOs or political entities, allowing it to have more resemblance to revolutionist struggle than institutional human rights activism. 34 Martta Kaskinen and Job Mwaura Conclusion Justice centre activists who operate at the community level are a vital part of the Kenyan civil society ecosystem that has been simultaneously expanding on a more informal grassroots level, and shrinking in regards to funded CSO operations during the past decade. As a way of navigating within the contextual constraints for civil society – such as state hostility, competition over resources, and significant class difference – these activists fluently and strategically combine different discursive frameworks for socio-political change making. On the one hand, they adhere to the “people power” revolutionary rhetoric of social justice movements, akin to the (African) socialist discourse or anti-colonial activist movements such as the Mau Mau insurgency. They insist on community ownership of activism in instances such as the Saba Saba march, which has roots in the political opposition and social justice. On the other hand, justice centre activists have adopted bureaucratic policy structures and a human rights rhetoric that enables access to global institutional human rights frameworks. This is embodied as comprehensive sexual harassment policies and codes of conduct, and the use of human rights policy language. In this dynamic composition reinforced by recent contextual constraints for activism, justice centre activists balance between revolutionary struggles, and the financial and material impossibility of fighting those struggles on their own terms. While the justice centre activists perceived compromises and collaboration as being necessary for success in the competitive funding scheme, they did not view the bureaucratic structures positively, as their thoughts about sexual harassment allegations indicated. Contestations that the activists perceived deriving from horizontal competition and vertical power dynamics compromised the opportunities for straightforward action and radical community ownership of activist initiatives. Although contestations among activists may result in demotivation and disillusionment (Gorski 2019), studies show that being part of an activist group enhances individual well-being in a number of ways, especially for young activists, due to a sense of collective accomplishment and feelings of empowerment (Montague and Eiroa-Orosa 2018). Our interlocutors, too, expressed feelings of empowerment and joy when thinking about collective achievements when activists stood up for themselves and against the authorities, such as the 2020 Saba Saba protest. At an everyday level, however, the contesting forces were mainly perceived as distractive to effective activism. However, we argue that the dynamic and creative coexistence of different frameworks for societal change can also have beneficial impacts on the activist movement as a whole. For example, even if sexual harassment policies may not guarantee harassment-free spaces or if the policies were abused in the name of tarnishing other activist initiatives’ reputation, as the activists speculated, it is likely that allegations are made also because sexual harassment exists, and the policies encourage reporting. Strict policy frames may Activist contestations in socio-political change making in Kenya 35 allow the community-level movement to become more diverse if they enable women and minority groups to feel more secure in activist spaces. Additionally, dynamic collaboration between actors at vertical and horizontal levels of the activist movement is important for supporting a vibrant civil society ecosystem to work for the greater good of the people it serves. This said, activists should have the space to express critical concerns about the realities of current collaboration. The subtle criticism of community-based social justice activists of the NGO human rights framework and its elitist distance from community realities is an important aspect of a healthy civil society ecosystem, albeit sometimes inconspicuous. Notes 1 We differentiate NGOs from CSOs here in regard to their scopes: CSOs can be any established or non-established organisations or popular movements (including NGOs), while NGOs refer to established organisations that often seek or receive external funding. 2 Jubilee coalition is a political party in Kenya and was the ruling political party from 2016 until 13 September 2022. It was formed after a merger of many smaller political parties. When the party was formed, it pledged to ensure devolution of power, protection of minorities and the marginalised, and non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, ethnicity, or any other bias. References Bellucci, S. 2021. “‘Not Yet Revolution!’: Socialism in Kenya from the 1960s to the 1990s.” In Socialismes en Afrique, edited by F. Blum, H. Kiriakou, M. Mourre, MB. Basto, P. Guidi, C. Pauthier, O. Rillon, A. Roy, and E. Vezzadini, 151–170. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme. CIVICUS. 2022. “Kenya: CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist. Overview of Recent Restrictions to Civic Freedoms.” https://civicus.contentfiles.net/media/assets/file/KENYA. CIVICUSMonitor.June2022.pdf. Edwards, M. 2011. “Introduction: Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations.” In The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, edited by M. Edwards, 3–14. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gorski, P. C. 2019. “Racial Battle Fatigue and Activist Burnout in Racial Justice Activists of Colour at Predominately White Colleges and Universities.” Race Ethnicity and Education 22 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1080/13613324.2018.1497966. Jones, P. S., W. Kimari, and K. Ramakrishnan. 2017. “‘Only the People Can Defend This Struggle’: The Politics of the Everyday, Extrajudicial Executions and Civil Society in Mathare, Kenya.” Review of African Political Economy 44 (154): 559– 576. doi:10.1080/03056244.2016.1269000. Kaskinen, M., and E. Ranta. 2023. “Just Fundraising? Campaigning Gendered Inequalities in Changing CSO Fundraising Markets in Finland.” Third World Quarterly 44 (7): 1586–1605. doi:10.1080/01436597.2023.2193320. Kendall, S. 2014. “‘UhuRuto’ and Other Leviathans: The International Criminal Court and the Kenyan Political Order.” African Journal of Legal Studies, 7(3): 399– 427. doi:10.1163/17087384-12342053. 42 Yahia Benyamina organise and promote representatives, the distrust among political elites and ordinary citizens, the memories of the civil war experienced during the 1990s and the rentier-based policies that allowed the regime to maintain social peace (Addi 2017; Volpi 2013). The advent of the so-called Arab Spring was a turning point for Bouteflika’s regime. Unlike the regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt, or the civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, the Algerian regime could preserve its hold on political life thanks to the financial resources of the state, which allowed it to absorb the anger of protesters in 2011 and the memory of the 1990 civil war. Nevertheless, the new regional environment has forced political authorities to undertake new political reforms in which the lifting of the state of emergency has enabled many opposition movements to participate in politics. As a result, some activists have joined, for example, the National Coordination for Change and Democracy, an opposition movement created by young people repressed during the 2011 protests (Baamara 2012). Others participated in the baraket (‘enough’) movement, which challenged President Bouteflika’s candidacy for a fourth term in 2014. In the south, inter-community clashes in the M’zab region (Wilaya of Ghardaïa) between 2013 and 2015 offered challenges to certain traditional forms of solidarity by which the regime in place has drawn its legitimacy for decades (Hadj-Moussa 2019). Elsewhere, social media platforms have embraced many campaigns against the government’s policies. For example, in response to the introduction of more expensive automobiles than those available in the international markets, a campaign called Khaliha Tasda (“let it rust”) was launched by activists on Facebook to change this new political policy. The same spaces embraced a boycott campaign against the 2017 legislative elections under the slogan Ma Nsoutich (“I do not jump”), a campaign that contributed to a decline in voter turnout from 42.9% in 2012 to 35.37%. At the time of this study, President Bouteflika had almost entirely disappeared from the public sphere due to a stroke that he suffered in 2013, which sparked much controversy regarding his ability to lead the country. The National Liberation Front and National Democratic Rally dominated the elected councils and government in a way that excluded the other political forces from political life. This period is also known as a return to economic austerity due to the decline in oil and gas prices, Algeria’s main exports in the international markets. The ambiguity surrounding the manner of decision-making in state institutions, in particular with the growing influence of a lobbying group of businessmen in alliance with the brother of the president, has aggravated tensions, which ultimately culminated in the hirak movement in February 2022. Disavowing politics: Negative understandings of politics and the political sphere I have already pointed out that young people claiming “political disavowal” prefer civic activism instead of political activism. When asking them about Disavowing politics 43 this choice, their answers were directly linked to their negative understandings of the word “politics” and the “political sphere”. Moreover, their reactions to the political component of my interview questions reflected negative attitudes. 3 Some preferred to move beyond these types of questions, while others either proved less inclined to questions related to political participation in comparison to questions related to civic engagement or they gave a succinct response, such as “I don’t have any relation with or interest in politics”. Even their physical gestures proved meaningful with regard to their negative attitude regarding politics, such as remaining silent for a while before answering or offering a slight smile or shake of the head, and sometimes even expressing doubt as to whether the researcher might not be a security agent. As I discuss below in more detail, analysing their answers and reactions revealed that fear, complexity, corruption, and scepticism were the main categories that structured their understandings of political activism. First, their fear was connected to the regime’s repressive tactics, especially when it comes to joining opposition movements or rallies demanding a radical change. In some cases, it was informed by the history of violence that shaped political life in Algeria. The interviewed young people mentioned several times the example of the civil war during the 1990s. The war had played an important role in the political disillusionment of a large number of Algerians after the gradual transformation from a sense of hope linked to the short-lived experience of a democratic transition (1989–1992) into the “national tragedy” characterised by hundreds of deaths, periodic massacres, and thousands of people missing (Zeraoulia 2020). Although young people did not directly experience this war, the memories transmitted to them, whether by their families, the media, various associations, or political actors defending the rights of victims of this period, made them suspicious of any political initiative, especially opposition movements. State authorities could easily manipulate such collective memories and use public fear for its own advantage. During the so-called Arab Spring, for example, the ruling political elite warned the citizens who took to the streets in 2011 of fomenting “chaos” and “instability” similar to the situation in the 1990s or in several other countries in the region at that time (Addi 2017). Second, with regard to complexity, scholars have demonstrated that an increased level of education enhances an understanding of “politics” (Persson 2013). Although all the activists that I studied were either university students or had already completed their university degree, such complexity appears more closely connected to the opacity characterising how the political regime operates and the difficulties in understanding many decisions. Young people noted a lack of reliable information and transparency in the management of public affairs, but also in “the culture of informality” that shapes political practices in the country. This point was especially salient in discussions about who really governs Algeria (Hachemaoui 2016). Many interviewees reportedly believe that the decision-making process takes place “behind the scenes”, while institutional arrangements only formalise decisions already made by unknown forces. 44 Yahia Benyamina Third, for the respondents, corruption mainly means the practice of pursuing private interests and enrichment that is both illegal and easy. Understood also as opportunism, corruption provoked two types of debate. The first relates to the influence of the so-called “dirty money” in politics. At the time of my fieldwork, the use of money to influence the political process (e.g. to purchase an electoral list, voters, and state officials) had increased considerably and provoked widespread debate in the newspapers and on social media, among differing political forces and even by state officials (Dris-Aït Hamadouche 2020). This practice has negatively impacted the value of political activism. One respondent expressed it as follows: “It is useless to spend time being an activist in a political party. It is enough to have chkara (literally means bag, here used in reference to money) to obtain a political position.” The second debate connects disengagement from politics with religious values. Corruption has triggered dichotomies, or halal (permitted) and haram (prohibited), as to what is considered morally good or bad according to Islam. Finally, scepticism emerged as a distinct category that has shaped young people’s understandings of politics. It is mainly based on past individual or collective experiences with politicians and political life. In several instances, the respondents mentioned the unfulfilled promises made by politicians during elections and political events or the inability of certain organisations to bring about real change in society. In this regard, the young people reaffirmed the crisis of distrust in everything related to politics (Dris-Aït Hamadouche 2020). In particular, they severely criticised the existing political parties, perceiving the opposition as merely a pragmatic strategy used by political actors to put pressure on the regime in an effort to obtain personal privileges or as an instrument of the political regime to deceive people and international opinion with respect to democratic rule. Some even criticised volunteering for being manipulated by politicians and the ruling political power, noting that one of their objectives is to purify it from this type of political manipulation. Two kinds of “politics” to avoid The studied young people highlighted two meanings of “politics” that they want to avoid. The first one is narrow, as discussed above, meaning the “manifest form of political activism” that takes place particularly in political parties and opposition movements. These types of political organisations imply direct involvement in political life, and both are perceived negatively by the respondents. As an alternative, the respondents prefer engaging only in civil society organisations and engaging in activities that do not “disturb” or attract the attention of politicians. The second meaning is broader. It includes abstract practices and behaviours that the studied young people believe that are also a form of politics that must be avoided. In this light, the cases of Hassan and Halima illustrate this second meaning quite well. Disavowing politics 45 Hassan, a 22-year-old university student, is an activist in an association concerned with youth development. He began doing volunteer work at the age of 18 with an informal volunteer group engaged in social work. After two years, he left this group and joined the youth association in which he was active at the time of the interview. When debating the reasons for abandoning the informal voluntary group, Hassan provided a set of practices that he sought to avoid. He pointed out: When I volunteer, I prefer recognition of others for my work without searching to get their attention by posting photos or spreading defamatory statements. This practice has distorted volunteering and alienated many people from it. On the other hand, Halima, a 24-year-old university student, began volunteering with an informal volunteer group at the age of 16. After six years, she became responsible for the branch of a national association concerned with youth development in the city of Oran. She complained about the bad practices she had experienced while engaging in civic activism, saying: Some volunteers don’t let you advance, and they frustrate you with unconstructive criticism. They don’t take into consideration your age or that you’re still learning. What interests them is destroying you. What I do is noble and free work; I don’t expect any return, and despite that, I have encountered many problems. The examples provided by these young people clarify what young people mean by the type of “politics” they are seeking to avoid. As explained above, fear, complexity, corruption, and scepticism are how young people understand the political sphere. Though these understandings reflect the abstract features and practices that define the type of “politics” they want to avoid, they do not provide a specific framework where they are practised (e.g. political parties, associations, trade unions, protests). In this vein, the detestable practices in the field of volunteerism mentioned by Hassan and Halima can also be considered “politics”, and therefore, such forms of politics should avoid becoming linked to such practices as corruption, mistrust, greed, fear, exploitation, manipulation, and opportunism. Such politics have no tangible or concrete limits because they entail practices that may exist everywhere. The “apolitical” and “non-political” aspects of engagement in the public sphere Volunteering with civil society organisations is the main form of engagement for the studied young people. However, given their state of suspiciousness and scepticism of anyone active in the public sphere, the young people strive to differentiate themselves by emphasising that their engagement is an 46 Yahia Benyamina integral part of the processes of societal inclusion and the social and economic development of the community, and therefore, which gives their engagement meanings and purpose other than just “doing politics”. I term such practices the “non-political aspects of engagement in the public sphere”. They mainly encompass, on the one hand, the motivations for young respondents to become involved in voluntary groups in the first place, and on the other, the results of their involvement, meaning services and activities that benefit the community. Concerning motivations, the studied young people listed a set of advantages that they could achieve due to their engagement. In this vein, social networking is one such advantage. Through engagement, they can make useful contacts, whether with members of the voluntary group or through the group or organisation. Indeed, within the framework of voluntary activities, many of them had already had the opportunity to meet public officials, private and public funders, and media professionals, even to collaborate with international organisations. Employment and gaining professional experience are another motivating factors influencing the engagement of some young people. By assuming certain paid or unpaid positions within associations (e.g. financial and administrative management, secretarial work, chairing the association, or leading a voluntary project), young people become familiar with professional life. For others, volunteering gives them an opportunity to develop professional expertise in establishing and managing formally registered associations. In terms of the advantages, the respondents also join an association out of a desire to be part of a specialised training program (e.g. refurbishing the stones of old buildings in the case of young people from the local heritage preservation association) or to acquire “soft skills”, particularly with regard to how to connect and communicate with others and enhance their personal abilities. Likewise, finding a safe and trusting space to meet, make friends, exchange information, and spend one’s spare time appeared frequently in the statements of young people. This aspect also implies a gendered dimension when used by young women to convince their families to remain outside a while longer or when coming home late in the evening. In fact, several young women pointed out that society and families still control the movement of women in public space and that an association is one of the few places where they can safely spend time. Finally, acquiring a social identity is also an explanatory factor for the engagement of young people in associations or informal voluntary groups. On several occasions, expressions of distinction and differentiation from those who do not volunteer emerged in the discourse of the interviewed young people. Volunteering means for them being positive and useful for the community, unlike non-volunteering, which they equated to passivity and selfishness. With regard to contributing to the social and economic development of the community, the studied young people highlighted different activities, including protecting the local heritage of the city of Oran, the training and Disavowing politics 47 integration of young people into society, taking care of marginalised people like the elderly and orphans, organising campaigns to clean up the city or afforestation efforts, helping poor families with food and clothing, contributing to blood donation campaigns, honouring excellent students and providing support lessons for students who are preparing for exams. The studied young people believe that these types of activities are “non-political” in scope and do not disturb the existing political power structure. In some cases, they complement the work of the state, for example when collaborating with official authorities on the campaigns to clean up the city or afforestation efforts or on other campaigns to raise awareness among citizens about the importance of social solidarity when it comes to donating blood or protecting the environment. Practices claiming an aspiring “politics” While the young respondents were striving to appear apolitical in the public space, the ways in which they were organising and conducting their voluntary activities implied another meaning for their civic engagement, one which emerges when they use political practices to support their apolitical activities. The process includes the implementation of certain modes of organisation and relations inside the group that involve political meanings. In other words, it appears that the internal making of the activities is political in nature, even if the outcomes appear “non-political”. The concrete translation of this process can be captured through the nature of the vertical and horizontal relationships between activists. The vertical level determines the nature of relations between the head of the group and activists, during which time application of a “leadership” mode of management and participatory democracy is a common practice. The interviewed young people mentioned the word leader (in Arabic ﺪﺋﺎﻗ) repeatedly in their responses to refer to an activist who has the principal mission of coordinating and organising activities. This means that the status of the “leader” is not a hierarchical position that requires exerting power over the rest of the members. Instead, the leader’s role is more symbolic and emotional. A good leader, said the young respondents, is a person who goes out into the field, lives with the members of the group, and is exposed to the same suffering as the others. The leaders put themselves at the forefront of problems, exposing themselves to risks before the team. Therefore, it is a form of sacrifice that must be provided for the general well-being of the group. Through these meanings, the young respondents framed good “leadership” in opposition to the presidential or top-down mode of management. The young activists depicted the latter forms of leadership as unidirectional, bureaucratic, passive, less interactive, and even authoritarian, reflective of practices that already exist in the public sphere, ones which they try to avoid. In other words, by applying a different leadership style within their voluntary 48 Yahia Benyamina groups, young activists negate existing political practices and employ other practices that they consider more acceptable and effective. The respondents particularly expressed appreciation for how the ideals of participatory democracy are applied within the groups. The promotion of this practice was closely related to the leadership mode of management. Since the leader is just a member like the others, the process of defining the activities to be carried out and the decision-making process is a collective one. In addition, the intensity of relationships that the leader initiates with the members produces an intimacy that creates the general feeling that the voice of each member is heard and taken into consideration in the overall dynamic of the group. From a practical standpoint, the implementation of participatory democracy implies two main processes. The first involves encouraging proposals from members of the group and creating the feeling that all initiatives are welcomed. Newcomers to a group have especially noted the importance of strengthening the feeling of participatory democracy in the first days after joining the group. Indeed, several young respondents mentioned that they were assigned to run a volunteer project already on the first day that they joined the group, despite their lack of experience in running volunteer projects, something which they appreciated and that represented for them a kind of encouragement and confidence in their abilities. The second process is related to consultation. All proposals and initiatives are subjected to consultation and deliberation by the group. Applying this process bridges the gap between a member’s self-esteem and the overall functioning of the group, as each member will feel that their initiative has been taken into consideration and discussed, while the group avoids any personal aspect of domination within the group. Moreover, some associations and informal voluntary groups have introduced communication technologies to improve this “participatory practice”. This may involve creating a private group on Facebook to circulate information and ideas between members or creating an interactive and consultative space for all questions concerning the group. Such a method allows each member to feel connected, even if they are not physically able to attend the group meetings. At the horizontal level, the young respondents described the links uniting them within the group as tinged with intimacy and mutual emotions, and not as simple relationships referring to a formal membership within the group. This feeling of “intimacy” inside the group was captured in some expressions used by the respondents, such as “we have a family spirit in the association” and “we are all friends”. In contexts where scepticism and fear marks engagement in the public sphere, such feelings and relationships provide people with a sense of security and trust (Onodera 2018). While this finding can be confirmed among my respondents, the feelings of family and friendship helped make civic activism more attractive to many young respondents after the wave of collective disengagement from political and civic life in recent years. Disavowing politics 49 Conclusion The notion of political disavowal discussed in this chapter refers to a form of activism among young Algerians who engage in the public sphere on the basis of their negative understandings about politics. Through humanitarian, social, and environmental volunteering, they have maintained and promoted certain qualities of activism, but without engaging in partisan politics or protest movements. As a result, they have established a form of activism that does not interfere with politics on the one hand, but still separates them from people who are not involved in the public sphere on the other. During the hirak, with many of the young people that I interviewed having participated in its dynamics, the demonstrators rejected all efforts at political mediation and framing of the movement by those in power. Only the military power could manage the presidential elections, thereby sparing the country from the deadlock of political non-representativeness that emerged just after Bouteflika’s demise in April 2019 (Dris-Aït Hamadouche 2020). Does this signify an outright rejection of politics by young people? When criticising the dysfunction of contemporary democratic societies, despite the multiplicity of spaces for expression, Innerarity (2017, 76) argues the following: What is not going so well is politics, in other words, the possibility of converting this plural set of forces into projects of political transformation, giving orientation and political coherence to these popular expressions and configuring quality public spaces where everything is deliberated, discussed and synthesised. The studied young people clearly reflect this finding when they highlight political disavowal as the main driving force behind their engagement in the public sphere. Before the hirak, when they refused any engagement in political parties or protest movements, they had not only contested the existing politics but had at the same time made claims for a different type of politics. In an implicit and soft manner, their ideas and actions contradicted many existing political practices. Leadership, participatory and inclusive democracy, friendship, and family spirit are some of the alternative practices that they seek to diffuse through their volunteerism in civil society organisations. Their activism can also be understood as an aspiring citizenship utopia via participation in civil society. They view this sphere as appropriate for achieving their project of affecting social and political change without engaging in partisan or protest politics, both of which are viewed negatively by young respondents but also by other citizens seeking deep political change during the hirak. Notes 1 I used the purposeful sampling method to select my interviews, and I applied the thematic content method to analyse the discourses that emerged during the interviews. 50 Yahia Benyamina 2 Concerning the young people who affected a certain political disavowal, they all have a university-level education and were between 19 and 33 years of age. In terms of gender, seven were men and five women. They were active in associations and informal voluntary groups in the following fields: two were members of an association working to protect the historical heritage of the city of Oran, four were members of associations concerned youth development, two were activists in environmental protection associations, and two were members of charitable associations. 3 This refers to questions regarding the forms of political engagement, which range from formal forms (voting, political parties) to informal forms (demonstrations, sit-ins), and to attitudes about the functioning of political life. References Addi, L. 2006. “Les partis politiques en Algérie.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la méditerranée 111–112: 139–162. doi:10.4000/remmm.2868. Addi, L. 2017. “Système politique et paix civile en Algérie”. Confluences Méditerranée 1 (100): 27–39. doi:10.3917/come.100.0027. 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Rahal. 2020. “Février 2019: Les débuts du Hirak en Algérie.” Maghreb - Machrek 2 (244): 5–10. doi:10.3917/machr.244.0005. Bennadji, C. 2009. “Révision de la constitution: Vers une présidence à vie pour Abdelaziz Bouteflika?” L’Année du Maghreb 5: 225–226. doi:10.4000/anneemaghre b.587. Bennadji, C. 2010. “Algérie 2010: L’année des mille et une émeutes”. Année du Maghreb 7: 263–269. doi:10.4000/anneemaghreb.1254. Bennett, A. E., A. Cordner, P. K. Taylor, S. Savell, and G. Baiocchi. 2013. “Disavowing Politics: Civic Engagement in an Era of Political Skepticism.” American Journal of Sociology 119 (2): 518–548. doi:10.1086/674006. Bourdieu, P. 1977. “La production de la croyance.” Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 13: 3–43. doi:10.3406/arss.1977.3493. Chiheb, A., N. Guemar, and J. Northey. 2019. “The Algerian Hirak: Young People and the Non-Violent Revolution.” 18 October. www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-a frica-west-asia/algerian-hirak-young-people-and-non-violent-revolution/. Cavatorta, F., and A. Elananza. 2008. “Political Opposition in Civil Society: An Analysis of the Interactions of Secular and Religious Associations in Algeria and Jordan”. Government and Opposition 43 (4): 561–578. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.2008.00263.x. Disavowing politics 51 Dicklitch, S., and D. Lwanga. 2003. “The Politics of Being Non-Political: Human Rights Organizations and the Creation of a Positive Human Rights Culture in Uganda”. Human Rights Quarterly 25 (2): 482–509. doi:10.1353/hrq.2003.0015. Dris-Aït Hamadouche, L. 2020. “Soulèvement populaire en Algérie: Crise politique et acteurs politiques en crise.” Maghreb - Machrek 2 (244): 11–23. doi:10.3917/ machr.244.0011. Dris-Aït Hamadouche, L. 2021. “Pouvoir-Hirak an 2: Les signes de l’impasse?”. Année du Maghreb 26. doi:10.4000/anneemaghreb.10362. Ekman J, and E. Amnå. 2012. “Political Participation and Civic Engagement: Towards a New Typology.” Human Affairs 22 (3): 283–300. doi:10.2478/s13374012-0024-1. Eliasoph, N. 2003. Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadj-Moussa, R. 2019. “Youth and Activism in Algeria. The Question of Political Generations.” The Journal of North African Studies 26 (2): 311–336. doi:10.1080/ 13629387.2019.1665289. Hadj-Moussa, R., and I. A. Derradji. 2020. “Unesilongueabsence:Notes sur la politicité de la rue en Algérie.” Maghreb - Machrek 3 (245): 13–32. doi:10.3917/machr.245.0013. Hachemaoui, M. 2016. “Qui gouverne (réellement) l’Algérie?” Politique Africaine 2 (142): 169–190. doi:10.3917/polaf.142.0169. Holmes, C. E. 2019. “The Politics of ‘Non-Political’: Activism in Democratic South Africa.” Comparative Politics 51 (4): 561–580. www.jstor.org/stable/26663948. Innerarity, D. 2017. “Democracy without Politics: Why Democracy Can Seriously Harm Democracy?” Studies in Media and Communication 5 (2): 76–84. doi:10.11114/smc.v5i2.2697. Kadri, A. 2012. “Associations et ONG au Maghreb: Aux origines des contestations.” NAQD 1 (29): 87–117. doi:10.3917/naqd.029.0087. Lakjaa, A. 2014. “Les jeunes en Algérie: Un désordre sociétal porteur de nouveaux liens sociaux.” Spécificités 1 (6): 234–255. doi:10.3917/spec.006.0234. Malafaia, C., E. Luhtakallio, I. Menezes, and T. Neves. 2018. “Being Civic while Disavowing Politics: An Ethnography of a Youth NGO in Portugal.” Current Sociology 66 (5): 769–787. doi:10.1177/0011392117704243. Northey, J. A., and L. Guemar. 2020. “The Algerian Hirak: Youth Mobilisation, Elections and Prospects for Reform”. ORIENT 2 (2): 14–21. Omrane, M. 2019. “La participation civique et politique des jeunes en Algérie: Problématiques et enjeux.” In La jeunesse algérienne: Vécu, représentations et aspirations, edited by N-E. Hammouda, B. N. Amina, K. Boucherf, and H. Souaber, 192–233. Algeria: CREAD. Onodera, H. 2018. “Friendship and Youth Activism in Pre-Revolutionary Egypt.” In What politics? Youth and Political Engagement in Africa, edited by E. Oinas, H. Onodera, and L. Suurpää, 42–57. Leiden: Brill. Oussedik, F. 2020. “Le hirak: Quelques réflexions sur les enjeux d’un mouvement contestataire en Algérie.” Insaniyat 24 (1): 69–83. doi:10.4000/insaniyat.23594. Persson, M. 2013. “Education and Political Participation.” British Journal of Political Science 45 (03): 1–15. doi:10.1017/S0007123413000409. Rennick, S. A. 2019. “Beyond Mass Protests: Rethinking What Constitutes Arab Youth Political Activism.” In Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, POMEPS Studies 36, 86–90. Washington, DC: The Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), George Washington University. 58 Angela Chukunzira teaching and learning. A number of studies also demonstrate how movements have used Zoom (Alexander 2020; Hancock 2022; Kavada 2022; Krinsky and Caldwell 2022), an adaptation that has occurred as the mobilisation of social movements has changed and new ways have been introduced (Della Porta 2020). Yet these studies do not investigate communicative practices in detail, as they focus on Zoom merely as a means of communication and not on how the platform is used in the hybridity of media ecologies within the movements. Furthermore, there is very little literature that links the use of Zoom to WhatsApp and other technologies in the context of social movement activism as exemplified by the COWG. Methodology: Personal reflections on scholar activism How, then, did I get interested in digital activism and involved with the COWG in South Africa? It was partly because I was fortunate – or unfortunate – enough to be “caught up” during the lockdown. As the pandemic spread, I was embarking on my studies in South Africa. I come from an activist background in Kenya and would “naturally” be interested in community organising, and a professor who was involved in convening the group inquired if I was interested in taking part. Soon afterwards, I was added to a WhatsApp group and attended a Zoom meeting while following the proceedings. It was a difficult undertaking at first because I was not familiar with the people behind the computer screens; moreover, I had only a little knowledge of the activism landscape in Gauteng because it was mostly new to me. The group consisted of 32 people when I joined, drawn from across Johannesburg and its surroundings. For this study, I collected the data in two ways: firstly, as an observing participant in virtual spaces such as the WhatsApp group and Zoom meetings; secondly, by conducting semi-structured face-to-face interviews with the activists as soon as some of the lockdown regulations had been eased. Initially, it felt strange to join the Zoom meetings and participate in the WhatsApp conversations because I was not active on the ground in the townships and informal settlements where the two main activities of popular education and food distribution were taking place. However, my role in the group was to assist with communications. In practice, I wrote the minutes for the meetings and posted them on the WhatsApp group; I also assisted some of the members to familiarise themselves with using Zoom, which involved one-on-one Zoom calls with them to “practice” for the COWG meetings. This role helped me to gain trust among the members of the group, although, as a researcher, I was not initially a member myself. While I had not intended to carry out research on Zoom, as the reality of lockdown stretched and uncertainty as to whether I could conduct my original design loomed, I opted to research connections between Zoom and community organising. I was then able to get consent for the study from the COWG members through consensus in one of the Zoom meetings. Communication in the coronavirus crisis 59 Literature on online data collection uses the term “netnography” to describe participant observation and ethnographically oriented research in online spaces (Kozinets 2015). There are many hurdles to collecting data online, a major issue being linked to the ethical challenges of being “allowed” into an online space. As the literature on WhatsApp, for example, points out, a major reason why people feel comfortable using WhatsApp groups is the intimacy that they provide (Milan and Barbosa 2020; Gil de Zúñiga, Ardèvol-Abreu, and CaseroRipollés 2019); thus, being an active participant in the WhatsApp group and attending the Zoom meetings provided me with an opportunity to analyse how the two platforms were being used simultaneously. However, because of my positionality as an outsider to activist circles in South Africa and my unfamiliarity with the context of everyday life in the townships, this was not sufficient to grasp a holistic understanding of the participants without face-to-face interviews. These I conducted later in the different townships where the activists lived – some in their homes, others in community centres. The combination of face-to-face interviews and netnography enriched my data, allowing me to reach a better understanding of the participants’ experiences. For example, when I saw where they lived and their social environments, the challenges that they faced with connectivity became much more apparent. I could clearly see the infrastructure that surrounded their homes and the immediate problems that they had to overcome. On the other hand, my own biases were also challenged, as I observed class differences, perspectives, and diverse activist experiences. Zoom and WhatsApp communication in the COWG It would have been impossible to organise activist initiatives during the pandemic had it not been for the simultaneous use of Zoom and WhatsApp, as they not only played a fundamental communicative role for the COWG, but were the platforms where decisions were made; furthermore, all the activists had smartphones that allowed the installation of these apps. Given that the use of one would not have been possible without the other, I will begin by investigating how Zoom was used, as I consider it the main platform that ensured the success of COWG activities for a number of reasons: firstly because, through Zoom, it was possible to hold meetings. It was a forum for accountability and the exchange of ideas simply because, unlike WhatsApp, people could speak on this platform; indeed, being able to connect with others, although physically isolated, created a sense of community. Secondly, Zoom was where collective decisions and resolutions were made, ensuring that the COWG’s work and mandate could be accomplished. As the lockdown regulations changed, the use of Zoom and WhatsApp within the COWG also shifted. For example, there was considerable activity at the height of the pandemic and, therefore, the regularity of Zoom meetings and attendance was high; as the regulations eased and some members went back to work, attendance reduced, while, as funding dwindled, there 60 Angela Chukunzira was less food to distribute. Volunteers had also been given a lunch allowance of 50 rand (approximately 3 US dollars), but this could not be maintained. However, the COWG evolved, and other initiatives and activities continued as the lockdown regulations were being eased. The South African government phased the lockdown at different levels between the highest at 5 and the lowest at 1. At level 5 (26 March–30 April 2020), only essential services were in place, including pharmacies, hospitals, and food shops. The sale of alcohol and cigarettes was prohibited, along with all gatherings, and national and provincial borders were closed. The COWG undertook popular education initiatives through door-to-door mobilising and distribution of pamphlets, and identified the most vulnerable families in the communities in order to distribute food to them. At lockdown level 4 (1– 31 May 2020), some work that was termed non-essential was resumed with extreme precautions; the night curfew was set at 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., while schools remained closed, and some COWG members went back to work. When level 3 (1 June–17 August 2020) was enforced, recreational establishments and schools were opened, and curfew hours were set at 11 p.m. to 4 a. m. This was when the COWG saw most of its members resume work. National days were also used as symbols for action. The COWG established a campaign dubbed Asivikelane, a Zulu phrase that roughly translates as “I protect you, you protect me”, used as a slogan in subsequent meetings. It was also during this phase of the lockdown that gatherings were allowed, and the COWG used this opportunity to engineer public mobilisations. For example, on Youth Day on 16 June 2020, the COWG mobilised a number of community actions, particularly popular education, under the slogan, “we are angry, we are hungry”. Banners, T-shirts, masks, loudhailers, posters, songs, and chants were widely used in this and at other events that the COWG organised on national holidays. Members then convened at the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto after holding community gatherings, raising issues that included solidarity with other movements globally. At this time, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States was protesting the death of George Floyd, killed by the police. It was also a protest cry against the gender-based violence inflicted on women that had risen during the pandemic. On 18 July 2020, marking Nelson Mandela Day, popular education initiatives were undertaken in different communities, encouraging the members to mask up and sanitise – services that were conducted for 67 minutes to symbolise the number of years Mandela, South Africa’s freedom fighter and its first Black president, who spent many years of his life in service for his country, including being a political prisoner, and advocating for a non-racialism. On 9 August 2020, South African Women’s Day, the COWG members convened at Constitution Hill to commemorate the role of women in the national liberation movement. It was an opportunity to amplify the message of Asivikelane that we must protect each other to survive. When the COWG began using Zoom, the meetings were ad hoc because, at the time, there were many deliberations and discussions to be undertaken. Communication in the coronavirus crisis 61 Popular education had just begun, there was a lot of personal protective equipment (PPE) to be delivered, and constant communication was important. Identifying the most vulnerable households in the different communities was also an urgent task. But as the working group grew and drafted a mandate, it was agreed that Zoom meetings would take place every Thursday, with an agenda that was always posted and discussed in the WhatsApp group prior to each meeting. They usually included a weekly report on what was happening in the team leaders’ localities. It was also an opportunity to discuss the challenges that were being faced or the successes that had been achieved. At first, the use of Zoom was not easy as there were many hurdles, which I describe further below. It took a lot of teamwork to ensure the group’s success in using the application and, in part, this was due to the determination of the activists themselves, while the diversity of COWG membership and the different skills that it harnessed eventually ensured that Zoom meetings were successful. For example, the leaders took up chairing the meetings, and I personally took notes and later posted them on the WhatsApp group. In many ways, the COWG created its own culture for meetings over time. In an ordinary meeting, the members would come in one by one, which often provided a chance for small talk among those participating, mostly on mundane subjects, such as the latest announcements in the national news, or what we should expect from the next presidential address. After a few minutes, those who had not joined would be called by phone, and this would be deliberated among the members present. In most cases, those who were unable to join would send their apologies to the WhatsApp group and they were excused prior to the meeting. The chair would then start the meeting by stating the items on the agenda and welcoming any additions. Attendees would raise their digital hands (a feature on Zoom) to contribute and the chair would moderate the conversations. Video calls were never used due to connectivity issues and because it would consume more data. Whenever a member was out of order or forgot to unmute themselves, the chair would remind them, while, if there were a problem, the chair could ask the host to mute a member. This was always done respectfully and not to shut somebody down while they were speaking. On the other hand, if someone could not speak either because of the connectivity or too much background noise, they would type their comments in the chat box. One interesting aspect of the culture that the COWG created online was that at the end of the meetings, the host would unmute everyone and people would say goodbye almost simultaneously before the meeting officially ended. Although there were all these features that allowed the meetings to proceed, they did not come without their own challenges. As mentioned earlier, one of the issues that we faced was the problem of internet connectivity, which often had to do with the infrastructure in the vicinity of participants’ locations. In some areas, it was difficult to get connected, as was further explained to me by some of the activists during face- 62 Angela Chukunzira to-face interviews and interactions in the areas where they lived; some had to strain to get a network connection in their homes. This would then compromise the quality of the audio. Another challenge that was faced was electricity supply as some activists lived in areas that were not connected to the electrical grid and depended on solar power to charge their devices, which was particularly difficult during winter months. Furthermore, when there were power cuts, it was impossible for some to connect, while a shortage of electricity would mean that the devices were not charged and therefore could not be switched on for online connection or might cut out mid-stream when the battery was low. In yet other cases, the activists considered leaders in their communities could not participate because they were involved in conflicting community matters at the same time, such as attending to a baby that had been abandoned outside their door. These issues were urgent community matters that could not be postponed and, therefore, took priority over a Zoom meeting. Furthermore, as most activists used their phones to connect to Zoom, this meant that when they received other calls in the middle of the meeting, they lost the connection and had to join again, thereby interrupting their participation. Interestingly, one activist (age 44) also pointed out to me that one of the weaknesses of using Zoom was that the meetings lacked “a real feel”. By this he meant that he often found it difficult to gauge the honesty of other participants because he could not see them face-to-face, while background noise could indicate that people were not fully present in the meeting. Comrades … some of them are lying, you see … there were things that were being bracketed … I could tell someone was smoking ganja [cannabis] while we were in the meeting … all the background noise … they often contradict themselves while speaking. Perhaps the greatest challenge was that some COWG members found using Zoom too difficult, although it was new to most of them; in fact, all the activists I interviewed had used Zoom for the first time when they got involved with the COWG. The learning processes for adapting to the use of Zoom were not uniform among the activists. This had to do with the issues of the digital divide that require skill for one to be able to use platforms effectively. As one activist (age 39) observed when reflecting on what it really meant to understand how to use Zoom: But using Zoom … what does it really mean? Uuuummm … Can we all be hosts? Can we all run webinars? Be like those panellists … Can we all share a screen? I mean, there are those technicalities that come with Zoom. Being able to connect to a meeting doesn’tmeanIcan use Zoom effectively. This reflection in many ways exposes the issues that the COWG encountered as the members adapted the newer technologies. As literature on the digital Communication in the coronavirus crisis 63 divide shows, the use of social media does not necessarily equate to users being empowered; indeed, often social media users who are active online are privileged in multiple ways relating to their gender, race, ethnicity, class, or other issues (Mutsvairo and Ragnedda 2019; Nyabola 2018). On the other hand, activists with prior exposure to technology could confidently use and enjoy the conveniences of Zoom. Some were working for NGOs, one was working for a bank, another was a paramedic, and they had already been exposed to using computers and interacting with technology. Zoom was, therefore, just a continuation. In fact, when the lockdown was at its peak, those who were working in various organisations and had switched to working from home were using similar applications, which meant that they became more confident in the use of Zoom because of familiarity and frequent use. The confidence also meant that they could express themselves better and their participation was enhanced. The confidence to interact with technology, as the group interviews show, has a lot to do with exposure, which meant that Zoom was a better platform for self-expression. As one activist (age 22) claimed: I feel there is so much openness behind the screen. You can always switch off your camera and not be seen, right? … Whenever I spoke when the camera was off, I could say much more … I like working from behind the scenes with my personality. The other challenge was the issue of language. Zoom, like most digital technologies, is primarily in English. Even though it is available in 11 other languages, none of the options are an African language. Some of the members experienced the challenges simultaneously, which meant, for example, that while they were facing a connectivity issue, they could not type in the chat box due to a lack of confidence in their linguistic ability. The issue of language is highlighted in some digital divide literature, showing how it affects online participation (Sam 2019). As one activist (age 41) told me: I don’t understand Zoom … even now [after 7 months of using it], I don’t understand Zoom. I know to raise my hand and talk only. To chat and do what, what I don’t know, anything! I see some people chatting there … I don’t know. Although not all these challenges could be overcome, some of the ad hoc solutions provided demonstrated the working-class creativity that enabled the success of the COWG. For example, the issue of connectivity was overcome by calling activists and connecting them to Zoom via a phone call. This was done by more resourceful members who had multiple devices and sufficient airtime to sustain other members in meetings that lasted almost two hours. On the other hand, in my role as assistant of communication, I virtually trained some of the members to use Zoom, which boosted their confidence 64 Angela Chukunzira and allowed better participation. In many cases, activists who had issues with electricity in their localities managed to charge their devices in time for the weekly meetings by planning to have data and a ready phone for the regular Thursday schedule. Here, the COWG members’ determination enabled effective meetings for the group. Furthermore, although meetings were almost exclusively conducted in English, it was not uncommon for some members to speak in Zulu, and it would then be translated. In other words, inclusivity was practised to allow people to express themselves. One of the highlights of the success of the use of Zoom was that most meetings were well-attended. At the beginning of the pandemic, the COWG successfully hosted a webinar in collaboration with the University of Johannesburg library that sensitised the public to the work that the COWG had started on popular education during the lockdown. The brief outline offered above exhibits the central role Zoom played for COWG activities. During the pandemic, it functioned as a crucial platform for internal communication, decision making, sociality, solidarity, and learning at a time when physical meetings were not possible. It is important, finally, to highlight the complementary role that WhatsApp played in this context. In April 2020, which was the peak of the lockdown, the average number of messages sent per day in the COWG group was 113. Importantly, as part of accountability, the members shared pictures that showed food distribution and popular education through the distribution of pamphlets. The links to Zoom meetings, their agendas, and the meeting minutes were also shared in the group, along with other documents allowing members to seek clarity on various matters. Before Zoom meetings, some members would feel free to add any items that they felt were of importance to the agenda. Of course, there were instances when members would go astray and post things that were irrelevant or information that was not verified, in which case the group administrator would call them to order, enabling the smooth running of the group. The COWG also had several other WhatsApp groups among its members for coordination purposes. In many cases, there would be a smaller team that was designated to carry out a specific task, which would form a smaller group to facilitate coordination and minimise message traffic in the main group. For example, there was a small task team that was responsible for coordinating the event held on Youth Day on 16 June. This meant they were concerned, for example, with how T-shirts would be delivered, and with liaising with other teams to publicise the event. Conclusions This chapter has established that Zoom was a crucial digital platform that sustained the mobilisation, coordination, and activities of the COWG in Johannesburg during the pandemic lockdown in 2020; complemented by WhatsApp, it was central to the group’s internal communication practices. Communication in the coronavirus crisis 65 The architecture of these platforms made them suitable for organising numerous people in a large city, making their communication effective, and serving as a locus of members’ accountability through weekly meetings. The internal dynamics of communication united the COWG, producing a shared identity that developed during the pandemic. The chapter also shows that it is not only the internal communication practices that made the COWG successful. Many forms of external communication, including the use of traditional media such as loudhailers, pamphlets, banners and T-shirts, slogans, and symbolism, were also used to communicate the group’s messages to wider publics. Another important factor that helped with popular mobilisation was that most members were seasoned activists who were respected leaders in their communities; their activism and community engagement helped to ensure that they could recruit volunteers from their existing networks to fulfil the group’s mandate. Lastly, the group’s social diversity was additionally beneficial as the different skillsets the members contributed assisted the group in hosting meetings and ensuring accountability to donors. Notes 1 See more at https://c19peoplescoalition.org.za/poa/. 2 The townships where COWG was active included Klipspruit, Pimville, Orlando, Nomzamo Park, Meadowlands, Diepkloof, Orange Farm, Eldorado Park, Thembehlile, and Protea South. 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Mattoni. 2016. “Media Ecologies and Protest Movements: Main Perspectives and Key Lessons.” Information, Communication & Society 19 (3): 290– 306. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2015.1109699. Walgrave, S., and P. Ketelaars. 2019. “The Recruitment Functions of Social Ties: Weak and Strong Tie Mobilization for 84 Demonstrations in Eight Countries.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 60 (5): 301–323. doi:10.1177/ 0020715219888942. Wargadinata, W., I. Maimunah, E. Dewi, and Z. Rofiq. 2020. “Student’s Responses on Learning in the Early COVID-19 Pandemic.” Tadris: Jurnal Keguruan Dan Ilmu Tarbiyah 5 (1): 141–153. doi:10.24042/tadris.v5i1.6153. 74 Geoffrey Pleyers For those who took part in it, the 2019 revolt has not only been a collective and political process but also a deeply personal experience (Ganter et al. 2022; Sandoval 2023). Based on processes of personal subjectification, understood as the construction of oneself as a person and the conception of the life one wants to live (Bajoit 2012), the experience of the revolt led to participants’ questioning the promises of the Chilean neoliberal social and economic model that claimed to be based on “meritocracy”. During the evenings they spent on the squares, they recounted their lives, listened to others doing the same, and realised that their personal destiny was collective and that the difficulties they faced in daily life found their source in a model of society that is deeply unfair. This “opened their eyes”, as many repeated in interviews and as street art claimed on the walls of the cities of Chile, and they revisited their life histories based on this new perspective. After devoting most of their time and energy to work (Araujo and Martucceli 2012), many interviewees expressed their desire to “get their life back”. One worker present at Plaza Dignidad shared this in these terms during the interview: At one point, I asked myself, “At what point did we become like this?” because we lived stressed, tired. I worked in a bank. I went in at seven in the morning and sometimes I left at two at night! What kind of life did I have with my family? …Since 18 October, there has been something, a phenomenon, that I still can’t identify. All I know is that I feel happy … It’s such a selfish world. We were taught to be selfish. In these 20–25 years, we were not taught to be people, but to be “neoliberals”…I don’t know what we became. When did this happen to us? When did this happen to me, locked up in the world of work, work, work, and I didn’t realise how it happened. 30 years passed by me! (Interview, Plaza Dignidad, November 2019) Expressive and artistic dimensions Artistic creativity has emerged as a consubstantial part of all the square movements and citizens’revolts during the 2010s. Street arts, poems, songs, and performances have expressed outrage at injustice, anger at state violence, and demands for social justice. The Tunisian Revolution failed to provide a better future for its youth; however, it has profoundly permeated the subjectivity of many citizens, particularly among young people, transforming their relationship with the state, society, and themselves (Diaco et al. 2017). The expression of these subjectivities is embodied in particular in a dynamism and artistic creativity that touches all fields, from cinema and music to street art (see Laine, Suurpää, and Ltifi 2017 on the Tunisian case). Artistic creativity has been a central component of the Chilean uprising. In the months that followed 18 October 2019, dozens of artists wrote songs dedicated to the movement, to the point that David Ponce (2020) speaks of a “sound uprising”(un estallido sonor). The outburst cannot be recounted, let The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements 75 alone understood, without the countless poems narrating and disseminating the hopes, fears, and experiences of those who lived through it (Ganter et al. 2022). Other participants expressed their outrage and hope through embroidery and burlap. Street art and graffiti were of particular significance, populating and shaping the space of the movements and embodying the reappropriation of the neoliberal city by a popular movement. It provided the visible dimension of the transformation of these squares into spaces of experience, hopes, encounters among citizens, and confrontation with the police (Paredes 2021). Paintings and graffiti remained on the walls of downtown Santiago until May 2023: the sediment of the revolt and its creativity, recalling the energy and creativity of the revolt and maintaining its memory. Such residue acted as traces of the struggle and its hopes and values, and the alternative project for society it represented. It was not an abstract declaration but embodied in the experience of the people who gathered on these squares. The images prolonged the movement and its claims, addressing the actors who lived through it and still carry it with them, as well as the political authorities and passers-by (Henríquez 2022), questioning them about the injustices of a social and economic model that rules a profoundly neoliberal and unequal country. Yet creativity and the affirmation of subjectivities are not merely the means used to promote a cause; they are at the core of resistance to the invasion of the world by the forces of neoliberal cities. The vindication of these subjectivities and creativity opposes the process of subjugation and formatting by an economic and cultural system. Beyond convergence: Spaces of encounter A key element of these movements is that they provided spaces where participants wove dense and deep social relations. The squares became “spaces of experience”, understood as “places distanced from the capitalist society that allow actors to live according to their own principles, enter into different relationships, express their subjectivity and that favour processes of subjectification” (Pleyers 2010, 39). In all the cities of Chile, the occupied squares became spaces of sociability where citizens shared the difficulties of their lives and their hopes. They opened up to the other not only with their convictions but also their political and existential doubts, the fragility of their experience, and their processes of personal subjectivation. These relationships of trust, openness, and attention to the other that characterised social relations in Plaza Dignidad contrasted with the extent of distrust that characterises Chilean society (Brunner 2021), both towards politics and among citizens. Friendships and mutual support networks were formed on the squares (Henríquez 2022), the ground on which mutual aid and local solidarity networks would emerge or consolidate during the pandemic to confront the failures of the state to address basic needs in popular neighbourhoods confronted with strict confinement measures (Pleyers 2023a). 76 Geoffrey Pleyers All over the world, the square occupations also fostered encounters between people from different social backgrounds. People who usually “don’t mix”, either in everyday life or in social mobilisations, met, shared their lives, and suffered the repression together. Those who were in Plaza Dignidad will remember the flags of rival football teams flying above the statue on the square. Those who were part of the front line confronting the police will remember the support of some members of the football fan radicals, the “barras bravas”, who used their experience of confrontations with the police in the stadiums when defending the occupied square. The same happened in Cairo during the 2011 revolution when the “ultras” of rival clubs allied to defend Tahrir Square against the armed forces or the Gezi movement in Istanbul in 2013. Intersectional movements As mentioned above, the “movements of the 2010s” are characterised by a close articulation of economic and cultural (materialist and post-materialist) claims (Glasius and Pleyers 2013), and also an intersectional dimension. The feminisation of social movements was already an essential element of mobilisations at the beginning of the decade. Women took centre stage in the Tunisian revolution, in the Spanish 15M, and even more so in the Gezi movement in Turkey in 2013 (Türkmen 2016), among others. This was reinforced throughout the decade, exemplified by the democracy movement in Sudan (Handique 2020) and the Women, Freedom, Life -movement in Iran in 2022 (Khosrokhavar 2023), to name the most emblematic cases. Transcending its protagonists, this feminisation shows the growing influence of feminist culture and practices in contemporary social movements (SuárezKrabbe 2020), notably embodied in the importance of care to activists, expressed in their attention to other participants, the different style of leadership, and the production of spaces in which human relations can be expressed through mutuality. The feminist dimension was crucial in the Chilean uprising, prolonging the 2018 national “feminist uprising” (Ponce Lara 2020), while the performance of the feminist collective Las Tesis resonated globally and was reproduced in dozens of countries. The aftermath of the 2019 uprising also saw the historymaking feminist march on 8 March 2020. Echoes on a personal level and in producing relations between citizens are even more important. When I asked what the outburst had changed, a young activist replied, “Since 18 October, we talk about our emotions at dinner in my family” (interview with a law student, 21 years old, Santiago, November 2019). Another intersectional dimension of the square movements in the 2010s that has been repeated in many countries has been the encounter between urban and “non-racialised” citizens with popular, “racialised” and/or ethnic actors, dominated in the national context by institutionalised racism and/or colonial practices. The active participation of oppressed minorities in the The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements 77 “post-2011” movements contrasts sharply with the wave of anti-globalisation protests in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While the Zapatista movement was an inspiration shared by many of the young activists, alter-globalisation protests overwhelmingly gathered “non-racialised” (i.e. White), middle-class citizens, to the extent that the question, “Where was the colour in Seattle?” 1 (Martines 2000) became a major concern for the movement. A decade later, the square occupations of the 2010s were spaces of encounters between citizens and activists from different social backgrounds. In New York, Occupy Wall Street was an important moment of interaction between students and middle-class activists and “racialised” (mostly Black and Latinx) activists from the city’s more popular neighbourhoods. The relationships of trust and support they forged during the encounter led to solidarity actions when popular neighbourhoods were flooded by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and to a vibrant Black Lives Matter movement in the city a few years later. In Istanbul, the 2013 Gezi Park occupation brought together religious citizens and atheists, and middle-class Turkish activists and Kurdish citizens oppressed and repressed by the regime, producing shared understanding, interpersonal trust, and mutual support for their causes; this converged in demands for a more democratic country and the rejection of increasing state control and repression. These encounters fostered a new perspective on Kurdish activists and strengthened the new pro-peace party in Turkey, the People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP), which won 13% of the votes nationally in the 2015 elections before being heavily repressed by the Erdogan government. In Chile, the strong presence of Mapuche flags and Mapuche language graffiti on the Plaza de la Dignidad in Santiago and across the country became a symbol for one of the most significant dimensions of the uprising: the encounter between activists and urban movements, and elements of Mapuche culture, worldview, and identity. As Fernando Pairican and Juan Porma explain, “Mapurbidad 2 was not only present. It played a fundamental political and symbolic role” (Pairican and Porma 2022). The Chilean Awakening had a decolonial dimension and contributed to broadening what Pairican (2022) has called “plurinationality from below”. Carrying Mapuche flags during the square occupation, young people sought to show the Indigenous component of their identity or their solidarity with the Mapuche people’s struggle. They denounced repression of the movement, the robbery of Indigenous lands by the Chilean state (Pu Lov y las Comunidades Lavkenche en Resistencia 2017) and the invisibilisation of Mapuche identity and culture in the colonial construction of Chilean identity. Indeed, the encounters in square occupations and their aftermaths have transformed how many participants see their country. As happened in other Latin American countries with the Zapatista movement and with sumak kawsay/buen vivir (see Radcliffe, this volume), some parts of the Mapuche worldview have become an inspiration for a new generation of activists in thinking about our relationship with nature (of which we are a part), what living with dignity 78 Geoffrey Pleyers means, and the pluricultural reality of Chile. It has translated into a different way of conceptualising democracy (Díaz Polanco and Pacheco 2002; Pairican and Porma 2022) that stresses the need to consider collective subjects and rights and to acknowledge and protect different nations and cultures in twenty-first-century democracies. Relationship to institutional politics It is an analytical mistake to reduce the outcomes of social movements to their impact on institutional politics while ignoring the complex relations between these two arenas and their actors, which evolved significantly during the movements and revolts of the 2010s. At the dawn of the decade, most actors in the citizen revolts and square occupations – including the Arab revolutions (Khosrokhavar 2012), the Spanish 15M, Occupy Wall Street, the Gezi Park movement, and the June 2013 protests in Brazil (Bringel and Pleyers 2019) – adopted an anti-party and anti-institutional stance (sometimes falsely labelled as “anti-politics”). They focused on non-representative and prefigurative practices (Pleyers 2010), implementing the horizontality and democratic values of the movement in the assemblies themselves, as well as in the thematic committees deployed in the squares. The rejection of institutional politics and actors left a vacuum in electoral politics. In some countries, it was filled by charismatic progressive leaders whose discourses resonated with some of the demands being made and who managed to combine elements of “movement culture” with the logic of institutional politics (Della Porta et al. 2017), as was the case of Podemos in Spain, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK, and the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio Cortéz in the United States. In Egypt, the well-organised Muslim Brotherhood filled the space, before being crushed by the El Sisi coup in 2014. In many other countries, the void was filled by far-right actors. Authoritarianism grew in Arab countries and the peaceful revolutions in Syria and Bahrain were crushed. In Turkey, the democratic atmosphere of Gezi gave way to an authoritarian turn, marked by the assassinations of Kurdish political, social, and cultural actors, along with the arrest of hundreds of President Erdogan’s opponents. In Brazil, the 2013 marches were animated by progressive demands and actors calling for more democracy, participation, and equality, better public services, and less state violence. However, a year later, movements from the far right took over the leadership of the protest cycle (Bringel and Pleyers 2019), promoting President Dilma Rousseff’simpeachment, the Temer government’s neoliberal policies, and, later, Jair Bolsonaro’s successful campaign. If we maintain that social movements contribute to the production of society, it is indispensable to recognise that it is not only progressive movements that produce society; conservative movements and the “global capitalism movement” do likewise (Sklair 1997). Latin America movements are traditionally closer to party politics than those elsewhere. All over the continent, the movements of the 2010s opened The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements 79 space for political co-optation. They also introduced political innovations, seeking to combine the logic of movements and party politics. For example, in Brazil, “plurinominal candidacies” at local and state elections, and a series of other political innovations, emerged in the aftermath of the 2013 protests (Faria 2020), resulting in a significant increase of women of colour and activists in municipal councils without losing the autonomy of activist collectives. In this panorama, the Chilean case stands out as one of the most interesting representations of the translation of the movements into the politicalinstitutional arena. The uprising contributed to the historic election of a 35year-old former student leader to the Presidency of the Republic in 2021. Gabriel Boric belongs to a party alliance that emerged in the aftermath of the 2011 student protests, in a process partly similar to what happened after the Spanish indignados (Marzolf and Ganuza 2016). In Chile, the dynamism of social movements found its main political translation in the first constituent assembly. The majority of its members were elected from lists of candidates who were independent of political parties, most of them with strong roots in civil society and social movements, which resulted in one of the most progressive proposals for a constitution globally. This composition increased the challenge of connecting the ethical logic of social movements with the negotiation logic of representative politics (Garretón 2016), particularly with articulating this constituent process beyond the most progressive sectors of the Chilean population. Thanks to the infrastructures and connections built after the 2011 student protest, some political translations of the 2019 uprising operated much faster than in other countries; however, some of the actors in these movements maintained a strong opposition to the practices of party politics. It translated, for example, into a campaign in favour of the null vote in the May 2023 elections for councillors, in which the proportion of null and blank votes reached 21%. Social movements, politics, and social change The impact of revolts and citizens’ movements on institutional politics is rarely linear and often does not go in the direction of the movements. This is not specific to the political processes that unfolded after the citizens’ uprising. A few weeks after May 1968, with the largest workers’ strike in France since the Second World War and the student revolt that became a global symbol, the national elections of June 1968 delivered the most pronounced victory for right-wing parties since 1945. In the more recent history of the Americas, only five years separate the mass protests of Junho 2013 (June 2013) by citizens demanding a fairer and more democratic Brazil and the electoral victory of far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro. Five years is also the period between Occupy Wall Street and the election of Donald Trump to the White House. 80 Geoffrey Pleyers In Chile, a succession of historic social movements, including the student movement of 2011 and the massive protest against private pension funds, did not prevent the return to the presidency of Sebastián Piñera, the businessman who most embodied the system that these movements denounced. After a first mandate between 2010 and 2014, his re-election in 2017 invites us to moderate assumptions of the immediate impacts of progressive movements on institutional politics and not to ignore the agency and adaptability of actors who sought to maintain the “Chilean socio-political matrix” (Garretón 2016). Piñera’s second election demonstrated the ability of right-wing parties and actors to adapt to new contexts created by social movements and to limit the depth of the social changes driven by the student movement (Cortés 2022); however, it did not invalidate the dynamics of the social movements – quite the contrary. Mobilisation against private pension funds reached its peak in 2017. A year later, in 2018, the same thing happened to the feminist movement. In 2019, the explosion occurred, and a year after its explosion, the Constituent Assembly process began. The connections between social revolts and institutional politics are never straightforward. One should recall that the primary purpose of social movements is not to change institutional politics but to change society. Reducing social movements to their impact on institutional politics or the electoral arena is an analytical bias that prevents us from understanding some fundamental dimensions of these actors and the essential part in the change that they drive. Although June 1968 gave the largest electoral victory to the French right in the twentieth century, the historical impact of these elections was less than that of the social and cultural movement that immediately preceded them. Nobody remembers the elections of June 1968, while May of the same year had a profound impact on French society, remaining a turning point and a global reference. Likewise, the impact of the feminist movement cannot be summed up in a series of laws that have asserted gender equality, granted the right to vote, or provided legal access to abortion. It is more than that, transforming women’s and men’s subjectivities, behaviours, and visions of the world in everyday life in professional, educational, and public spheres (Federici 2018; Suárez-Krabbe 2020). A fundamental dimension of movements and revolts, such as May 1968 in Paris and 15M and the indignados,is precisely to question the centrality of institutional politics in the mechanisms of social change (Arranz Guilarte 2021; Rancière 2015). The progressive movements of the 2010s remind us that democracy is not only about institutions and elections. It is about living democracy as an experience, in everyday practices, and as a personal ethic (Pleyers 2023c). Conclusion Analysing the Chilean outburst within the wave of citizen movements and revolts that have shaken countries and political regimes in all regions of the world since 2011 provides a broader understanding of the contributions and The Chilean awakening in a global decade of social movements 81 challenges of the Chilean movement in regard to the social, cultural, and political dynamics it fostered and strengthened. The fate of the citizens’ movements and the social and political dynamics that unfolded in these countries in the 2010s, reminds us that social change towards a more just and democratic world is not a linear process. It goes through advances and setbacks, passing through the euphoria of sharing with thousands of people in public squares and political and social victories, and the disillusionment when electoral processes reveal that the actors of the democratising movement are a minority in the country’s population, or that the state has managed to repress democratic aspirations in a violent but effective manner. Similarly, the lessons of social movements in different countries invite us to integrate the role of reactionary actors and movements more effectively into analyses of contemporary social movements. They also temper the illusory optimism of a rapid and limbo-free mutation to a more just and democratic society. Chile has already gone through this stage. Six years after the historic student movement of 2011, Sebastián Piñera was returned to the Presidency of the Republic. The failure of the progressive actors to institute a process that would provide Chile with a new constitution is a reminder that the people who “woke up” in the 2019 uprising only constitute a part of the Chilean population. Among progressive intellectuals, there is also a tendency to look at and analyse only one side of the social and political landscape. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that the “Chilean awakening” was not limited to its political impact; rather, it reflects the operations of social movements in the strong sense that Alain Touraine (1981) assigned to the concept: actors who take their struggles to the level of historicity and seek to transform a society’s central cultural values. The uprising has shaken many dimensions of Chilean society and of the citizens who participated in it. 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Santiago: Ariadna Ediciones. 90 Sarah A. Radcliffe Constructing citizenship [Cotacachi’s] inhabitants are capable of visualising what as a collective they want for the future, and in turn take the actions necessary to make that future into reality. (Municipality ordinance on the Assembly for Cantón Unity of Cotacachi, 2016) Colonial modern dispossession and disdain have been confronted by goals for an intercultural society, diverse and egalitarian, deeply heterogeneous but capable of respectful dialogue. Cotacachi’s trajectory and participatory governance have garnered a wide literature that documents the contributory factors of representative democracy, neoliberal decentralisation, and strong Indigenous movements in this and other counties. This scholarship tracks how Andean and Amazonian Indigenous movements founded the multiracial Pachakutik political party, which successfully contested local elections from the mid-1990s. As a result, Indigenous mayors and councillors began to adapt municipal politics and policies, generating significant transformations in so-called “alternative municipalities”. These dynamics were expressed in Cotacachi with the election and subsequent re-election of Kichwa economist Auki Tituaña as mayor (1996–2009; re-elected in 2019). Reflecting wider Indigenous thinking, Tituaña initiated a major shift in citizenship meanings and practices (Tituaña 2000), which is examined here through a focus on residents’ understandings and evaluations of practices and institutions of local citizenship. With mayor Tituaña and his team, 4 the municipality introduced more participatory and accountable relations with rural, Indigenous, and remote locations in the county. The rural UNORCAC became a zonal representative for 43 Andean communities, Afro-Ecuadorian and mestizo farmers (with a powerful women’s coordinating committee), while nine organisations of Intag valley residents comprised the Consorcio Toisan, and 21 urban neighbourhoods formed the Federation of Cotacachi Barrios (Federación de Barrios de Cotacachi, FEBAC). UNORCAC worked for “dignity and resistance of Indigenous peoples, food sovereignty, … and to confront any form of discrimination, intolerance and racism” (UNORCAC 2007). Alongside these major civil society organisations were diverse women’s groups (four in total), tourism, sports, and savings groups, environmentalists, and water committees. Together with zonal organisations, and Las Golondrinas’ Afro-Ecuadorian and mestizo residents, these civil society groups together formed the Assembly for Cantón Unity of Cotacachi (AUCC). Cotacachi was the second place in Ecuador to introduce participatory budgeting in 2002, predating 2010 legislation requiring it. An annual cycle of consultation and budget priority setting involved urban neighbourhoods, communities, then zones and parishes, culminating in a two-day annual assembly. Furthermore, committees Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Ecuador 91 comprising representatives from local organisations alongside elected politicians and council staff met regularly. The AUCC was unique in Ecuador, acting as a key arena for municipal decision-making and for public oversight of governance. Since the first participatory discussions in 1997, the AUCC institutionally embedded and socially legitimated itself, becoming “a permanent connection between civil society and the municipality” (Moreno 2014, 62). At the time of fieldwork, the AUCC’s role included “oversight, participatory budgets, diagnostic of inequities and socio-territorial disequilibrium” (Municipalidad AUCC 2016). The AUCC was informed by Andean Indigenous thinking, thereby “extending ancestral practices of community management and participation of rural Indigenous and peasant zones” (Municipalidad AUCC 2016). The AUCC reflected plurality and heterogeneity well beyond Indigenous identities; according to an urban mestiza, “the social movement here is the county assembly; it’s very, very diverse”. That plurality was incorporated at each stage of an annual cycle of consultation, participatory budgeting, and planning, all subject to civil society ratification, and oversight via the AUCC Assembly and its constituent organisations. As a result, the local government was trusted to deliver a dignified standard of living across Indigenous and mestizo groups (Ortiz Crespo 2013). In our research, local people felt the municipality was informed about their needs and interests. As a middle-aged Kichwa woman explained, equality had risen: It’s improved, in the budgets. We work with a participatory budgeting system, across the three zones… We struggled for that, the participation is particularly strong among Andean communities – there’s more participation, marches, and Indigenous women participate more than men. (Luisa, 2018, interview) In this context, local development and decision-making were perceived as “not an initiative of municipal technocrats [but] what civil society wants” (UNORCAC 2007, 9). Extending participation, the county’s development council had a citizen majority, drawn from the three geographical zones and diverse social groups (including women’s, sports, irrigation, and forestry committees, agroecology groups, tourism, small producers, and so on). In its multifaceted activities, the Assembly was widely understood by local residents as a space to achieve equality as it organised discussion around themes of rights (Berta, 2018, interview). Recalling memories of previous rule, an interviewee told us: Before, there were [Indigenous leaders’] deaths because of conflicts [with haciendas and police]. Now people are being brought together; the municipality, UNORCAC, even colleagues from the police. (Eunice, 2018, interview; Ortiz Crespo 2004, 68) 92 Sarah A. Radcliffe Cotacachi became the only Ecuadorian county with an autonomous participatory system (Municipalidad AUCC 2016), as AUCC gained legal standing to manage the cycle of participation, oversight and monitoring steps that sought to ensure the municipality remained oriented towards widely consulted goals. For instance, communal work parties for public infrastructure pursued “principles of plurality, interculturalism and inclusion” once a month to complete public works; 64% of community members participated. The municipality does good work – they accept proposals, and recommendations. It’s participatory work, always through assemblies, meetings. It creates a mandate for the local government. (Aurora, 2018, interview) As noted, UNORCAC’s original demands included fair treatment for Indigenous and rural people in public offices. According to our interviews, residents expected interactions in public offices to meet a rigorous standard. Berta, a Kichwa woman in her twenties, explained: “Before, there was nothing; we were asked to wait. We weren’t treated well. Seeing this, we said that it’s necessary to have respect. For an Indigenous person, any person – there must be respect.” While far from perfect, local residents generally said that public services were delivered in more accountable and respectful ways than previously. Asked about the previous two years, a woman from an UNORCAC-affiliated community said, “It’s become quite improved; yes, they’re efficient – they attend to you quickly. Although sometimes today like I say, they don’ttreat you well; they’re not respectful” (Eunice, 2018, interview). Residents, including rural farmers, felt listened to in a more horizontal relation. Municipal employees frequently knew members of the public due to high rates of organisation membership. An older Kichwa woman noted how in public service offices “as I’m in [an organisation], they’ve treated me well; the interaction has been very nice” (Luisa, 2018, interview). Respectful and consultative dynamics across differences were rooted in the concept of interculturalism, which addressed the need for negotiations and dismantling of colonial-modern hierarchies. Cotacachi county committed to interculturalism in the mid-1990s to overcome intersectional exclusions and build inclusive participation. Described locally as “citizen participation without racial, class, gender or ideological discrimination”, it was understood to be necessary to meet all groups’ needs (Arboleda et al. 2012; Muñoz 1999, 45), and applied in health, human rights, and other sectors (Moreno 2014; Ortiz Crespo 1999). 5 Interviews suggested that challenging prejudice remained associated with Tituaña, whose legacy included a notable change in spaces of public interaction, arising from his vision for an experimental social practice. The public forums of the AUCC and its constituent civil society organisations ratified and practised the political principle of interculturalism and transformed it into more of a daily occurrence. Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Ecuador 93 In summary, Cotacachi’s ordinary citizenship was significantly transformed between the initial social movement visions over 40 years ago. Through a combination of national changes in de jure political and civil citizenship, and bottom-up civil and social agendas, the district offered a marked improvement for many. Undoubtedly, the majority of the population continued to have lives of impoverishment and precarity. Nevertheless, decision-making processes and interactions with local government were transformed across the domains Staeheli et al. (2012) identified, namely spaces of formal (municipal) power, public interactions (participation), and sites of ordinary lives. As Luisa told us “there isn’t any more a relation of one person over another; there’sa different treatment now, without disdain or mistreatment”. Diversifying citizenship As noted above, citizenship emerges in relation to the interlocking of race, gender, location, and generation which shape “interactions of status and positioning” and qualitatively impact citizen experiences (Staeheli et al. 2012). Understanding Cotacachi’s citizenship utopias involves looking more closely at measures to include and provide dignity to historically low-status social positions. In 2015, the county reaffirmed its commitment to “the restitution, exercise, and guarantee of rights … with an inclusive focus” (Municipalidad Plan 2015). Cotacachi established mechanisms to address diversity that replicated nationwide institutional arrangements; however, its practices and frameworks re-embedded minimal national standards in a broader rights-based praxis informed by Indigenous and subaltern knowledge and experiences. As a result, the formal spheres of local politics, public spaces, and – to some degree – everyday encounters began to challenge postcolonial intersectional hierarchies. Cotacachi’s approach and praxis of acknowledging and addressing intersectional exclusions were strongly informed by coordinated multiracial women’s activism. A long history of women’s movements across rural and urban, mestizo, and Indigenous groups saw important initiatives around violence against women, and intercultural health (Moreno 2014). Additionally, women’s organisations prepared organic agricultural products and cooked meals, and identified, cultivated, and sold medicinal plants informed by a politics of wellbeing (Fueres, Morán, and Hill 2013). With respect to formal rights, in 2007, women’s organisations identified the need for a local ordinance against violence against women, which was finally endorsed in March 2018. In parallel, women mobilised to provide institutional support for women experiencing violence including a refuge. First developed by the women’s Coordinadora, a proposal garnered support in Cotacachi’s unique decision-making and resource-allocating process (Moreno 2014). At the time of fieldwork, a dedicated office provided legal and psychological counselling to women affected by gender violence, with monthly visits to 94 Sarah A. Radcliffe non-Andean areas. A Kichwa-speaking team member ensured that monolingual women could access services (interviews, 2018). 6 In other dimensions, Cotacachi followed provisions of the 2008 Constitution and subsequent legislation on decentralised governance. All municipalities were required to address the needs of defined “priority groups”, and design a local equality agenda that informs municipal decision-making and budget allocation. In Cotacachi, these initiatives were led by a woman, and a man with disability at the time of the research. Local equality agendas drew on frameworks and expertise centred in five national Equality Councils for gender, nationalities, and peoples (primarily Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians), intergenerational issues, disabilities, and human mobility. To varying degrees, the equality councils operated with de-historicised, discrete social categories rather than synthetic and intersectional frameworks (Radcliffe 2018). While elements of national approaches were found in Cotacachi (workshop observation, June 2018), the district’s distinctive epistemological-political praxis infused more critical meanings and practice. First, civil society organisations and local government employees stressed rights-based reasons for prioritising selected groups. 7 In comparison with national categories (Radcliffe 2018), local informants highlighted a relational and justice-oriented agenda (interviews, 2018). Table 6.1 Cases of movement between civil society and local government, Cotacachi 2017–2018 Pseudonym Civil society organisation Local government (elected representative ER, or employee W) Pedro Andean youth organisation Directorate of Social Participation (ER) Gloria President of AUCC-linked urban Department for human federation; one-time AUCC employee rights and priority groups (W) Teresa Over career, active in urban youth Consultant to strengthen organisation, a women’s organisation, women’s organisations president of cantón tourism group; (W) AUCC president Renata Over career, UNORCAC-linked Parish and county (ER) community leader, senior community leader; employed in national peasant-Indigenous union Liliana Over career, community and Department for human county-level health volunteer and rights and priority groups project employee; UNORCAC (W) treasurer; representative on county ancestral medicine commission Source: original research interviews. Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Ecuador 95 It’s a principle this idea of equality in diversity. Yes, it’s in the discourse of [Cotacachi’s] local government and social organisations. It’s related to interculturalism, and to the recognition of Indigenous nationalities and Kichwa [particularly]. Also equality in diversity is discussed in terms of rights. It seems to me that there is this idea when you actually guarantee rights. (Teresa, 2018, interview) Moreover, Cotacachi understood priority groups’ needs in relation to experiences of historic and current violence, such as the abandonment of elderly people, or disabled individuals’ social exclusion (Gloria, March 2018, interview). A Kichwa leader explained to us, “we want to see the problem in the round in order to create policy. The county plan says that it will work on the theme of violence” (Berta, 2018, interview). Attending social violence was incorporated into municipal governance from the 1990s, when mayor Tituaña emphasised the urgency of dismantling White-mestizo physical, verbal, and psychological violence against Indigenous and Black groups. Training programmes to sensitise municipal civil servants, and local radio broadcasts were introduced. With attention to multifaceted identities, geographical, and livelihoods, the work of AUCC and its constituent groups exceed de-historicised national policy “siloed” equality agendas. From the 1990s attempts were made to employ more non-mestizo staff in the municipality. Cotacachi sought to diversify the groups, experiences, and knowledge represented in local government. 8 Despite a slow start, as a community member near Cotacachi town told us: Now there are more Indigenous people [in local government], with [the current mayor]. With Auki [Tituaña], there were more mestizos in his team, whereas now there’s Indigenous professionals – you see more Indigenous people. (Eunice, 2018, interview) The principle that the county’s heterogeneity should be reflected in municipal offices was a widely accepted one among our interlocutors. 9 A rural Kichwa woman in her late twenties echoed this: The [current] mayor said that he would work with Indigenous people, in [county] offices, in leadership. We talked so much about interculturalism, but we had to practise it. There’s a percentage of us Indigenous people who are working. In 2014–2015, Indigenous professionals made up over one third of senior state functionaries in the district (Municipalidad Plan 2015, 156–157). Longstanding inequalities, however, resulted in uneven gains: directors, 96 Sarah A. Radcliffe especially in fields such as finance, were often mestizos. Nevertheless, the municipality arguably become the workplace of more individuals informed by subaltern epistemologies, social experiences, and trajectories that were rarely found in state bureaucracies elsewhere in Ecuador. At the human rights office, Liliana brough grassroots organising and sociocultural values and Kichwa fluency to public service: “In forming myself as a person, I could see these values of manners or generosity towards others. So, it made me think; the [central] government should see these spaces and cover these needs” (Liliana, 2018, interview). Building an intercultural vision and praxis to pluralise representation, Cotacachi represented to commentators “a new political landscape where it is usual to find authority embodied by Indigenous peoples, Afro-Ecuadorians, peasant farmers, young people and women” (Arboleda et al. 2012, 18). While inclusion in Cotacachi fulfilled national requirements, the district’s long standing anti-exclusion politics inflected action with elements of anticolonial, intersectional, and intercultural goals, meanings, and practice. According to fieldwork, these attitudes and practices became ordinary, and carried no connotation of the 2008 constitution or the central state’s technocratic politics. Residents understood violence and justice, equality, and diversity relationally, which in turn shaped substantive citizenship in the public sphere. Social diversity in public services became a common sense, encompassing plural knowledge and experiences in local governance. Defending citizenship Whereas Ecuador’s constituent assembly represented a vigorous explosion of national social movement agendas, the 2008 constitution codified progressive agendas in ways that subsequently constrained their material impacts and social meanings (Radcliffe 2012; Radcliffe and Radhuber 2020). Furthermore, central government experts prioritised top-down technocratic policy models combined with populist rhetoric to pursue the rapid expansion of petroleum and mineral exports (De la Torre 2013). Bureaucratic professionals and national policies dominated the nation’s public sphere, while arenas for contestations were increasingly fraught for social movements. The arc from social movement agenda to depoliticised technical-professionalism occurred with the concept of buen vivir (‘living in plenitude’), as decades-old, hard-earned Indigenous learning was re-oriented and institutionalised in centralising, modernising and developmental policy (Radcliffe 2012). State buen vivir, commentators concur, sidelined alternative practices and conceptions of inclusive and egalitarian citizenship. Buen vivir was not, however, a single, path-dependent, citizenship politics. “At the local level, different logics of doing government could be introduced into existing settings, opening spaces for the practice of Buen Vivir by transforming the mechanisms of the modern colonial state itself” (Lang 2019, 176). The defence of local agendas of interculturalism, crosscutting Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Ecuador 97 representation and incorporation of grassroots diversity into governance created spaces for anti-colonial logics. In Cotacachi, as in other areas (especially in Amazonia), the dissonance between national and local agendas pivoted around extractivism. Pursuing the expansion of hydrocarbon and mineral exports from 2006, the national government – under the Alianza País party – sought oil, timber, and resource concessions. Cotacachi garnered government interest for the Intag zone’s Llurimagua copper mine. This intervention directly countered the county’s 1996 self-declaration as an ecological county, its ongoing opposition to mining, and commitments to biodiversity conservation. Issues came to head in 2009 when candidates for the government’s Alianza País party won the municipal elections and attempted to reshape decision-making by dismantling Cotacachi’s decade-old institutions of civic participation (Jorge, 2018, interview; Alvear 2021; Lalander 2009; Ortiz Crespo 2013) and expanded extractive activities. In one woman’s words, the period 2009–2014 was characterised by a controlling, “very urban, conception” (interviews, 2018). Andean communities found the Alianza País municipality remote and unconnected to their claims, needs, and citizenship (Guandinango Vinueza 2013). The threat of extractivism and the risk to Cotacachi’s locally meaningful political culture became the prompts for local action, bolstered by widespread indignation at the government-allied municipality’s inept interactions with citizens, who were accustomed to consultation and voice. Environmentalists, small farmers, and tourism advocates led local resistance to national plans for raw material extraction. Disillusioned with the state’s narrow interpretations of buen vivir, local utopian narratives turned to the possibilities of alternative economies based on agroecology, organic coffee, and ecotourism. Increasingly dissatisfied with heavy-handed attempts to exclude AUCC from governance, a coalition of civil society networks (including UNORCAC and AUCC) contested and won the 2014 local elections (interviews, 2018). Thus although extractivism and urban expertise held Cotacachi county for five years (2009–2014), the model of intercultural, participatory, and diverse citizenship regained leadership (albeit without Tituaña). Experienced civil society activists, former municipal employees, and elected representatives united under the banner of vivir bien, a deliberate reworking of central government’s buen vivir. This coalition sought to lower public expectations while recuperating heterogeneous civil society input. Constraints on municipal autonomy informed realism about the scope to address all needs, and the pace of new infrastructures (interviews, 2018). Its mission nevertheless retained familiar features: “a lively democracy, equitable territorial planning, vivir bien, and delivery of good public services with a focus on rights” (Municipalidad Visión 2014). The language of vivir bien signalled the municipal government’s aim to achieve good (enough) lives without overreaching (interviews, 2018). However, the vivir bien municipality’s commitment to AUCC was ironclad: a local ordinance confirmed the latter was integral to local decision-making, 98 Sarah A. Radcliffe and consulted public planning. Public approval was granted at the annual assembly and communicated to the mayor’soffice. Additionally, public funds were allocated to support civil society organisations that were the bedrock of AUCC (approx. 3–5% of budgets until 2019) (interviews, 2018). These steps reaffirmed citizenship meanings and practices that generated pride in Cotacachi’s unique set-up. In interviews with residents, the AUCC’s processes were described as inclusive and democratic. A middle-aged rural Kichwa woman argued that local movements defined vivir bien: “sometimes there are large proposals which can’t be completed in the short term … We know that the budget doesn’t cover everything … We are one with the municipality – our people are there” (Aurora, 2018, interview). Whether the local vision and process will remain if extractivist political economies change is difficult to predict. In the meantime, vivir bien symbolises the assertion of an Indigenous-led, now multiracial, utopian citizenship against a technocratic, extractivist and centralist nation-state. Citizenship utopias and praxis What can we learn about citizenship utopias from Cotacachi? As discussed below, the district’s combination of justice agendas with radically intersectional processes gave rise to a shared sense of social membership. Moreover, membership expressed itself in, and reaffirmed, local governance processes and interactions. Cotacachi’s sui generis institutions and processes generated synergies across civil society, and between civil society and local government. These dynamics in turn created a well-informed public. Together, these elements produced an ordinary citizenship that – despite major structural, social, and political constraints – provided lessons for making citizenship utopias into granular daily realities. Membership in Cotacachi’s local citizenship did not work through static arenas of representation, with civil society and movements separated from a Weberian bureaucracy. Rather, diverse civil society groups were represented directly and indirectly in the statutory organisations in AUCC, and civil society actors remained openly critical of the municipality, suggesting cooptation is not currently an issue (Cameron 2009). Gender alternates in leadership meant, for instance, that a male, urban mestizo president had to pass to a female president with a different social position. Over their lifetime, individuals could move between social movement and municipal roles, and switch the social groups they represented (reflecting multifaceted social positionings) (see Table 6.1). These office holders and activists described life paths weaving together civil society and municipality, reflecting sustained close relations between local government and local populations. In 2016–2018, AUCC’s diversity was continuously renewed in its constituent civil society organisations, as representatives and volunteers were elected every couple of years. AUCC had multiple positions to be filled, as did UNORCAC and 43 rural communities, Everyday citizenship and decolonising utopias in Ecuador 99 the Consorcio Toisan, the women’s Coordinadora and so on. In UNORCAC’s women’s organisations – the oldest in the AUCC – numerous women had been leaders in UNORCAC itself, 29 community women’s groups, and organisations for midwives, health volunteers, agroecology producers, and women in parish councils. “The participatory process is beautiful; we are supporting each other’s organisations, all under equal conditions” (Teresa, 2018, interview). Indigenous residents perceived that local government included “people like them”, and could describe acquaintances’ trajectories between social activism and municipal roles. Civil society organisations and leaders moreover played a key role in circulating information, encouraging discussions, and informing publics about key issues in the district. Participation in a grassroots or countywide group entailed learning about rights, governance, policy, planning, and sometimes expert knowledge (on water, environment, women’s rights, and so on). As such, they served as informal “schools for citizenship” because leaders – sometimes members – acquired organisational experience, learnt about laws and alternatives, and gathered information. As noted, the municipality provided funds and staff support for new leaderships across civil society groups to ensure quick and powerful transitions into participatory workshops and exchanges on diverse topics (interviews, 2018; Moreno 2014). Yet civil society organisations acquired skills and knowledge beyond training sessions, as knowledge production was nurtured among ordinary citizens, some with limited formal education. These counter-publics made possible “oppositional interpretations of … identities, interests and needs” (Fraser 1990, 67). For instance, Liliana, a rural Andean woman, held various government, federation, and community roles: I’ve gone through so many phases, taken so many steps … and it changes you as a person. How can I explain it? One becomes a person with more solidarity … more patience, and feels other peoples’ needs … I’ve not gone through [formal] studies and sat at a desk, but had experiences in my family, in communities. (Liliana, 2018, interview) Given constructive interactions between civil society and the local state, such knowledge production eased individuals’ transitions between organisations and local government, and provided a non-state training route for street-level civil servants (cf. Gordon 2023). In comparison to civil society’s widespread exclusion from planning and knowledge production across Andean countries (Cameron 2009), this represented a significant substantive right. In Cotacachi, the regular cycle – and large size 10 – of meetings, consultations, workshops, and assemblies across the territory brought knowledge productions and praxis repeatedly into the public sphere. The combination of mobile role holders, high levels of public knowledge, and regular public meetings 106 Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta In its sixty years, the Cuban socialist system has passed through many crossroads, including the hegemonic pressure of the United States, whose embargo on Cuba has been in force since 1962, and the fall of the former communist system of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe in 1991 (Valtonen 2001; White 2015). Today, Cuba faces major challenges and several interrelated dilemmas, including those related to gender equality and racial justice, which require urgent economic, political, and social responses. The challenging social situation has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the “economic realignment”, which unified the nearly twenty-year-old dual-currency system in 2021, raising prices and reducing people’s purchasing power (Fundora Nevot 2021). The current multiple crises have severely affected the Black population, who are in a more vulnerable position than the rest of the population in terms of livelihoods, employment, wages, and quality of housing; “with its historical dispossession, it suffers a series of deficiencies now multiplied” (Zurbano 2021, 166). Among the pending social issues is the position of the Cuban revolution towards social activism. Since the beginning of the 1990s, and again today in adifferent context, social groups and activists have started to emerge beyond socialist mass organisations, including anti-racist groups, Black feminist groups, and LGBTQIA+ activists. Their themes revolve around such issues as diversity, inclusion, and decoloniality. Focusing particularly on feminist anti-racist activism, we define it as “a contestatory social practice, which pays for the challenge of anticipating political and academic conventions by producing situated knowledge and a series of concepts and approaches endorsed in social practice” (Zurbano 2021, 152). However, as the state and civil society have tended to be one and the same entity in socialist systems (Kornai 1992, 46) such as Cuba, revolutionary leaders have generally been suspicious of social activism, social movements, and civil society. By focusing on the perceptions and viewpoints of feminist and anti-racist activists, this chapter highlights the importance of new social activisms that promote diversity to safeguard equality and social justice as fundamental principles of the revolutionary process. Similarly, the chapter suggests that the revolutionary process could benefit from making anti-racist activism more visible, particularly as enacted by Afro-Cuban women whose contributions have not yet been fully recognised. Thus, the chapter joins in the calls of Cuban intellectuals and politicians who have suggested that Cuban socialism needs to begin to provide spaces for the diversity of human subjectivities, capacities, and preferences (Heredia Martinez 2021). In summary, the chapter discusses social activism in Cuba, focusing particularly on Black feminism and anti-racism, investigating how, why, and to what extent Afro-Cuban women as activists have been promoting feminism and anti-racism. Research on anti-racism activism in Latin America has increased over the last years (Moreno Figueroa and Wade 2022; Moreno Figueroa and Wade 2024; Ranta and Zenteno Lawrence forthcoming). This chapter also explores the extent to which the Cuban state has recognised – or Black feminist and anti-racist activism 107 not – the contributions of Black feminists and anti-racist activists to state policies and programs. It is important to focus specifically on Black women’s activism because, while the revolution has often been seen as advancing the position of Black people, research on racial justice in Cuba has noted that Afro-Cubans never had similar affirmative action policies as women and peasants, for example (Morales Domínguez 2002; Zurbano 2021); additionally, the intersecting inequalities affecting Black Cuban women have been the most invisible. Through academic-activist research, this chapter draws on researcher Rodríguez Malagón’s experiences as a Black Cuban feminist and anti-racist activist, as well as semi-structured and qualitative interviews with feminist and anti-racist activists in western Cuba and in the Cuban diaspora in Finland. 1 We argue that through the deconstruction of deep colonial and patriarchal ties and wounds, activists claim and seek the visibilisation of their agendas. However, while activists’ contributions are necessary as part of resistance and alterity, state institutions often continue to ignore, appropriate, and delegitimise their achievements and proposed ideas. The chapter is organised as follows. The first section begins by describing the origins of feminist and anti-racist activism during the colonial and republican era in Cuba. The second section addresses feminism, anti-racism, and the challenges they faced during the first decades of the Cuban revolution. The third section focuses on activism during the 1990s and early 2000s. Finally, the perceptions and actions of Black Cuban feminists concerning the current institutional programmes of gender equality and anti-racism are discussed. Black feminist activism in colonial and republican Cuba In Cuba, anti-racist activism can be traced back to the historic resistance of Black women and men to the slavery and colonial plantation economy that were in place from the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century. This oppressive and violent system, which was the backbone of Spanish colonialism, denied the humanity and dignity of generations of enslaved Black populations, using the notion of race and the ideology of racism as tools of economic exploitation and cultural denigration (Martínez-Alier 1989; Mintz 1974). Slavery engendered structural and institutional racism and, therefore, “in Cuba being Black was a blemish, a disadvantage at all levels of social life” (Morales Domínguez 2002, 60). Although the proportion of men among those enslaved, as well as the rest of the immigrant population, was significantly higher than that of women (Johnson 2001, 24), and historiography has focused substantially on the role of men in the politics of rebellion, Black women also actively fought against slavery and participated, organised, and led slave rebellions and cimarron revolts (Finch 2015; Rubiera and Hevia 2017), including, for example, two enslaved women, Carlota and Fermina Lucumí, who led one of the most extensive and organised slave rebellions in sugar mills in Matanzas in 1843 (Houser 2015). Afro-Cuban beliefs and 108 Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta rituals played an important role in African-descent women’s activism (Finch 2015), drawing on the long history of organising Black resistance within ethnically structured brotherhoods, societies, and councils (Fernández Robaina 1997; Oilda, 1996). In the late nineteenth century, Black activism operated amid the struggle for Cuba’s independence to which the abolition of slavery was also intimately connected. The racial question can be considered the most important and complex issue to shape Cuban nationalism (Ferrer 2011). Although the war against the Spanish united different parts of the population, the demand for national unity and the subsequent ideology of creolisation – or mestizaje (becoming multiracial) – often meant specifically “the creolization of the Black person” (Morales Domínguez 2002, 60–62). However, Black women and men sought social, cultural, economic, and political inclusion, and the deconstruction of multiple colonial forms, including the production of science and knowledge that maintained and legitimised their racialisation, such as eugenics. They used literature, poetry, music, and pedagogy as tools in their resistance struggles, denouncing multiple positions of oppression. In the Republican era (1902–1959), most of the Black and mestizo (Mixed-Race) population was uneducated and impoverished by the war, and were unemployed or working in lower-paying jobs and without state social support (Morales Domínguez 2002, 67). Nor did they have political opportunities (Morales Domínguez 2002, 67). In Republican Cuba, there was a wide range of projects, institutions, and actions for racial justice (Zurbano 2021, 140), including the founding of the Independent Party of Color (Partido Independiente de Color, PIC) in 1908 and its armed uprising in 1912 that ended with the massacre and dissolution of the party in which many Black women had participated. However, despite the difficulties, women “succeeded in promoting their own demands through intellectual, political, and union activism” (Almeida Junco and Rodríguez Malagón 2023, 226). Unfortunately, their role was not recognised by the feminist movement, “which shows the lack of unity and the undervaluation of the problems of [Afro-Cuban] women” (Almeida Junco and Rodríguez Malagón 2023, 226). Even so, Black women’s activism was essential in the battles for civil and political rights, including the 1934 universal suffrage (Brunson 2022). The effect of the work carried out by Black women resulted in the consecration, for the first time, of their hitherto silenced agendas in the Third Women’s Congress (1939). As spokesperson was the intellectual María Dámasa Jova, a Black feminist, educator, and poet, whose congress speech marked a milestone in history, challenging the power of bourgeois feminism through her anti-racist and feminist discourse. Thus, she was one of the first Black women actively to engage in politics (Rodríguez Malagón 2021). She was followed, for example, by Esperanza Sánchez Mastrapa, a feminist activist, communist, and the first Black woman in the Cuban Parliament, who drew political and public attention to the fact that discriminatory practices relegated most Black women to low-paid jobs such as domestic, agricultural, Black feminist and anti-racist activism 109 and factory work, as well as the informal sector, without the possibility of promotion and social ascent (Brunson 2022). The 1959 revolution brought its own challenges to Black feminism. While racism was addressed better than before, feminism became a bourgeois issue in revolutionary rhetoric, thus silencing debate about multiple feminisms for decades. We now move on to discuss this topic in more detail. Feminism and anti-racism during the socialist revolution The Cuban revolution began an ambitious process of inserting women into the economy, work, politics, education, and cultural life. Women became important actors in the popular and military defence of the revolution, as well as in the development of its agricultural and industrial production. Importantly, the revolutionary government “sought to include women in society in a way that was previously – both quantitatively and qualitatively – unthinkable” (Triplett 2022, 84). The Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) was founded in 1960 in response to the demand for greater participation of women in the revolutionary process, uniting various collective struggles of women around social, political, and identity problems. It became an “institutional [channel] of articulation that mobilized, socialized, and politicized women with the values, attitudes, and behaviours of the ideal revolutionary citizen” (Triplett 2022, 92). However, with the unification came new challenges. The diversity of agendas and reflections within the FMC ceased to be discussed, creating gaps that are still present today, as exposed by activism. According to Díaz Canals (2013), although the FMC did not completely reject the social activism that originated from within the mass organisation, the very word feminism became suspicious when understood as having bourgeois origin. Furthermore, when addressing the issue of women, it was often understood as a singular problem, and diversity issues (race, sexuality, etc.) were not considered, and sometimes there was even homophobia (Díaz Canals 2013). During the revolutionary process, many of the spaces for racial justice activism disappeared. According to the revolutionary discourse, Cuba had managed to eradicate racism and build “a raceless society, one in which the color of the skin would have no influence on individual life chances” (De la Fuente 2001, 67). This idea of a unified Cuba, without race or colour, had already been present in the independence ideology of José Martí (Spence Benson 2016, 9–13), but the demand for national unity and the fear of social fragmentation were also prominent in revolutionary Cuba, which faced the continuous confrontation of the United States (Morales Domínguez 2002, 79). It was argued that the structural conditions for racism in Cuba had disappeared because the revolution had eliminated social classes and created economic equality for all (housing, health, education, employment). Consequently, racism was associated only with features of “imperialism, capitalism, and the white elites, enemies of the revolution and representatives of US interests” (De la Fuente 2001, 67). Since the racial issue was seen as part of 110 Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta the capitalist past, anti-racist awareness and education were abandoned (Heredia Martinez 2021). According to Clealand (2017, 2), racial difference became irrelevant and racial consciousness was considered “incompatible with revolution”. It is evident that racialised Cubans benefited considerably from the structural transformations of the revolution. By the 1980s, their educational and employment opportunities had expanded, life expectancy and health indicators improved, and upward social mobility became possible (De la Fuente 2001, 67–72). Despite this, less progress was made in areas such as housing conditions, equality between neighbourhoods, violence, and crime. The Black population still suffered the most from inadequate housing conditions, residing in poor and degraded neighbourhoods, and they were overrepresented in the prison population (De la Fuente 2001, 72–74). Although, thanks to the efforts of the revolution, their education levels were almost equal to that of the White population, deep asymmetries continued in access to the most demanding jobs and better wages (Morales Domínguez 2002, 72). This asymmetry can be explained, for example, by clientelism and informal networks of power (Morales Domínguez 2002, 83), but also by racist attitudes. According to research conducted by the Centro de Antropología in 1995, 58% of Whites believed that Blacks are less intelligent and 65% believed that Blacks do not have equal values and decency (Morales Domínguez 2002, 73). Yoselin, 2 a 53-year-old teacher who was interviewed for this study, commented on the discrepancies between discourses and everyday life as follows: When [the issue of racism] is discussed, it is always that, “thanks to the Revolution of 1959, we have been able to eliminate racism. Blacks, Whites, we all receive exactly the same education. Blacks, Whites, we all have the same opportunities to advance”…That was the political discourse. In reality, then things happened that did not follow this rhetoric …The fact that the political discourse is of a certain type, does not mean that the reality corresponds to it. (Interview, December 2021) Nanet, a member of an anti-racist feminist project, offered this view: Even if there were attempts to erase differences between Whites, Blacks, and Mulattos, 3 they increased at individual levels. Even if we were all equals by law, in the expressions of everyday life, it was not like that, and much less so with the new forms of economic management that have been taking place since the 1990s. (Interview, July 2022) Much like elsewhere in Latin America, racial equality became the state discourse at the expense of the actions of racialised persons themselves. Black feminist and anti-racist activism 111 However, since the beginning of the 1990s, a tendency towards a counterdiscourse can be identified from such spaces and actors that were not necessarily authorised by the revolutionary state. This included artists, intellectuals, activists, and, to some extent, universities. The anti-racist agenda was promoted, for example, in the Congress of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in 1998 and the other congresses that followed. In the next section, we investigate how racism began to be discussed more freely as part of growing concerns about poverty and inequality, as Nanet also mentioned in the previous quote. The impacts of the special period on feminism, anti-racism, and activism The collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc in Eastern Europe caused a deep economic crisis and food emergency in Cuba, commonly known as the special period. Tourism, foreign remittances, and small-scale entrepreneurship became the main pillars of the economy. Poverty and inequalities increased, and racist prejudices circulated more easily (De la Fuente 2001). The Black and Mixed-Race population were underrepresented in the tourism sectors and the new private economy (for example, only 2% of the owners of the new private agriculture were Black or Mixed-Race) and received few remittances from abroad since more than 80% of Cuban immigrants, at the time, were White (Morales Domínguez 2002, 74). In terms of the role of women, according to Pertierra (2008), a process of relocation by gender began in which the household renewed its meaning as a priority space for women. Under conditions of material scarcity and declining urban architecture, women’s burden of finding and preparing food, maintaining hygiene, and maintaining the household increased enormously (Pertierra 2008; see also Härkönen 2016). In other words, there was a backlash in terms of women’s emancipation. At the same time, however, a period of unprecedented freedom for social activism and civil society initiatives emerged. New social and political activity boomed, led by diverse kinds of community leaders, feminists, religious groups (including the expansion of Afro-Cuban religions), and cultural organisations, who individually and collectively articulated proposals for the elimination of racial discrimination and racism. Among the anti-racist organisations and platforms of the early 1990s were La Cofradía de la Negritud and Proyecto Color Cubano, in addition to the important role played by such institutions as the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, the Institute of Anthropology, and Casa de África in facilitating the new proliferation of regional and international contacts and networks between Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American researchers, activists, and artists (Zurbano 2021, 147–148). One of the new forms of feminist organisation was the Magín group, established in 1994 in the aftermath of the formation of the Ibero-American network of women in communication (Fernandes 2020, 24). This was a group 112 Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta of women communication professionals who came together with the aim of changing the image of women in the media, confronting sexism, racism, and gendered stereotypes that reinforced patriarchy. It had approximately 385 members in Havana, and groups of about 20 people in the provinces of Pinar del Río and Santiago de Cuba (Fernandes 2020, 25, 125). Among them were several Black women who would later become referents of anti-racism struggle: for example, Daisy Rubiera (writer, activist, historian, and later one of the founders of the Grupo Afrocubanas [2011–2019]), Georgina Herrera (activist, poet, and novelist), and Norma Guillard Limonta (activist, Black feminist, and later founder of one of the first lesbian groups of the country in 2005; on Grupo Oremi, see Saunders 2012). Magín capitalised on the emerging international gender discourse, partnering with Latin American and transnational feminist networks, UN agencies, and international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) (Fernandes 2020, 24). Feminist activism also emerged among the research community, including the launch of the Women’s Studies programme at Casa de las Américas and the Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of Havana. However, some activists have criticised these programmes for not including diverse feminisms, ontologies, epistemologies, and decoloniality. The leader of an antiracist community project, for example, suggested in our interview that Cuban academia tends to “devalue the capacity [of Afro-descendants] to exercise criticism and awareness of [their own] reality [because] it ignores other knowledge than the western colonising perspective” (interview, July 2022). Notwithstanding, academic institutions were safer spaces for emerging feminist groups and, for example, sociologists at the University of Havana made more progress on diversity. The work of the Mirta Aguirre Chair of Gender and Media, which was installed at the José Martí Institute of Journalism, was also praiseworthy. It rescued the heritage of Cuban feminism and articulated intensely with the Latin American and Caribbean feminist movements, which were a great inspiration for Cuban feminists and an opportunity to learn transnationally. This led to the founding of new feminist groups, including Galfisa, a social studies collective with an action-participatory research methodology that contributed to the creation of equal conditions for women and men, and promoted debates and exchanges related to alternative emancipatory knowledge, among other things. From another perspective, emerging anti-racist and feminist activism coincided with broader processes of cultural reform at the dawn of the millennium. We must highlight the important voices of Afro-descendant women within the hip-hop and spoken word movement, including, among others, Las Krudas, Magia MC, La Positiva, Unión Perfecta, Instinto, Mariana, Lucy, and Afíbola. This artivism – a combination of art and activism – became a dissident space for the enunciation of subaltern Black feminisms. They created their own symbolic universe deconstructing patriarchy, machismo, and racial discrimination, and the discourse of feminist hip hop became a symbol of emancipation (Martiatu 2009). In general, the rapper Black feminist and anti-racist activism 113 movement of the 1990s was considered a vanguard of anti-racist struggles in Cuba, although the authorities judgementally used to call rappers “radical Blacks” (Fernandes 2020, 123). In the early 1990s, the government tolerated – and even promoted – the emergence of new forms of action in civil society. Fidel Castro, party leader and president, began to use the previously despised concept of civil society at international conferences (Reaud 2002, 240) and national forums, encouraging debates on civil society as part of the reshaping of the nation’s new future in difficult times (Geoffray Laure 2014, 225). The Cuban Ministry of Justice was eager to demonstrate internationally that it had more than 2,000 civic associations on its records, most of them fraternal, cultural, and sports associations (Dilla and Oxhorn 2002, 17). Similarly, development cooperation grew rapidly and, in 1994, newly established development NGOs were implementing approximately 100 projects with European and Canadian partners (Dilla and Oxhorn 2002, 20). However, between 1996 and 1998, having recovered from the initial economic shock following the collapse of the Soviet Union, official rhetoric regarding NGOs and civil society tightened. In 1996, the Communist Party issued its own official definition of “a socialist civil society”, which referred to traditional revolutionary mass organisations and some authorised NGOs. Several civic groups were shut down. This included Magín, whose application for NGO status had not been approved, and whose work was increasingly seen as a channel through which foreign interests could be implemented in Cuba (Fernandes 2020, 28–29). Their activities ended quietly (Fernandes 2020, 28–29). According to Sonia Moro, an activist from Magín, the Central Committee of the Communist Party showed its patriarchal nature and the connections between patriarchy and power when it attacked the feminist agenda of the organisation (Álvarez 2017). The effects of this party conduct have been long-term, and are still visible today, as expressed by Sandra Álvarez (2021), activist and psychologist, founder of the first Cuban Afrofeminist blog Negra Cubana Tenía Que Ser: I don’t think there is a feminist movement in Cuba today … Activism, as it is known in the twentieth century, is relatively new in the country … A “movement” is not a group, nor several projects, nor a community, but constitutes a “something” much more, not only in quantitative terms, but above all in content, structures, synergies between different components, alliances, goals. Cuban officials continue to monitor the forms and limits of political, social, and civic actions, allowing some new forms of political participation and activism (Geoffray Laure 2014). New activisms are tolerated and supported if they work within the framework of Cuban socialism and do not translate into alternative political movements. The leader of an anti-racist project shared her opinion on anti-racist activism in an interview in July 2022: 114 Aracely Rodríguez Malagón and Eija Ranta Any activism work that confronts the systemic construction of racism is under suspicion, either because it is seen as questioning power structures or because [our activisms] are seen as opportunistic political agendas that seek to discredit the achievements of our social system. Sometimes these suspicions translate into uncomfortable questioning [about our actions] that reveal prejudices, as well as lack of knowledge and trust in our activism … When we want to collaborate and promote mutual learning of each other’s methodologies and work styles, tensions and censorship arise, as well as invisibilisations, which increase our fatigue and our historical wounds. (Interview, July 2022) An anti-racist and LGBTQIA+ activist from another group put it more candidly in an interview. According to her: There is no space for dialogue between anti-racist activists [and state officials], nor is it planned. There is a misunderstanding in the political discourse, and instead of motivating our work, they prevent the creation of NGOs. Those NGOs that the state authorises respond in some way to its interests … It has been hard, and it is even harder today, because now activist groups are treated with greater repression and many activists have been sanctioned. (Interview, July 2022) Hence, activists feel that the necessary socio-political conditions do not exist for Afro-descendant organisations to occupy a space in the public arena (see also Martín Sevillano 2014). In fact, to date there is no association that specifically represents Black people and in particular Black women (Martín Sevillano 2014). It is important to note that the only official organisation that still represents all women is the FMC. New government programmes against racism and gender discrimination In the area of anti-racism, projects such as Grupo Afrocubanas, established in 2011, have emerged, with the presence of Inés Maria Martiatu, Daisy Rubiera, Sandra Álvarez, Carmen Gonzáles, and Paulina Márquez. Afrodescendant women from diverse disciplines, contexts, knowledge, and ideologies united in a project with a common goal: to recover Black feminist thought from its colonial historical, social, political, and cultural heritage (Rubiera 2019). Grupo Afro-Cubanas managed to collect the multiplicity of experiences of Cuban Black women and place them as central protagonists, make them visible, and demonstrate the value of collective memory as a tool in the face of the historiographical oblivion of Black experiences, racism, and persistent racial discrimination. Diverse and multidimensional feminist activism has developed (Abreu 2019). A new feature is the use of the internet, particularly blogs, including Black feminist and anti-racist activism 115 Negra Cubana Tenía Que Ser and Directorio de Afrocubanas, both by Sandra Álvarez, and the blog Bitácora de Viaje, by Yasmín S. PortalesMachado, which denounces gender gaps and racial discrimination. On the other hand, throughout the country, there is local and community activism, led mostly by women interested in entrepreneurship, cuisine, aesthetics, religion, music, literature, and painting, among other things. The anti-racist and LGBTQIA+ activist mentioned earlier told us about her experiences in the anti-racist group El Club del Espendrú as follows: [It was] my most palpable experience of activism with a decolonising, pedagogical, and educative approach, where we deconstructed and reconstructed imaginaries. It was so unique the way in which El Club del Espendrú reformulated the social history of Black peoples in Cuba from praxis. In terms of collaborations, these groups have spontaneously formed a common front in opposing the worldwide rise of anti-gender movement and gender-based violence, as well as the religious fundamentalism that has also begun to take shape in Cuba. Afro-Cuban feminist activists have also managed to put pressure on the nation’s decision-making bodies, including in the case of the recently approved Family Code (2022), which, among other issues, legalised same-sex marriage and adoption rights, an issue promoted by activists from the beginning. However, some activists feel that state institutions have appropriated their ideas and struggles without recognising their work. This critique relates mainly to contemporary government policies regarding gender equality and anti-racism, namely, the National Programme against Racism and Racial Discrimination (Programa Nacional contra el Racismo y la Discriminación Racial, PNCRD) (2019) and the National Plan for the Advancement of Women (Plan Nacional para el Avance de las Mujeres, PAM) (2020). Both are programmes that are implemented based on commitment to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. In addition, the administration is institutionally committed to the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024). Both the PNCRD and PAM programmes represent a recognition of the racial problem and gender equality in Cuba and they have been a legal boost, but the implementation of both still represents a challenge. The PNCRD has been criticised for being an insufficient attempt to address the issue of racial justice. One of the interviewed anti-racist feminists suspected that that Cuba has committed itself to an anti-racist policy primarily because the UN has demanded it, as she expressed in her interview: The demands of activism are not clear on public agendas, and there is no official interest in linking [the PNCRD] to other social demands affecting women and people of colour. The government only plays with [the PNCRD]. (Interview, July 2022) 122 Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini activists over two different cohorts, of which 12 came from the University of the Witwatersrand (commonly called as Wits, a historically white university and still considered to be a white and elite university by students) and nine from the Tshwane University of Technology (or TUT, considered to be a Black and poor university). Of the total of 21 participants, 14 of them were male and seven were female. 17 were from the Black race, three were White participants from Wits, and TUT did not have any White participants. Other race groups included one Indian from Wits and one Asian from Wits. Lastly, 12 of the participants reported being politically active with national political parties in South Africa. Nine participants were not politically affiliated. A snowball sampling technique was employed to gather all other participants. Interviews were conducted in English and participants who wanted to express themselves using their mother tongue were accommodated through the proficiency of one of the researchers in South African languages. All participants appear under pseudonyms. The study employed critical thematic analysis in the sense that it aligned the findings of the study with the critical social theory. Themes and sub-themes were constructed from a thorough reading and re-reading of the transcripts or field notes that make up the corpus of data. Neoliberal higher education as a context to the FMF movement The changing nature of HE and government policies through implementing economic liberation has become the subject of growing intellectual and scholarly attention. The outcomes of the change in policy focus can be linked to the globalisation of neoliberalism that has perpetuated inequality within and between societies while advancing the economic needs of the already rich at the expense of the poor (Chomsky 2019; Steger and Roy 2010). Neoliberalism as an ideology involves the combination of the political commitment to individual liberty and neo-classical economics devoted to the free market and opposed to state intervention in that market (Harvey 2005). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) have played a primary role in persuading countries to promote the practices of a free market, free trade, individualism, tax cuts for business and industry, cutting spending on welfare and safety nets for the poor, and having lean governments (Ginsburg et al., 2003; Harvey 2005). In South Africa, and prior to its economic liberalisation between 1950 and 1994, the apartheid government imposed a series of social and economic constraints on the country’s four main racial groups – Blacks, Coloured, Asians, and Whites (Mariotti 2012, 1100). During this time, there was a system of racial capitalism that only favoured White workers and White businesses (Schneider 2003, 24). Accordingly, the HE sector was also structured based on racial segregation through the University Education Act of 1959 (Davies 1996). It was in 1977 that the apartheid government agreed to provide secondary, tertiary, and technical education to African workers in the “White areas” of South Africa (Kraak 1989, 210). However, at the same Higher education under neoliberalism 123 time, HE shifted away from certain principles, just to name a few – being an apparatus for liberation from an authoritarian and unequal system, a vehicle for political conscientisation, the promotion of critical thinking and analysis, and a platform for preserving and promoting multi-ethnic and multi-cultural social cohesion in the process of nation building (Kraak 1989, 210; Motala and Vally 2002, 174; Vally 2007, 41–42). The inequality that disadvantaged the Black, Coloured, and Asian students when entering HE in South Africa, finally compelled the post-apartheid governments since the mid-1990s to deal with two impulses within the education sector: a commitment to deal with education inequality perpetuated through racial discrimination by the apartheid regime, and a commitment to maintaining social order and the education system without compromising the educational norms, structures, policies and practice (Badat and Sayed 2014, 129). It was also in the year 1994 under the African National Congress (ANC) 1 government that the education policy was framed within the government’s wider and contested macroeconomic developmental strategy under neoliberal reform (Badat and Sayed 2014, 132). The strategy underpinned neoliberal ideas and failed to improve the required equality necessary for an inclusive socio-economic development and sustainable progress (Badat 2016a). This macroeconomic developmental strategy continues to perpetuate unequal access to HE among students of different racial groups in a more nuanced way than the apartheid government did (Schneider 2003, 24). In 1995, the President Nelson Mandela’s administration attempted to redress the social, political, and economic inequalities through the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) policies by making education accessible to all people – young and old, men and women, urban and rural dwellers and so forth (Gebremedhin and Joshi 2016). However, the shift from RDP to President Thabo Mbeki’s macroeconomic policies dubbed the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) in 1998 (and President Jacob Zuma’s National Development Plan [NDP] in 2012–2013) compromised the redress by advancing neoliberal policies (Ntshoe 2004, 204; Tsheola 2002). Many Black people had high hopes that the democratically elected government was going to help redress the politics of segregation and disenfranchisement perpetuated by the apartheid regime. The ANC government made promises for better service delivery including the “offering of free education” 2 to the previously disadvantaged. Their failure to step up to the promise was also a major cause of the emergence of the FMF movement in 2015. The FMF movement also sought to address the “broken promises” made by the post-1994 government on issues that are impossible to deliver apart from the sake of winning elections (Kgatle 2018). On the preceding developments and social basis of the FMF movement The FMF movement, according to Bond (2016), encompassed the primary demand to have a fee-free tertiary education and the secondary demand for a 124 Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini zero percent fee increase in 2016. According to Mpofu-Walsh (2016, 79) “‘free education’ can mean different things such as free tuition, or it could mean free tuition with accommodation, meals, books, study materials, a stipend for living expenses”, and additionally for some students, a stipend for travelling between their home and university. In essence, the FMF movement was about the “manifestation of the deep-seated disaffection with structural, racial inequalities and the lack of funding of HE for poor Black students at universities” (Maringira and Gukurume 2017, quoted in Langa 2017, 37). The FMF protests were the most recent and powerful uprisings that tackled university and societal issues. According to Cloete (2015), it was the largest and most effective student campaign post-1994, with support from White students, Black and White academics, academic support staff, and external stakeholders. It “challenged the political system, and within days, threatened to subvert university authorities and forced the national government into significant policy concessions” (Booysen 2016, 46). The FMF movement followed the footsteps of a student organisation known as the South African Student Organisation (SASO) formed in the late 1960s by an anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. The agenda of SASO included the following: promoting Black Consciousness; advocating for freedom and the rights of Black students who were neglected by the apartheid government and existing student organisations such as the University Christian Movement (UCM); reviving and organising opposition to apartheid; educating students about racial oppression, mobilising, and organising students in secondary schools. (Badat 2016b, 100; Mangcu 2012, 158) Various scholars contest the origins of the FMF movement. Some say it emerged and gained confidence from the #RhodesMustFall (RMF) movement that started at the University of Cape Town in March 2014 (Hodes 2016; Nattrass 2015). The RMF movement spoke unequivocally against symbols of colonialism, such as the statue of John Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town, and called for decolonisation of the education system (Taneja 2017). Looking at the FMF movement, Bond (2016, 197) argues that “it was the university of the Witwatersrand’s 10.5% increase in tuition fee that on the 4th of March 2015 spurred the original national awareness of the crisis”. Mpofu-Walsh (2016, 78) claims that Wits’s management alleged that the falling exchange rate forced a fee increase in 2015 because of dollarpegged library expenditures, but in the previous years, Wits doubled its private donations and in 2014 made 40 million rands (approximately 2.5 million USD) interest from its net foreign exchange. 3 In other universities like the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Pretoria, motivations for the FMF protest included a shortage of student accommodation (Hodes 2016). At TUT, the emergence of FMF did not gain popularity in 2015 in the same Higher education under neoliberalism 125 way it did at Wits and other historically White universities. This is because protest movements against the financial exclusion of poor Black students taking place in poor universities prior to the FMF were overlooked mainly by the government and the media (Langa 2017; Vilakazi 2017). For instance, TUT’s south campus alone (the campus where student protests first emerged) which is in Soshanguve, Pretoria, 4 had approximately 28 separate student protests over access to basic services, high university fees, insufficient funding, and academic exclusion between 2005 and 2010 (Vilakazi 2017). Though anchored in the economic needs of students (the need for financial assistance), FMF should be understood as a multifaceted movement; culturally, socially, and politically. It is built on the connectedness of myriad reasoning – to name just a few, it speaks to the class struggle to attain economic liberation, to challenges of access to the spaces of HE, about race differences, and in some universities, the poor or lacking student accommodation and also language barriers (Bond 2016; Contraband Cape Town 2015; Hodes 2016; Langa 2017; Vilakazi 2017). For instance, the spinoff protest movements – using social media hashtags #OpenStellenbosch and #AfrikaansMustFall – emerged from the FMF movement in 2016 and spoke against the exclusion of Black and non-Afrikaans speaking students from the University of Stellenbosch on the basis of language (Contraband Cape Town 2015). Afrikaans is a language of Southern Africa derived from Dutch by the settlers in the seventeenth century. In a documentary titled “Luister”, students report that lecture sessions meant to be delivered in English were delivered in Afrikaans – thus excluding and undermining the presence of Black and other non-Afrikaans speaking students in the classroom (Contraband Cape Town 2015). 5 While most scholars stipulate that the FMF movement started and was championed by students in elite and historically White universities, Bond (2016) suggests that this is not the case, as protests had already begun at the University of KwaZulu Natal a few weeks prior to the emergence of FMF at Wits. One should, however, acknowledge that the famous phrase #FeesMustFall was first coined by students at Wits and was thereafter adopted by students who had already been protesting against university fee increments in poor and Black universities prior to the protest actions at Wits. Also, it should be kept in mind that conflicts surrounding fees between students with university management in historically poor and Black universities can be traced earlier than the year 2014 (see Vilakazi 2017). Students have been protesting against financial exclusion at TUT since 2005, although not per a famous name #FeesMustFall, but their protests have received far less attention from the media and other social researchers. Badat (2016a) argues that the FMF movement was started and mainly driven by students from the middle class, failing to acknowledge the protests that took place in poor and historically Black universities a few weeks prior to FMF at Wits in October 2015. It is not clear how he conceptualises “middle class” in this context, for example, whether he profiled the class status of students from their personal accounts or whether he relied on the status of the universities to 126 Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini inform his conclusion on the class status of FMF protesting students. Participants in this study, particularly those from TUT, challenge the claims by Badat (2016a) in two ways. First, some were involved in the protests against university fee increments prior to the FMF of October 2015 at Wits university. Second, most students in this study claim to be from the poor working class. In what follows in the next section is a discussion of a notion coined “Black Tax” as evidence of the class status of students in the FMF protest movement. Exploring the role of race, class, and gender in FMF In the context of race, class, and gender, the literature on FMF is clear that the FMF movement was anchored on race and class. However, researchers present contrasting views on the aspect of social class. One of the avenues explored in this study is around the notion of Black Tax, which is a metaphorical term publicly used to refer to the money that Black professionals or students in contemporary South Africa contribute to looking after their families who were never able to create wealth or financial stability because of the colonial and apartheid regime that disenfranchised the Black population (Mkhize 2019, 64). Black Tax was informative, and even challenged some of the current research on the FMF movement including the role of race and class. For instance, Badat (2016a) argues that the FMF movement was largely driven by students from the middle class at Wits and the University of Cape Town. Godsell and Chikane (2016) and Vilakazi (2017) argue contrary to Badat (2016a). Badat’s (2016a) argument focuses on elite and historically White universities while Godsell and Chikane (2016) and Vilakazi (2017) argue from the context of poor and historically Black universities. They argue that it is not only in the FMF movement that Black and poor students championed student protests over the financial exclusion from universities, but builds on earlier instances of student protesting since 2005. With regards to social class, findings in this study point out that most students in the FMF at Wits and TUT came from poor working-class backgrounds as they performed some responsibilities that fall within the frames of Black Tax. Participants in this study presented Black Tax as a burden that delays their economic freedom. Most participants explained how Black Tax affects their day-to-day lives, and reasoned that it further motivated them into embarking on the FMF protest movement. All participants who commented that Black Tax negatively affected them were from the Black race cohort. See a few of their comments below: I was fortunate enough to get a job in my 2nd year. I pay for my fees, and they are like R104,000 [6596 USD] per year … A huge portion of my salary goes to my fees in hopes of a better future. My mother lives in a shack, I need to build her a house and I would like her to quit her job [as a domestic worker]. (Tee, a Black male from Wits) Higher education under neoliberalism 127 Now I must build a house for my parents. I must make sure that I shift them from their current standard of living. There are things of my own that I have to sacrifice but first, I have to mend their own mistakes, then after I can start my own life… As we speak, my salary ranges between 5k and 10k [317–634 USD a month], so imagine if you are earning that, you’ve got five people that are dependent on you, it’s not enough. (Danny, a Black male from TUT) Regarding the category of race, we encountered challenges in accessing fair representation of each of the different race groups in South Africa (Black, White, Coloured, Indian, Asian, and those identifying as “other”). However, the three White students contributed to the FMF movement not only through empathetic presence but also through strategies during the clash between students and the members of the South African Police Services (SAPS). For instance, see Radowitzky’s comments below: I remember one time we were in front of the great hall and private securities were trying to kick us out. I took about five or six blows trying to protect my comrades. I saw that was one of the ways I could contribute in those small spaces. One day, one leader realised that we needed to barricade a space, she came to find me specifically and she said I should organise some people to make a wall. There was a recognition of my involvement and that I could be trusted with doing something like that. So, I formed a wall. (Radowitzky, a White male from Wits) The presence and contribution of White students and academic staff in the FMF movement are affirmed by Cloete (2015) who argues that the FMF movement was the largest and most effective student campaign post-1994, with support from White students, Black and White academics, academic support staff, and external stakeholders. The involvement of White activists within the FMF movement was crucial for the movement’s solidarity and growth, as it demonstrated that even within the current democratic dispensation, there were White individuals who empathised with the struggles faced by Black students in universities. Concerning the gender category, the findings in this study indicated that activists that were both male and female were as equally passionate and ambitious about leadership in the FMF movement and experienced the same repression from the state during the protests. However, female activists in both universities (Wits and TUT) had adverse experiences from both the state and their male counterparts. While the state was tough on them, they experienced sexist responses from the male activists, which included undermining female activists who assumed leadership roles. However, they remained in solidarity with the FMF movement despite the presence of patriarchy, and toxic masculinity that condoned sexism. This is contrary to 128 Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini assertions by Mama and Teresa (2007) who argue that the presentation of female activists as weak compared to their male counterparts is likely to encourage political apathy toward female activists. See below comments on gender relations during the FMF protests: If you speak of people who were problematic in FMF it was us [men] because we have never been exposed to such spaces where a female activist would want us to engage in issues of gender imbalance and intersectionalities. We were never interested in those things. Here at TUT, we used to think that women had no interest in taking up leadership positions but we realised that they are having interest, the problem was with us [men]. (Sampha, a Black male from TUT) There is a time female activists came and told me that … [one of the female leaders] was trying to address the movement, male leaders [and some of the female activists] were speaking over her without hearing her views. So, we tried to challenge that as the feminist movement in FMF … (Zoe, a Black female from Wits) What FMF presents in the context of gender is the complexities and the need for social actors to understand the intersecting identities that contribute to the negative experiences of women in spaces that are mostly dominated by men. The intersection of their gender (female), race (Black), and social class (poor) (Crenshaw 1991), continues to render them vulnerable within university spaces and social movements. Overall, there were tremendous contributions made by students from different race, class, and gender groups towards the solidarity and achievements of the FMF movement despite the presence of internal conflicts. New pedagogical spaces through action In our research, we explored the processes by which student activists gained a critical understanding of the HE system in South Africa. Although this pedagogical aspect of FMF activism seems evident, it has not been addressed by current literature. Roughly, half of our participants gained knowledge of the neoliberal HE reforms (or sectoral changes) only after participating in the FMF movement. Half of the participants who were not aware of the sectoral changes were politically active students at their universities. However, they all stood in solidarity against the socio-political and structural changes, reasoning that such changes perpetuate socio-economic inequality. As Onka, a Black female activist at Wits observed: Higher education under neoliberalism 129 I wasn’t aware of the sectoral changes. But I think they are very problematic because now you are commodifying education, something that in our constitution is defined as a basic right … It also perpetuates this unequal society that we live in and people who can’t make it to public institutions, who can’tafford private institutions end up taking loans. Obviously, if you are taking a loan, you are indebting yourself then now how do you break this cycle of poverty? (Onka, a Black female from Wits) About half of the participants in this study said they were aware of the sectoral changes before joining the movement. Most of them were Black students from Wits university. However, participants (including those who became aware through their involvement in the protests) expressed negative views on the commodification of HE. As they attested: I have always known [about sectoral changes in South Africa]. I always read the newspapers. When I was growing up in Soweto [a township in South Africa] there was the privatisation of water and electricity. I became aware of these through organisations like “Operation Khanyisa” [a movement advocating for the provision of affordable electricity in townships] approximately around 2001. (Zoro, a Black male from Wits) I was aware because I grew up in a political family, my dad is in politics … And I joined COSAS [Congress of South African Students] around 2011 … So, it’s really unfair to privatise education when it’s something you need, it’s not a want, it’s a need you must necessarily have in order to survive. (Noe, a Black female from TUT) Participants who were aware of sectoral changes prior to the movement reported a number of ways through which they became informed, such as reading historical texts and policies like the Reconstruction and Development Programme, Growth, Employment, and Redistribution, and the National Development Plan, following the demands made by other social movements in the townships where they resided, and family discussions. Those who were not aware, initially became aware during the FMF protest movement, thus strengthening the argument that FMF, like other social movements, was also educational. State’s response to the FMF movement In what follows below is an account of the response by the state to the FMF movement drawn from the perspectives and experiences of FMF student activists. The employment of neoliberal practices has increasingly proven that the state is often unable to garner the consent, or even the reluctant acquiescence, 130 Tony Nyundu and S. A. Hamed Hosseini necessary for tension-free and non-authoritarian political governance (Bruff 2012, 114; Hosseini, Saha, and Adamczyk 2022). Governments are frequently compelled by neoliberal policies to employ coercive state apparatus for the protection of capital accumulation (Tansel 2017). This new phenomenon, known as authoritarian neoliberalism, requires nation-states that adopt and protect neoliberal ethos to do so by increasing “social control, restrictions, penalisation, and exclusion of certain social groups” (Eraydınand Tas¸an-Kok 2014, 111). Other state responses may include increased social surveillance in public spaces and punitive institutions and buildings to maintain law and order (Della Porta 2017, 18). Akçalı (2021, 97) points out that high security and surveillance under neoliberalism sustain authoritarianism. Findings in this study indicate that authoritarian neoliberalism was apparent and functional during the FMF protests. Participants highlighted the militarisation of the police force that exacerbated physical violence, criminalisation of student activists, increased social surveillance, and the use of bribes to hijack the agenda of the movement. See students’ comments on violence and criminalisation below: The violence was instigated by the presence of security [and police] on campus … When freedom of movement is restricted by the presence of heavy security it’s kind of frustrating. This led to the occurrence of violence. I remember at some point I was walking outside the dining hall and there was a rubber bullet passing on my face. Like, I did not do anything, just being seen moving meant I was a target to be shot at. (BK, a Black male from Wits) I remember the first day we protested in Parktown outside med school. It was a peaceful protest, being gentle and everyone was sitting next to the road. Next thing we were told [by the police] we are blocking the road. So, we moved and the next thing we know there were stun grenades and tear gasses flying everywhere. From my memory, I don’t remember police being provoked. (Que, a Black female from Wits) The students’ comments echo Xaba’s (2017, 99) findings in that violent acts were first instigated by the state and universities against peacefully protesting students who subsequently retaliated against state violence with violence. Our study confirms Xaba’s (2017) observations, and is further affirmed by Faith from TUT who argues that FMF activists were provoked to respond to a violent state using violence. At TUT we are very peaceful. What management does is that when we are peaceful, they come with arrogance. They will send police to shoot rubber bullets and to disperse you, even when we are peaceful. That is when students start to get crazy now then retaliate as well. (Faith, a Black male from TUT) Higher education under neoliberalism 131 Nonetheless, the high presence of private security and the militarisation of the police force – the use of rubber bullets, stun grenades, and pepper sprays, were tactics reported by the student activists to bring the movement to its demise. In the context of protest movements, militarisation is “the process of arming [the police force], organising, planning, training for, threatening, and sometimes implementing violent conflict” (Kraska 2007, 3). With respect to the criminalisation of student activists, most participants confirmed that they witnessed student arrests and some of them were arrested themselves. Following are comments from the participants who were arrested: I was arrested in 2015 and police would make you sleep for an hour and then come back with so much noise to count us in the holding cell and continuously do it after each hour interval. So basically, you could not sleep. It is a light level of torture. I just could not understand why we would be counted repeatedly while locked up. It was not like some could walk out to the bathroom or something. Just little gestures of irritation to make sure we would not be arrested again. (Tee, a Black male from Wits) I was arrested in November 2016. I don’t want to lie to you, I don’t know how and why I was arrested. When I got to the police station, there was no police officer who recalled arresting me, and they said they don’t know how I got there. But still, I was not released. We went to court, and we were fined R500 [approximately 32 USD] for bail. We kept attending the case in court, but they [the state] kept on postponing saying they are still busy with the investigation. I went to court last year in June [2018] and the magistrate dismissed the case. (Amina, a Black female from TUT) Some of the experiences of these students while in prison – such as sleep deprivation and being detained without reason – are indicative of a state determined to punish the dissident and weaken the FMF movement through criminalisation of activists with the intent to weaken protest movements (see also Duncan 2014). Student activists did not link the violence during FMF protests to neoliberalism in the HE context. However, some related the violence to the historical context of colonisation and apartheid. See Onka’s comment below. Our struggle [during apartheid] has always been violent … Even now during FMF there was violence, and it didn’t make sense to protest nonviolently to a government that was responding to us with violence. (Onka, a Black female from Wits) The employment of violence through militarisation of the police and security forces and the criminalisation of activists are similar to experiences of activists in other protest movements in the world – this includes the violence in 234 Index pandemic); social activism in 200; Xaba, W. 130 state-society relations in 190 xenophobia 148–149, 150 Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) 189 Vietnam General Confederation of youth: disillusionment among 25; Labour (VGCL) 198 engagement of 45–46; made passive Vietnam Health app 194 by the state 161; political activism in Voices of Black Tunisian Women 142, Algeria 40–42; politicisation of 182; 146 state corruption among 13; volunteerism 45–46 understandings of politics 43–44; volunteerism 46 WhatsApp: in the COWG 59–64; for youth bulge 223 internal communications 55; for social movements 57–58 Zayani, Mohamed 158 wired citizenship 9 Zoom: ad hoc solutions for 63–64; as women: misogynistic attitudes toward backstage activism 57–58; in the 141; sexual objectification of 141 COWG 60–61; electricity supply 62; women’s activism 93–94, 107–108, 142, inclusivity and 64; for internal 146 communications 55; internet conWorkers Central Union of Cuba (CTC) nectivity 61–62; language issues 63; as 105 self-expression platform 63; for social Wright, E. O. 4 movements 57–58; successes of 64; Wright, G. W. 28 weaknesses of 61–64