The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Painted on sculpture of Jan van Riebeck in Cape Town, 2014. Demotix/Sue Kramer. All rights reserved.Over the past ten years, South Africa has experienced one of the highest levels of popular protest in the world and probably more strike days per capita than in any other country. But these are distinct phenomena. Insurrectionary protests mobilise poor people, while workers participate in strikes. Why does this separation exist, and what is its theoretical and political significance? My response involves the notion ’different relationships to the means of protest’.[1]
While this conceptualisation was developed in response to a specifically South African conundrum, it has broader applicability. Bettina Engels has deployed it as part of her analysis of the ambivalent relationship between organized labour and food riots in Burkina Faso in 2007/8. Perhaps, it could also have utility in explaining recent mobilizations in Egypt, Ukraine and elsewhere, where popular protests evolved separately from workers’ struggles, eventually to the detriment of both.
