Introduction: Thinking the World from Durban. - Ch 1 Transition: Fissures in the Time and Space of Democracy. - Ch 2 Ruptures: From Post-Politics to the Urban Political. - Ch 3 Development: A Promised Land Called Cornubia. - Ch 4 Precarity & Autonomy: Life & Death in the Shacks. - Ch 5 Poverty and Policy. - Conclusion: Dignity as Rupture: Alter-Globalization 2.0
Yousuf Al-Bulushi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
“Yousuf Al-Bulushi not only narrates an in-depth history and political geography of shack dweller struggles in Durban, South Africa, he provides a radical template for urban studies. Theoretically sophisticated and deeply researched, Ruptures will appeal to scholars across many academic fields, even while it remains accessible to the general reader. It is a remarkably absorbing and brilliant study.”
— Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian and author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
This book examines one of the most prominent social movements to have emerged in Africa in the 21st century: Abahlali baseMjondolo. It asks: how are poor people in South Africa confronting the persistent legacy of apartheid spatial segregation and anti-blackness? And what can movements across the world engaged in a global struggle against racial capitalism learn from the South African experience? Thinking at the intersection of Marxism, the black radical tradition, and movement theory from across the global south, Ruptures in the Afterlife of the Apartheid City offers refreshing theoretical insights based on the local realities of the struggle for land, housing, and dignity in the city of Durban.
Yousuf Al-Bulushi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA.