‘Amakomiti’ as ‘democracy on the margins’ : popular committees in South Africa’s informal settlements

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)Abstract: The global economic crisis has arguably led to a crisis of democracy as perceptions that governments serve the rich and powerful rather than ordinary people abound. The quest for solutions and alternative forms of democracy including the dream of a society where the economy and the state are run and controlled by the people themselves, to the equal benefit of all, was seriously set back and tarnished by the defeat of the socialist experiment in the Soviet Union and other countries. This dissertation is a search for signs and instances of democratic practice that can inspire and inform political practice in the endeavour to retrieve and realise that dream. The dissertation looks at the widespread practice whereby informal settlement dwellers in South Africa operate popular committees that address and take care of each shack community’s collective affairs. Forty-five out of 46 shack settlements researched in four South African provinces operated such committees, called “amakomiti” (in the isiZulu language). The research findings suggest that shack dwellers collectively improvise forms of self-government and self-management because their settlements are often established and managed without the blessing and support of the state. They have to take over land and organise the allocation of households to stands, provision of basic services, crime prevention, etc. They assume functions normally carried out by the state in the course of their struggle for land and shelter. The dissertation proposes that this collective self-management points to the existence of a form of “democracy on the margins” in the informal settlements which is distinct from the dominant democratic state form. Can we learn anything from this grassroots form of democratic practice during this era of crisis in democratic governance? A key empirical question is why amakomiti continue to thrive while other grassroots forms of community self-organisation that emerged during the struggle against apartheid, such as the township civics and street committees, have declined in the post-apartheid era. The dissertation analyses the nature, character and operation of the amakomiti in the light of international, historical and often revolutionary forms of working class self-organisation such as the Russian soviets, Italian factory councils and Iranian shuras (workplace and neighbourhood councils). The dissertation argues that amakomiti should be understood as forms of working class self-organisation and as such part of the explanation for their continued existence lies in the dialectical relationship between their role as organs of struggle and as organs of democratic self-government. In both guises the committees are most effective when..