Popular Politics, Participation and the Elite Gaze in South Africa

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This book challenges assumptions prevalent among development experts that participatory forums and mechanisms enhance democracy in a highly unequal setting. These assumptions ignore the pernicious ways in which social and economic status and political standing differentiate citizenship. The book develops a counter-narrative from below, starting from the manifold ways in which people engage with the state in a South African township and the structures of power they encounter. By doing so, it reveals that political participation, as imagined in the Global North, is a privilege not only of individuals but also of societies, and (re-)discovers a profound epistemological gap between elite assumptions and the perspectives of the governed.