Citizenship and Social Movements

1
Citizenship and Social Movements

• K1 course F09
• Signe Arnfred
• Institute for Society and Globalization

2
Citizenship

• a particular set of rights related to the state
• Feminist debates on citizenship
• inclusionary / exclusionary
• ex Fort Europe
• active / passive
• ex citizenship as a struggle / as a gift
• private / public
• in the creation of European states
• women confined to domestic spheres

3
Focus on womens citizenship in South Africa

• Womens National Coalition
• active in drafting South African constitution
• Impressive South African National Machinery for
  Women

• Office of the Status of Women (OSW)
• Multiparty Womens Caucus
• Womens Empowerment Unit
• Gender Focal Points in different state
  departments
• Commission for Gender Equality
• Ad hoc Joint Commitee on the Improvement
• of the Quality of Life and the Status of Women
• OBS Representation? Accountability?
  Delivery?

4
Rights-Based Approaches to development

• Advantages of RBAs
• Identification of rights tools of struggle
• Men women have agency - not passive recipients
  
• Special focus on marginalized groups promote
  equality
• Critique of RBAs
• Individual rights fit nicely into neo-liberal
  agenda
• RBAs define states as duty-bearers
• but post-SAP states perform poorly
• With RBAs what has actually changed?

5
Sex as a matter of Rights (Deborah Posel)

• Apartheid South Africa
• Draconian policing of sexuality
• particularly black/white
• Post-Apartheid
• The 1996 Constitution defines sexuality
  a site of rights
• Sexual preference a matter of rights
• Pornography legalized

6
Deborah Posel (continued)

• awareness and prevention campaigns bringing sex
  out into the open
• initiating a national conversation about
  sexuality and risks of contracting HIV/AIDS
• linking sexuality to issues of self-esteem,
  positive lifestyles and empowerment

This healthy, assertive sexual subject is the
psychic accompaniment of the notion of self which
informs the politico-legal notion of rights the
subject to whom rights have been allocated should
claim, wield and protect these rights responsibly
and rationally which means safely, in the case
of sex. Safe sex, in this sense, becomes a
metonym for living a responsible life more
generally, in a society attuned to the rights and
responsibilities of modern national subjects


7
Political implications of HIV/AID pandemic, 1

• Gender inequalities have fuelled the HIV/AIDS
  epidemic in South
• Africa (C Albertyn 2003)
• Critical focus on public / private distinction
• Task of social movements to bring the private
  issues surrounding
• gender, gender identity, sexuality and bodily
  autonomy into the public
• domain (Albertyn 2003)
• Aids is a feminist issue

8
Political implications of HIV/AIDS pandemic, 2

• Critique of established gender/power relations
• Bedroom power
• Power to negotiate conditions of sex on a daily
  basis is an important issue
• Sugar Daddies / Transactional sex
• Sex in exchange for social security and economic
  support
• indicating gender inequalities

9
HIV/AIDS activism, South Africa

• Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) since 1998
• Legal battles with Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
  Association (PMA) 2001
• MTCT prevention available to pregnant mothers
  2002
• Critique of Thabo Mbekis AIDS denialism
• Health Minister Tsabalala-Msimang removed Sept
  2008

10
HIV/AIDS activism TAC methodologies

• Zakie Achmat
• The tools we used against the apartheid regime,
  we now
• utilize to demand the right to life and social
  justice for
• people living with HIV/AIDS () But the context
  has
• changed dramatically the work would not have
  been
• possible without Medicins Sans Frontieres, or the
  Thai
• Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, or e-mail
  and
• global communication (2004).
• Globalization from below

11
HIV/AIDS activism Beyond dichotomies, 1

• Prevention / treatment
• Justice Edwin Cameron
• The supposed opposition between prevention and
  treatment
• is illusory. By treating we also prevent. And by
  preventing
• through treatment we give all people affected by
  the
• epidemic hope. () So, by showing hope through
  treatment,
• we will also address the stigma that surrounds
  this disease
• (2000).

12
HIV/AIDS activism Beyond dichotomies, 2a

• Victimhood / agency
• Zakie Achmat
• We had to transform the old slogan Mobilize!
  Dont
• mourn into Mobilize and mourn (2004)
• TAC activist woman
• AIDS has been a blessing in disguise (2004)
• TAC activist woman
• We must not be seen as victims, we must be seen
  as the
• people who are living. That is why we say that
  we are living
• with HIV/AIDS. Not people with HIV/AIDS. We are
  people
• living with HIV/AIDS (2002)

13
HIV/AIDS activism Beyond dichotomies, 2b

• Identifying victimhood enables resistance
• Zakie Achmat
• Our bodies are the evidence of global inequality
  and
• injustice. They are not mere metaphors for the
  relationship
• between inequality and disease.
• But our bodies are also the sites of resistance.
• We do not die quietly.
• We challenge global inequality.
• Our resistance gives us dignity (2004)

14
HIV/AIDS activism Beyond dichotomies, 3

• Tradition / modernity
• Steven Robins
• People are able to believe in both universalist
  biomedical
• truth and spiritual/cultural interpretations of
  illness
• the healing powers of western biomedicine,
  Christianity
• and the spiritual forces of the occult are not
  necessarily
• viewed as incompatible (2004)