A revised and extended version of this paper will be incorporated
into a book of essays provisionally entitled Replacing the Nation that will bring together
my efforts to comprehend the turbulent forces at play in South Africa since 2000/1. The
paper starts by plunging its readers into the vicissitudes of struggles over water in
Ladysmith/Emnambithi and Newcastle, two former white towns and surrounding
predominantly black settlements where I have been engaged in research since 1994. I
use the contentious politics of water in these settings that remain heavily racialized as a
lens through which to focus on the contradictions of local government. In Disabling
Globalization (2002) I identified local government as a key site of contradictions in the
first phase of the post-apartheid order (1994-2000). Since 2001 the ANC national
government has engaged in an intensifying battle to bring unruly local governments
under control and contain popular discontent. Here I draw on dynamics in Ladysmith
and Newcastle to reflect on unfolding contradictions more broadly, and suggest how
official measures aimed at disciplining and damping down discontent might actually be
feeding into it.
Hart2010.pdf