Helliker on Debunking Civil Society - pdf version of the paper

[Richard Pithouse]

The 2012 Critical Studies Seminar Series hosted by the Departments of Politics & International Studies and Sociology at Rhodes University 

Presenter: Dr. Kirk Helliker, Department of Sociology, Rhodes University

Topic: Debunking civil society in Zimbabwe and 'most of the world'

Venue: Department of Politics & International Relations Seminar Room

Date & Time: Friday 5 October 2012: 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Summary:

Until the so-called 'Arab Spring,' the one African country with arguably
the most international visibility was Zimbabwe. This was due mainly to its
radical land redistribution programme - 'fast track' - which began in the
year 2000. Post-fast track Zimbabwe continues to be marked by polarising
social conflicts and, over the past decade, Zimbabwean studies have been
characterised by acrimonious debates about agrarian transformation and
political change. This has brought to the fore important questions about
the significance (and indeed very existence) of civil society as a social
phenomenon in contemporary Zimbabwe, as well as raising key concerns about
the conceptual framing of civil society under its specific socio-historical
conditions.

This paper re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee
(2004) calls 'most of the world' (beyond the capitalist
metropoles) and, in so doing, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an
entry point into the literature on civil society. The chapter consists of
four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa
which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically
without any sustained theoretical reflections.

 

Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the
past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean
dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state
with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within
the broader international literature on civil society. These three
sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil
society: between civil society as a set of empirically-identifiable organisational
formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties
and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I re-imagine civil
society in relation to 'most of the world'.