Of space and alienation: South African stories of unfree life under racial capitalism

Calvete Portela Barbosa, Luisa 2022. Of space and alienation: South African stories of unfree life under racial capitalism. Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal 7 (4-6) , pp. 240-261. 10.1080/23802014.2022.2099570

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Abstract

This article explores how to make sense of the feeling of unfreedom in South Africa today and how this unfreedom, charged with local and historical legacies, can be connected to global capitalist dynamics. Paralleling excerpts of the oral histories of Khumo who moved to Johannesburg in 1976, and Kagiso, who moved in 2015, this piece discusses how dispossession characterises unfreedom. Bringing literature on racial capitalism back to South Africa, its place of origin, and grounding it in the narratives of Khumo and Kagiso, the piece discusses the history and development of global dynamics of spatial exclusion and subjective, material, and productive-creative alienation. Furthermore, it discusses how Khumo and Kagiso perceive dispossession as historical thus racialised and manufactured, and contest it by negating racialisation and the idea of freedom. The article thus contributes to wider debates about neoliberalism in Africa, and (global) racial capitalism, showing how dispossession remains the main expression of unfreedom under capitalism; and how unfree life is reproduced every day in and through cities, and is lived as alienation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Law & Politics
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	2380-2014
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 October 2022
Date of Acceptance:	5 July 2022
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 03:12
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153648

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