Politics at a Distance from the State

<p>For decades most anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements identified radical transformation with capturing state power. The collapse of these statist projects from the 1970s led to a global crisis of left and working class politics. But crisis has also opened space for rediscovering alternative society-centred anti-capitalist modes of bottom-up change operating at a distance from the state. These have registered important successes in practice such as the Zapatistas in Mexico and Rojava in Syria. They have been a key influence on movements from Occupy in United States to the landless in Latin America to anti-austerity struggles in Europe and Asia to urban movements in Africa. Their lineages include anarchism syndicalism autonomist Marxism philosophers like Alain Badiou and radical popular praxis. This path-breaking volume recovers this understanding of social transformation long side-lined but now resurgent like a seed in the soil that keeps breaking through and growing. It provides case studies with reference to South Africa and Zimbabwe and includes a dossier of key texts from a century of anarchists syndicalists insurgent unionists and anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. Originating in an African summit of radical academics struggle veterans and social movements the book includes a preface from John Holloway.</p><p></p><p>The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in the <i>Journal of Contemporary African Studies</i> with the addition of a new dossier on the history and voices of a century of politics at a distance from the state in South Africa.</p>