Steven L. Robins – författare

New South African Keywords sets out to do two things. The first is to provide a guide to the key words and key concepts that have come to shape public and political thought and debate in South Africa since 1994. The second purpose is to provide a compendium of cutting-edge thinking on the new society. In this respect some of the most exciting thinkers and commentators on South Africa have tried to capture the complexity of current debates. The result is a concise and insightful guide to postapartheid South Africa, which should be useful to students, citizens, tourists, business managers, decision makers-in fact, to anyone wanting to make sense of South African society today.

The conditions for democracy in South Africa cannot be taken for granted as many South African citizens remain on the margins, outside of the formal democratic system.The post-apartheid public sphere in South Africa has been characterised by race tensions and distrust. Socio-economic inequalities and structural unemployment are contributing to widespread crises. In addressing the conceptual andempirical questions relating to the transition to democracy, the contributors to this volume take the questions of culture and identity seriously, drawing attention to the creative agency of citizens of the 'new' South Africa. They raise important questions concerning the limits of citizenship and procedural democracy.Steven L. Robins is Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of StellenboschNorth America: Ohio U Press

The author argues for the continued importance of NGOs, social movements and other 'civil society' actors in creating new forms of citizenship and democracy in South Africa.Critics of liberalism in Europe and North America argue that a stress on 'rights talk' and identity politics has led to fragmentation, individualisation and depoliticisation. But are these developments really signs of 'the end ofpolitics'? In the post-colonial, post-apartheid, neo-liberal new South Africa poor and marginalised citizens continue to struggle for land, housing and health care. They must respond to uncertainty and radical contingencies on a daily basis. This requires multiple strategies, an engaged, practised citizenship, one that links the daily struggle to well organised mobilisation around claiming rights. Robins argues for the continued importance of NGOs, socialmovements and other 'civil society' actors in creating new forms of citizenship and democracy. He goes beyond the sanitised prescriptions of 'good governance' so often touted by development agencies. Instead he argues for a complex, hybrid and ambiguous relationship between civil society and the state, where new negotiations around citizenship emerge.Steven L. Robins is Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Stellenbosch and editorof Limits to Liberation after Apartheid (James Currey).Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland): University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (PB)