Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ahmed M. Kathrada
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Prison as a Source of Politics
- 2 Politics and Prison: A Background
- 3 Resistance For Survival
- 4 Resistance Beyond Survival
- 5 Prisoner Politics and Organization on Robben Island
- 6 Debates and Disagreements
- 7 Influencing South African Politics
- 8 Political Imprisonment and the State
- 9 Theorizing Islander Resistance
- 10 Beyond Robben Island: Comparisons and Conclusion
- Appendix I Diagrams of Robben Island Prison
- Appendix II Methodological Notes on Oral and Archival Sources
- Appendix III Capsule Biographies of Interview Respondents
- Select Bibliography
- Index
9 - Theorizing Islander Resistance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ahmed M. Kathrada
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Prison as a Source of Politics
- 2 Politics and Prison: A Background
- 3 Resistance For Survival
- 4 Resistance Beyond Survival
- 5 Prisoner Politics and Organization on Robben Island
- 6 Debates and Disagreements
- 7 Influencing South African Politics
- 8 Political Imprisonment and the State
- 9 Theorizing Islander Resistance
- 10 Beyond Robben Island: Comparisons and Conclusion
- Appendix I Diagrams of Robben Island Prison
- Appendix II Methodological Notes on Oral and Archival Sources
- Appendix III Capsule Biographies of Interview Respondents
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Emancipation is a matter of critique and construction, of which resistance represents the first step and transformation, in the sense of structural change, the second. Resistance and emancipation are interdependent, with the proviso that not every form of resistance opens the way to emancipation and some block it. What sets emancipation as a concept apart from resistance is the proactive, transformative element. Foucault's understandings of power breaks with traditional political theory in showing that ‘power's function is not merely prohibitive and repressive but productive, positive, educative’ (Cocks, 1989: 51). Similarly, emancipation is not simply about saying no, reacting, refusing, resisting, but also and primarily about social creativity, introducing new values and aims, new forms of cooperation and action.
A fighting underground is a veritable state in miniature.
Resistance on Robben Island is meaningful not only in its own right but also in the context of fundamental concerns of theorizing political organization and political change. This chapter begins by explaining the norms and sanctions that undergirded a disciplinary order that was implicit in the Island polity and society. This proto-governance is critical insofar as it moves resistance from refusal to creation and claims back the right of making laws or rules and controlling society from the state to the inmates. This determination to create one's own political community was built on foundations resembling constitutional government insofar as individuals gave up some of their own rights and powers to representative government in return for agreement to stated and unstated norms, particularly as expressed in codes of conduct.
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- Information
- Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid , pp. 236 - 271Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003