6.3 Deductive thematic analysis
6.3.4 Synthesis
In the following table, I have attempted to synthesise the stages of development of the community of practice of Abahlali with the four components of learning - to show how these have changed as the community of practice has changed.
Figure 11: Analysis Grid: Learning through Stages of Development
Wenger’s Elements
Potential
(people facing similar situation and discover commonalities)
Feb 2005 to Nov 2005
Coalescing
(people come together, start defining common interest and form a community)
Nov 2005 to April 2006
Active
(people develop a practice, engage in joint activities, create artefacts and renew
relationships)
April 2006 to Sept 2009
Dispersed
(people no longer engage intensely, community is still alive as a centre of
knowledge and still holds meetings)
Oct 2009 to May 2014
Memorable
(community no longer central but remembers its identities, telling stories and preserving artefacts)
Community (learning as belonging)
Common experience:
- shack dwellers - lack of basic services - police harassment - shack fires
- dehumanising living conditions
- creation of Ubuhlalism
- Collective meetings - Shared resources - Caring for each other - Everybody matters - Uniting across race - Demanding rights to land, housing and dignity - Ubuhlalism
- Mass meetings
- Prayer meetings Leaders - Loving and caring - one’s suffering is everyone’s suffering
- Collective formation - United across race - Everybody counts - Ubuhlalism
- Leaders are attacked - People flee for safety - Community in tatters - No common meeting place - Interim structures
- Unity under threat - Ubuhlalism under threat
Identity (learning as becoming)
- Shack dwellers - Red t-shirts - Poor
- Criminalised - Thought-leaders - Ubuhlalism
Shared identity : - Ubuhlalism
- Abahlali movement - Non-party politics - left-leaning - mass movement - Disengaged in electoral politics - no vote position
- Ubuhlalism
- Development of slogans:
“nothing about us without us”/
“talk to us and not about us”
- Abahlali baseMjondolo movement as emerging national force
- Abahlali identity under threat - Democracy in tatters
- Referral centre for services - Litigation on the rise
- Increase of new settlements
Meaning (learning as experience)
University of Abahlali derived from:
- experiences of
evictions, unlawful detention, discriminatory policies, and
- organic intellectuals
- Pronouncement of own politics:
- Third Force
- Out-of-order politics - At a distance from the state and party politics - Ubuhlalism
- Ubuhlalism
- Night camps and debates - Press statements
- Engaging scholars about living politics - Produced Living Learning booklet
- Ubuhlalism dying - In-order politics - No more night camps - Press statements written by a few
- The rise of individualism
Practice (learning as doing)
- Road blockades - Protest marches - Long meetings - Recruiting other settlements
- Setting up settlement committees
- Protest marches - Road blockades - Night camps - Unfreedom day - Open meetings
- Disengaging from electoral politics- “No land, no house, no vote” campaign - Ubuhlalism
- Resisting evictions and demolitions
- Protest marches - Road blockades - Court and litigation - Networking with partners worldwide
- Writing and presentation of Ubuhlalism
- “No land, no house, no vote”
- Democratic practice
- Centralised leadership and control
- Institutionalised practice - Embracing party politics - Undemocratic practices - Survival politics
The analysis grid that I present above clearly shows that Abahlali’s struggle has been a place of learning, although the 2009 attacks and events that occurred after this, made serious dents to the sustainability of real useful learning in Abahlali. This research has attempted to unearth learning in Abahlali, but it also noted the development that occurred post-2009 which led to a serious
leadership fall-out and Abahlali having to reconsider their position on electioneering politics.
I present the four components of learning as the Y axis and stages of development as the X axis to show the shift in learning. What seems to be clear is that it is not easy to separate activities that occur in the four different elements. One of the key issues is that the four elements diagram presents learning as a fundamental feature in all four elements. So in the case of Abahlali, meaning-making emerges from their actions and experience and is largely influenced by their identity and their understanding of belonging. As a result, Ubuhlalism is the common thread that not only describes their actions and defines who they are, but it also presents Abahlali’s ideological formulation and the process of learning.
It appears from the discussions above that learning occurs in different and multiple ways, that is to say, during meetings and actions they undertake as they express their demands through road
blockades, protest marches, press statements, etc., and also through their experience of how they are responded to by city officials, academics, etc. Using the timeline I showed that in the early stages Abahlali did everything as a collective. How they defined themselves was relative to everyone’s effort during their meetings. The way they understood their political formation and ideological orientation was everyone’s effort.
In the early years there appears to be a take-off period where there was so much activism and collective forming and development of the formation Abahlali movement and politics. Participants themselves give testimony to a movement forming among shackdwellers across Ethekwini and beyond. Clearly, this was an epic period as struggling and activism was synonymous with learning.
Poverty, appalling living conditions, police harassment, etc., all made Abahlali members “professors of their own suffering” (their own claim).
In most Abahlali meetings of their members there would be discussions about Ubuhlalism. A common feature of these discussions was the simplicity of the definition of Ubuhlalism as the daily experience of people, of suffering and resistance, which is understood by ordinary people. For Abahlali this was very important because it reinforced their view of their world - that they are on
their own and depended on themselves and their relationship with each other to continue with the struggle.
Clearly the period after 2009 presents a situation where that intense activism and intense learning drops, resulting in Abahlali having to adopt new practices and finding it difficult to maintain tools, artefacts and systems that have, up until 2009, strengthened the movement.
In my analysis I do not think Abahlali’s struggle has reached the last stage of development, the Memorable stage. As unpredictable as it might be, I think only time will tell where their learning experience goes from here. Suffice to say any subsequent theorising about their learning experience will need to be born out of genuine engagement with their struggle and the realities they are
confronting. I believe this is what I have tried to do in this research.