Rick Turner's Politics as the Art of the Impossible - Hardcover

Eze, Michael Onyebuchi; Hamilton, Lawrence; Piper, Laurence; Riet, Gideon Van; Ensor, Paula; Glaser, Daryl; Hobden, Christine; Keniston, Billy; Omar, Ayesha; Sanni, John Sodiq; Sithole, Tendayi; Soudien, Crain

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1776148940 ISBN 13: 9781776148943

Publisher: Wits University Press, 2024

Synopsis

Revisits the work of Rick Turner, a South African political theorist, and addresses contemporary debates
Rick Turner was a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist who rebelled against the apartheid state at the height of its power. For this he was assassinated in 1978, at just 32 years of age, but his life and work are testimony to the power of philosophical thinking for humans everywhere. Turner chose to live freely in an unfree time and argued for a non-racial, socialist future in a context where this seemed unimaginable.
This book takes seriously Rick Turner’s challenge that political theorising requires thinking in a utopian way. Turner’s seminal book The Eye of the Need: Towards a Participatory Democracy laid out some of his most potent ideas on a radically different political and economic system. His demand was that we work to escape the limiting ideas of the present, carefully design a just future based on shared human values, and act to make it a reality, both politically and in our daily lives.
The contributors to this volume engage critically with Turner’s work on race relations, his relationship with Steve Biko, his views on religion, education and gender oppression, his participatory model of democracy, and his critique of enduring forms of poverty and economic inequality. They show how, in his life and work, Turner modeled how we can dare to be free and how hope can return, as the future always remains open to human construction. This book makes an important contribution to contemporary thinking and activism where the need for South Africans to define their understanding of their greater common good is of crucial importance.

About this title

About the Authors

Michael Onyebuchi Eze teaches Africana studies at California State University, Fresno and is an associate to the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the University of Cambridge.

Lawrence Hamilton is the Chair at the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Laurence Piper is Professor of Political Science at the University of the Western Cape, and University West.

Gideon van Riet is Associate Professor in Political Studies at North-West University.

Paula Ensor is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education, University of Cape Town.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1776148940
• ISBN 13: 9781776148943
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Eze Michael Onyebuchi, Hamilton Lawrence, Piper Laurence, Riet Gideon Van