Conclusion: Dignity as Rupture and the “Becoming Black of the World”

This concluding chapter brings together the findings of the book and shifts the scale of analysis in social movement studies from an abstract notion of the global to a grounded conception that captures the entirety of the local-global continuum. In this new sequence of global struggle, I argue, movements must remain more attentive to the links between spectacular moments of global and national rupture represented in mass uprisings and protest—such as the inspiring globalization of the “movements of the squares” and the more recent Movement for Black Lives—and the more mundane spaces of everyday life in the city. Shack dweller struggles in Durban offer us one lens through which to capture the link between everyday life and social movement mobilization across a variety of scales. The book therefore concludes by situating South African urban movements in this global conjuncture of a post-2008 world, whereby ongoing shifts in the global architecture of power have led to a bifurcation in the world-system, with openings on both the radical left and the authoritarian right.