Hit the Tire

Abstract

The meaning of the strike has evolved across space and time. In contemporary South Africa it has come to include the road blockade, which is now a ubiquitous tool of popular politics in general and forms of politics organized from shack settlements in particular. This essay, drawing on many years of participation in popular politics in the city of Durban, shows that the road blockade is often, although not always, articulated to a politics presented in the language of dignity and marked by defiant humanism.