Basic Analytical Assumptions of empowering the periphery

The telling experiences of South Africa and Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Against the background of the global crises and the urgency it created, the authors attempt to problematise the pathways to empowering the peripheries of the world – the victimised, excluded, humiliated and entangled. As assumptions relevant for the empowerment of the peripheries they discuss: the need to re-read one’s own history; “accurate reconnaissance” of the current local circumstances; understanding the “workings of the global neoliberal capitalism”; focusing on integrating, making use of new scientific insights, reinvigorating fundamental values and generating internal actors of change; establishing new transformative alliances of the peripheries. The assumptions are contextualized in relation to the process of transition taking place in post-apartheid South Africa and post-socialist Serbia.