Decoloniality, Participation, Organisational Democracy, and Self-Management in Post-Apartheid South Africa and the Global South

This paper examines how colonial and neoliberal logics have influenced the ideas of self-management, democracy, and participation and how a decolonial perspective might reinterpret them. Although democracy and participation are celebrated in mainstream development discourse, they frequently serve as technologies of control that uphold market rationalities and dependency. The paper presents a conceptual model for comprehending how political and organisational practices in the Global South are both resisted by and limited by these dynamics, drawing on the framework of the colonial matrix of power. With reference to grassroots movements like Abahlali base Mjondolo, which represent alternative democratic logics based on collective self-management and epistemic justice, South Africa is used as a focal case. How gaps in the global architecture of dominance create opportunities for pluriversal futures is further demonstrated by comparative observations from Latin America and other Global South contexts. By (i) exposing the limitations of institutionalised participatory frameworks, (ii) highlighting radical democracy at the grassroots level, and (iii) describing the structural and epistemic prerequisites for significant change, the paper adds to discussions on decolonial political economy. By doing this, it reinterprets participation as a fight for liberating alternatives outside of colonial modernity rather than as inclusion within the status quo.