ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that targeting the market is beneficial to the organisational dynamics of social movements. It also argues that the Housing Assembly is charting a novel path for housing-oriented social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. The chapter demonstrates how its politics exceed the externally imposed limits of the pressure group model. It provides an account of the Housing Assembly's organisational model and focuses on how multiple organisational scales are articulated into a coherent strategy that both incorporates localised discontent and posits a generalised theory of the post-apartheid housing crisis. The chapter explores that the ability to transcend localism is grounded in two major strategic developments that distinguish it from many previous housing-oriented organisations: the active construction of a novel agent of struggle – the subject of a generalised housing crisis, as opposed to distinct and fragmented housing identities. The major strategic developments includes: involvement in decommodification struggles instead of acting as a pressure group on the municipal state.
