ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the role of urban social movements in the struggle of lower-income groups in South Africa for access to land and housing. It undertakes this through a review of the development of these movements in the last half century, with a more in-depth description of some of the most recent experience. In particular the chapter looks at the relationship between the social movements and the political sphere. The description of the evolution of urban social movements around housing issues is then analysed in some depth from different political positions. This analysis raises issues of the relationship between civil society and the state which go beyond the South African experience, and are of broad relevance.
