This book challenges assumptions prevalent among development experts that participatory forums
and mechanisms enhance democracy in a highly unequal setting. These assumptions ignore the
pernicious ways in which social and economic status and political standing differentiate
citizenship. The book develops a counter-narrative from below starting from the manifold ways
in which people engage with the state in a South African township and the structures of power
they encounter. By doing so it reveals that political participation as imagined in the Global
North is a privilege not only of individuals but also of societies and (re-)discovers a
profound epistemological gap between elite assumptions and the perspectives of the governed.
