Category Archives: General Commentary

By Sabelo Nkosi

At the end of a lengthy, heated and emotive debate with my roommate yesterday, it struck me that I should attempt to bring to everyones’ attention the importance of understanding “personal agency”, and expose the value that comes with appreciating, recognizing and respecting the personal agency of individuals.

Personal agency refers to the power an individual has to initiate and execute action, on the basis of their views, beliefs, and freedoms in the pursuit of a personally beneficial end goal. Emirbayer and Mische (1998) argue that the the concept of personal agency, as a philosophical notion, has been the subject of critique and debate. They, furthermore, posit that this concept has been “defended, attacked, buried and resuscitated […] in often contradictory and overlapping ways”. This is to say that “personal agency” both at a conceptual and practical level is subject to a differing reception, especially taking into account that every individual is entitled to their own opinion, interpretation and analysis.

It also dawns on me that some people may confuse personal agency with selfishness. Emirbayer and Mische (1998) explain that personal agency is characterized by “self-hood, motivation, will, purposiveness, intentionality, choice, initiative, freedom, and creativity”. Contrary to personal agency, selfishness is inextricably linked but not limited to vanity, narcissism, self-adulation, and obsessive self-centredness. Not even by a long short, may there be a similarity between these two concepts, neither of the two may be invoked as arguments to justify the other.

Public discourse in South Africa is a site of contention, many people have an opinion about a number of a issues. The nature of our public discourse, like in most societies, is such that there is never unanimous agreement about how a particular question must be dealt with, consequently giving space to intensely opinionated voices to propagate their views. From Steve Hofmeyr, an Afrikaner nationalist who believes black South Africans were “the architects of Apartheid”, to Naledi Chirwa, a staunch believer of Black Radical Feminism and former #FeesMustFall leader who is by her own confession an unapologetic and fearless advocate for the emancipation of black people, black students and black women in particular.These views time and again spark debates about their motive but it must be recognised the most fundamental motivation behind these voices that frequently shape our conversations in the classroom, blogposts, opinion pieces, supper tables, taxis, emakhoneni, social media and our bedrooms is first and foremost; their personal agency.

Earlier this month (March, 2019), a former University of South Africa (UNISA) employee, Gugu Ncube, staged a “half-naked” protest (half) at the sit of official state power, the Office of the President, the Union Buildings in South Africa’s administrative capital Tshwane. Ncube, a black woman believed to be of Zimbabwean descent, was later arrested and released on warning, faced harsh criticism and backlash from a number of people on social media on the basis of the nature of her protest rather than engaging the substantive details of her protest, which were the allegations of sexual assault by her former boss. This is symptomatic of the nature of response accorded black women in society; the erasure of marginalised bodies and their voices; and as a consequence stripping them away of their personal agency.

The imposition of moralities is another defining element of the erasure of personal agency. One tweet read as follows (as a response to the half-naked protest staged by Gugu Ncube): “Which normal human being goes to the Union Buildings naked and shouts I want the President” , this means that people were not willing to entertain Gugu’s personal agency because the nature of her protest suggests that, as some may argue, she is mentally unstable, committing public indecency, or that it is grossly unAfrican. Moreover, the meaning of the backlash Gugu faced, is that women may not be naked in public out of their personal agency but it should always be for the gratification, satisfaction and entertainment of sexual desire.

Gugu’s incident is just one in many incidents that amount to the assault of personal agency. The victims of this assault are usually black people, women, black students, queers, poor people and all the wretched of earth who are relegated to the permanent state of infantilisation.

The rejection of personal agency when used by those who don’t “follow the script” serves a political, cultural, and economic function, that of protecting the status quo. It serves the purpose of maintaining the unbalanced power distribution in society. It insults the intellect of those who stand up against injustices. This rejection must be crushed, it must be rejected with double or triple the contempt it rejects personal agency with.

I appreciate the article coauthored by Mustapha Emirbayer and Ann Mische in helping me provide a structured argument. If you are interested in engaging it here is the link: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8927/615e80bbcd46c04cfeccfb9f10ec9b8b4de1.pdf

Reference: What Is Agency? Author(s): Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 103, No. 4 (January 1998), pp. 962-1023