An examination of the practice of petitioning at the grassroots level shows how it stimulated a vibrant popular politics. Revisionist scholarship emphasising the supposed taming or disciplining of political culture has ignored the lively local culture of petitioning. The chapter first outlines the process and practice of petitioning: the drafting, signing, and presentation and reception of petitions. Of all these different stages in the process of petitioning, it was the practice of signing petitions that was most important to nineteenth-century popular politics. Not only did it underpin other forms of political activity, such as public meetings, but opened up new informal spaces for political activity and engendered new forms of political behaviour. The practice of petitioning stimulated a never-ending cycle of claim and counter-claim about the forging of signatures, the undue influence of landlords or employers, and outright misrepresentation. This endless contestation was intrinsic to the practice and process of petitioning and one of the most important ways in which it energised popular politics at the local level.

Given the centrality of experiential learning in the Carnegie School, we focus on how this form of learning provides an opportunity for deepening the relationship between the Carnegie School and Routine Dynamics. Experiential learning is central to Routine Dynamics because the flow and progression of routines emerge from experiential learning like processes of taking action, evaluating the results of those actions, and, if necessary, making adjustments to future actions.

In the midst of plenty, many South Africans remain famished nd despite abumper summer harvest, millions are still reeling from severe hunger. In similar situations other countires have mobilised themselves into a social movement aimed at pressing for sufficient access to food in the name of rights, but famished South Africans continue to endure their daily struggles in relative anonymity and silence. Moreover, though South Africans are known for constantly using contentious politics such as activism to press home many demands in the area of health care, land and education, these group-based activities have not been extended to food security. This chapter has two objectives: first, to explore this puzzling paradox and second, to provide recommendations on how to overcome the conditions hindering mobilisation around food security. The chapter takes a closer look at the political contestation around basic rights such as the right to health, land and education in order to understand which factors triggered mobilisation around these entitlements. The chapter concludes by drawing inspiration from these movements in order to provide a blueprint on how to launch food activism in South Africa and beyond.