Secularism within the African National Congress in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa presents a striking paradox: a religious and socially conservative population, yet a state that is strongly secular and socially liberal. This study examines one aspect of what sustains this apparent contradiction—how ordinary members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) understand the relationship between nation, religion, law, morality, and the state. Drawing on a 21-month multi-sited qualitative study across urban and rural contexts and 67 interviews with ANC members, the research explores how members distinguish between moral behaviour and what they nonetheless believe should be legal. Legislation on abortion (the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996) and same-sex partnerships (the Civil Union Act of 2006) serve as case studies.

This distinction between moral behaviour and legality rests on a conception of the citizen as prior to secondary attributes such as religion, culture, or sexuality—each of which must be equally protected within a framework of individual rights. Members’ views of citizenship are shaped by ideas of South Africa as a diverse nation, religion as a moral aid rather than an absolute authority, and a view of morality rooted in moral complexity and interpersonal relationships rather than universal adherence to abstract rules.

Whereas previous scholarship has viewed South Africa’s secular status quo as fragile due to the absence of an explicit doctrine of secularism within the ANC, this study offers an alternative interpretation. It finds that ANC members evince a secular outlook grounded in diffuse, enmeshed, and taken-for-granted assumptions, described here as a ‘latticed’ secularity. This study contributes to scholarship on secularity in South Africa and offers an ethnographic approach to studying secularity in contexts where a religious/non-religious binary is present but not politically or morally central.

Date of Award	1 Jan 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Daniel DeHanas (Supervisor) & Humeira Iqtidar (Supervisor)