Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies最新文献

{"title":"Strategic protest and the negotiation of legibility in Cape Town: a case study of Reclaim the City","authors":"Matthew Michael Wingfield","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2265598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2265598","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe forms of protest and the related tactics that structure them are often linked to a deliberate logic of disruption and contestation. From pickets aiming to impede foot traffic in public spaces, to more “spectacular” forms of protest such as setting public property alight, these decisions are often far from the spontaneous acts of “violence” that they are depicted as by various news agencies and similarly aligned public officials. Using the example of a social movement based in Cape Town, South Africa, named Reclaim the City, this article thinks through different forms of protest, and how they are leveraged and perceived by a range of actors. By framing this discussion through James Scott’s (1998) work on legibility, this paper argues that social movements and similarly composed groups strategically navigate the process of being made legible by the state at different points for various reasons.KEYWORDS: Legibilityactivismslow activismhousingprotest Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. An “escrache” is a form of public protest that is aimed at “harassing” [sic], or rather influencing, public figures (Lunn Citation2013).Additional informationFundingThis work is based on the research supported by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation and National Research Foundation of South Africa [Grant 98765].Notes on contributorsMatthew Michael WingfieldMatthew Michael Wingfield is a postdoctoral fellow at Stellenbosch University (under the SARChI Chair for Land, Environment, and Sustainable Development), the same institution where he received his PhD in 2022. His research and publication record spans the focus of spatial and environmental justice, with a particular underpinning of working-class alternatives and grassroots-founded futures.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135463070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intellectual decolonisation and the danger of epistemic closure: the need for a critical decolonial theory","authors":"Helen-Mary Cawood, Mark Jacob Amiradakis","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2267772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2267772","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper draws from the paradigm of Critical Theory (CT) and Decolonial Theory to engage in an introductory discussion on the need for a new methodological paradigm, namely a Critical Decolonial Theory. This is put forward in order to both argue for the imperative of introducing multiple narratives to the philosophical practice of contemporary social critique in South Africa, as well as to provide a cautionary note relating to how the decolonisation narrative itself could become a determinative ideology if it engages in what Lewis Gordon terms “epistemic closure.” While operating from within the framework and ideals of traditional CT and Amy Allen’s subsequent contribution to decolonising CT, we draw specifically from black practitioners of this critical philosophical tradition, namely Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Frantz Fanon, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Paulin Hountondji, and Achille Mbembe, in order to localise and ground our discussion of the need to problematise (i.e., consider both vindicatory and subversive aspects of) the decolonisation project.KEYWORDS: Critical decolonial theoryepistemic closuredecolonisationproblematising genealogy Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This critical methodology will be expanded upon in subsequent works. This article serves primarily as an introductory discussion regarding what the authors consider is a necessary addition to the decolonisation debate.2. This is what Adichie (Citation2009) refers to as a “single story” or an overly-narrow epistemic engagement with Africanness – whether in an existential sense or in the attempt to demarcate what is “African” in “African Philosophy.”3. It is in this regard that we draw from Bohman’s (Citation2021) distinction between “Critical Theory” (CT) and “critical theory,” in which he indicates that CT has both a narrow and a broad meaning. Bohman (Citation2021, n.p.) writes: “In the narrow sense, CT designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists associated with the Frankfurt School. Furthermore, a ‘critical’ theory may be distinguished from a ‘traditional’ theory in relation to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human ‘emancipation from slavery’, acts as a ‘liberating … influence’, and works ‘to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers’ of human beings (Horkheimer [Citation1937] Citation1972, 246). As such, many ‘critical theories’ in the broader sense have subsequently been developed. In both the broad and the narrow senses, a critical theory aims to provide the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms. Thus, while CT is often thought of narrowly as referring to the Frankfurt School that begins with Horkheimer and Adorno, it can also be argued that any philosophical approach with similar practical aims could be called a ‘critical theory’.”4. This poin","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135992698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why recognition? Deciphering justice claims in 2016 Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon","authors":"Nancy Ngum Achu, Assel Tutumlu","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2267767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2267767","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTScholars attribute the 2016 Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon to systematic marginalisation of the English-speaking minority whose rights are constitutionally guaranteed but remain violated. However, marginalisation fails to explain why the peaceful-Independent Anglophone Elites (IAEs), consisting of lawyers, teachers, civil society organisations and Anglophone associations at home and abroad, who stood behind the 2016 Crisis, refused to bolster claims over economic redistribution or political representation. Instead, in 2016 they chose to engage in the struggle for self-determination and recognition of the Anglophone identity. Through Nancy Fraser's identity model and in-depth interviews with IAEs, we show that they perceived the recognition claim and a return to a federal state as a guarantee not only to the survival of the IAEs, but also to the solution of other forms of injustices, such as misrepresentation, misrecognition, and maldistribution.KEYWORDS: Anglophone Crisisindependent Anglophone elitesFraser’s social justicerecognitionredistributionrepresentation, Cameroon Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).List of interviewees1. Interviewee #1 (Scholar, Political Scientist and Activist, ACSS, USA), interview data, March 21 2022.2. Interviewee #2 (Senior Advocate, Political Opponent, BAR, Bamenda), interview data, November 22 2021.3. Interviewee #3 (Scholar and Policy Expert, Nkafu Policy Institute, Yaounde), interview data, February 17 2022.4. Interviewee #4 (Journalist, Political Analyst, Author, Chicago), interview data, December 27 2021.5. Interviewee #5 (Commission Member and Political Expert, NCPBM Commission, Yaounde), interview data, November 21 2021.6. Interviewee #6 (policy Expert and Senior Associate, NDI, USA) interview data, February 17 20227. Interviewee #7 (Scholar and Writer, PAID-WA, Buea), interview data, March 21 2022.8. Interviewee #8 (Lawyer and Policy Analyst, BAR, Douala), interview data, March 21 2022.9. Interviewee #9 (Lawyer and Activist, BAR, Bamenda), interview data, February 17 2022.10. Interviewee #10 (Political opponent and Activist, CAMNAFAW Douala), personal communications, January 21 2022.Notes1. At the beginning of the 2016 Crisis, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), which became the first official voice in the Anglophone Crisis, also demanded a federation (Okereke Citation2018). After multiple abuses from the government military forces, and ensuing backlash from the public known as the “Coffin Revolution” (Caxton Citation2017), the Consortium leaders picked up the call for self-determination (Okereke Citation2018). Subsequently, its rebranded version SCACUF declared Independence of the State of Ambazonia (Chothia Citation2018). The alleged “State of Ambazonia” consists of the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. They constitute a fifth of Cameroon’s population and host considerable agricultural lands and massive","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135758776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Commanding the respect of all who knew her: recovering the marginalised history of Eleanor Xiniwe and the challenges of the colonial archive","authors":"Denver A. Webb","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2267778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2267778","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTEarly mission-educated African intellectuals and activists in the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have received some attention from historians, but other than Charlotte Maxeke and Nokuthela Dube, few of the many women striving for political, economic and social rights have been studied in depth. Eleanor Xiniwe, a pioneering business person, is one whose story deserves to be better known. This article examines some of the challenges of the colonial archive in endeavours to recover neglected and marginalised histories: it sketches Eleanor Xiniwe’s life, explores her participation in the African Choir tour to Britain in 1891–92, examines her business interests and attempts to locate her history in the context of attempts by Africans to imagine an alternative future for themselves in colonial society at a time of hardening racial attitudes and increased discrimination.KEYWORDS: Eleanor XiniweAfrican ChoirAfrican women’s historypioneer African businessesKing William’s Towncolonial archive AcknowledgmentsMy interest in the Xiniwes began in the 1980s while working at the museum in Qonce. At the time I located Paul Xiniwe’s unmarked grave in the town cemetery and produced a small article on him as pioneer businessman, but soon realised that Eleanor was by far the more interesting historical personality. Thank you to Babalwa Magoqwana for inviting me to deliver a paper on her at the “Maternal Legacies of Knowledge: Rethinking the Sociology of the Eastern Cape” symposium in June 2021. I would like to thank Barbara Manning for bringing the existence of the photographs of the African Choir in the Hulton Archive (Getty Images) to my attention. Appreciation is also due to Xolela Mangcu, who is related to the Xiniwes through the Tyamzashes, for helpful comments on an early draft. A special thank you to Mcebisi Ndletyana for suggestions and for sharing ideas from his research on the history of the University of Fort Hare. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to my friend Andre Odendaal, whose pioneering book Vukani Bantu! opened my eyes to the world of the early African intellectuals and activists and whose comments on a draft of this article challenged me to reframe my thinking in a number of ways. Pamela Maseko kindly provided accurate translations of isiXhosa quotations in the text. Lastly, a special word of appreciation is extended to anonymous reviewers of Social Dynamics, who suggested fruitful avenues to explore and who challenged me to rethink sections of the article.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Les Switzer (Citation1993, 188) mistakenly refers to her as the sister of Paul Xiniwe. The brief entry in The Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography III, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland (Citation1995, 244–245) made an important attempt to promote Eleanor Xiniwe’s history but in the absence of primary source material and detailed secondary","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135758925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rethinking Africa: indigenous women re-interpret Southern Africa’s pasts <b>Rethinking Africa: indigenous women re-interpret Southern Africa’s pasts</b> , edited by Bernadette Muthien and June Bam, Auckland Park, Jacana Media, 2021, 232 pp., ZAR 290.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-928232-94-0","authors":"Chanel van der Merwe","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2265602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2265602","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. The Afrikaans words for herbs. Here I am referring to “wille als,” “buchu” and other plants I may not be aware of.2. This is a saying which literally means “advice from the elderly,” but it is used in context to mean the opposite of “scientific knowledge”.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135968175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decolonial Marxism, essays from the Pan African revolution <b>Decolonial Marxism, essays from the Pan African revolution</b> , by Walter Rodney, edited by Asha Rodney, Patricia Rodney, Ban Mabie and Jesse Benjamin, London, Verso, 2022, viii + 322 pp., US$20.49 (paperback), ISBN 9781839764110","authors":"Ahmet Sait Akçay","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2265589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2265589","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation & HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, UCT; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"156 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decolonisation in Africa: love or litigation? Mandela as moral capital","authors":"C. Eze","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2229132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2229132","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Rhodes Must Fall social movement infused new life into the decolonisation discourse in Africa. However, whereas most scholars agree on the need for decolonisation, there is little consensus or even clarity on what it actually means in our everyday encounter with others and engagement with reality. Indeed, much of the debate on the issue consists of a recycling of the arguments employed by the first generations of anticolonial/postcolonial scholars and political leaders – a pattern of anti-imperialist thinking and litigation of the past which fails to enhance African self-understanding. This article examines the structure of thought that underlies that pattern and much of Africa’s intellectual decolonisation. I argue that Nelson Mandela understood the risks of the decolonisation arguments embodied by the likes of Robert Mugabe and intentionally adopted a different approach, anchored in encounter as an ethical and epistemic imperative. I therefore propose a theoretical approach drawing on Mandela’s thought and actions and argue that his politics of encounter constitutes a hermeneutic condition for a proper constitution of epistemic decolonisation.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"49 1","pages":"332 - 348"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44100000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decolonising Sinology: on Sinology’s weaponisation of the discourse of race","authors":"Shuchen Xiang","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2220589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2220589","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The previous generation of Sinologists were of the overwhelming consensus that race consciousness did not exist in pre-modern China. However, in recent decades there has been a revision of this consensus. This paper frames this shift in terms of Sinology’s complicity with white supremacy, imperialism and the military-industrial-academic complex. Contemporary Sinology sets itself up as exposing a colonial mentality in pre-modern China. The irony is that it is contemporary Sinology which is complicit with white supremacy and itself is in need of decolonisation. This paper will analyse the most prominent example of this sea-shift in the Sinological consensus on race in China: Frank Dikötter’s The Discourse of Race in Modern China. That such scholarship, deficient in the most basic scholarly standards, was overwhelmingly feted upon its publication, continues to be cited as an authority and to receive inordinate recognition reveals Western academia’s problematic attitudes towards China and the issue of racism. This paper will show how all of the above phenomena can be understood in terms of the “epistemology of ignorance.” By misappropriating the discourse of the critical philosophy of race, Sinology’s epistemology of ignorance universalises Western racism. Sinology has weaponised the discourse of race.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"49 1","pages":"280 - 298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47692494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is decolonisation Africanisation? The politics of belonging in the truly African university","authors":"A. Nyamnjoh","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2226500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2226500","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While Africanisation remains a popular idiom for intellectual decolonisation, it raises difficult issues around citizenship, identity and belonging, alongside their constitutive dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Using the “politics of belonging” as a conceptual frame, I unpack the tensions involved in grounding decolonisation in a substantive insistence on Africanness. This lens centres important questions like who can successfully claim Africanity and what it means to be intellectually African. Reflecting on the former, both historically and in the aftermath of student calls for a decolonised African university in South African higher education, I show that Africanness is rarely settled by first principles. There are often competing claims regarding the African for whom representation is sought. I therefore contend that the intuitiveness of framing decolonisation as Africanisation elides the politics of belonging that characterises talk of making universities more African, which is sometimes shaped by exclusionary configurations of race, class, nation and indigeneity.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"49 1","pages":"349 - 368"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43077523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Whither epistemic decolonisation? How to make experiences a source of moral justification","authors":"F. Campello","doi":"10.1080/02533952.2023.2234132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2234132","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the narrative turn in decolonial theory, specifically regarding the use of experience as sources for normative theories. While narratives of experience can challenge claims of universality, they alone cannot provide broader normative criteria that extend beyond specific experiences, making their use as moral justification ambiguous. Before seeking criteria for moral justification, it is essential to examine the epistemic contribution of experience-based discourse, such as standpoint theories and the Brazilian concept of “lugar de fala” (place of speech). Instead of relying solely on experience, the paper argues for an epistemic critique of the socially shared vocabulary that precedes these experiences. The paper proposes that a more productive approach lies in identifying blind spots in our concept of injustice and examining the vocabulary that shapes our disposition to feel and narrate experiences. This critique challenges the limitations of relying solely on identity for moral justification, emphasising the importance of collective understanding and the need for a broader framework. By expanding this vocabulary, alternative ways of being affected and describing forms of life can be explored.","PeriodicalId":51765,"journal":{"name":"Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies","volume":"49 1","pages":"299 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44128484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}