Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs) by Department "Department of Political Studies"

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    Justice as Recognition in the Ecological Community
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-06) Francis, Romain; Hamilton, Lawrence
    This thesis postulates that an alternate mode of recognition is required to develop an authentic conception of justice that reconciles the subaltern’s desire for dignity with affording greater love, care, and respect for nature. Extant redistributive and recognitive justice frames within traditional western political theory and philosophy are strictly anthropocentric and restrict nature to a purely utilitarian function in the satisfaction of human needs. This maintains a moral hierarchy between humans and nature that perpetuates ecological injustice. Using decoloniality as both a method and critical analytical framework, this thesis develops and employs the coloniality of nature to illustrate that the continued destruction, exploitation, and disrespect for nature is fundamentally tied to the misrecognition of subaltern people. Misrecognition is a product of a deep-seated sociogenic problem of coloniality introduced during European colonisation, which consolidated the superior status of a hegemonic western subjectivity. Other experiences, knowledges, practices, and ways of articulating human-nature relations were rendered as non-scientific and superstitious and devoid of any value. The misrecognition of subaltern people denied humanity an opportunity to learn from other viewpoints and integrate them into an inclusive idea of justice where no single subjectivity assumes a dominant status. Centered on a decolonial love predicated on Fanon’s idea of “building the world of the You”, not the I, Us or We, this thesis draws on the principles of transculturalism and border thinking to promulgate a practical idea of justice as recognition in the context of an ecological community, that is more inclusive of other living and non-living entities. It advances a dialogical mode of recognition that attempts to achieve the following objectives: i) promote critical introspection amongst the subaltern to understand how their experience of (mis)recognition is connected to the destruction of nature, and how their attitudes towards nature were altered by the introduction of western modernity, capitalism and colonisation, ii) enable those social groups that are on the top of the ontological hierarchy to understand their role in such processes and how to address them, and iii) to demonstrate that increasing humanity’s love, care, and respect for nature is not possible without first addressing misrecognition between people.
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    Rethinking the Logics of the Sex/Gender Anatomical Schema
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Nqambaza, Palesa Rose; Dube, Siphiwe
    This dissertation is an appraisal of the dominant gender discourse(s) in selected South African anthropological, gender and feminist texts. It challenges the uncritical adoption of colonial sex/gender frameworks when making sense of indigenous ways and modes of being and proposes an Afrocentric alternative that goes beyond bio-logical frameworks. This study is two pronged. Firstly, it problematises the uncritical application of Western feminist theories that have tended to impose European realities on the African context. Secondly, it mines the indigenous archive for Afrocentric ideas that contribute to creating a uniquely African theory of subject formation that considers aspects important to the African world-sense such as seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. I make use of critical discourse analysis to analyse the dominant discourse(s) and knowledge on sex and gender within the context of what is today known as South Africa. I do this employing the Azanian philosophical tradition as the theoretical framework that informs the perspective from which I read and make sense of these discourses, using a mixture of textual analysis, linguistics, archival work, and historical method. Based on my reading of dominant gender discourses against textual, linguistic and historical evidence, I make the following arguments. Firstly, I problematise the blanket usage of the conceptual category of ‘woman’ to refer to colonised subjectivities. I demonstrate that Black womxn have been discursively constructed as existing outside the bounds of the conceptual category ‘woman’ who is the key subject of feminist theorising. Secondly, I demonstrate that the logics of the sex/gender anatomical schema, that organises men and women in a hierarchy, cannot account for indigenous modes of social organising. I maintain that African subjectivities are fluid, complex and contingent, depending on aspects such as one’s seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. Likewise, I invoke the institution of ubungoma as an additional site to demonstrate the inadequacy of the sex/gender anatomical framework in making sense of sangoma subjectivities. I also problematise the tendency to use LGBTQ languaging as an alternative in making sense of the institution of ubungoma. I maintain that while noble, this alternative framing is also implicated in underscoring the existence of a coherent sex/gender regime within which the institution of ubungoma is then assumed to be ‘queer’. I maintain that there is a pressing need to mine indigenous linguistic archives for alternative ways of wording indigenous subjectivities in ways that are not distortive, nor mimic Eurocentric versions.