This book discusses the contributions of African thinkers and actors to what Paul Tiyambe Zeleza calls recentering Africa in discussions about major African phenomena. It makes an input into ongoing debates about what it means to decolonise knowledge; the university; the school; the library; the archive; and the museum.
Decolonisation as democratisation considers three factors that define the debate in South Africa on the decolonisation of the academy: educational aspiration, competing interests and political contestation. The book explores an academic system that attempts to serve two masters, the first being the historical beneficiaries of the academy (i.e. whiteness) and the second being those who pin their hopes on the system in order to escape abjection (i.e. blackness or indigeneity). The book highlights how the recent thrust of decoloniality protects the ideal of academic freedom and presents an argument that this ideal should not be used to protect the interests of the historical beneficiaries.
Multi-layered inequalities and a sense of insecurity has long been the hallmark of South African life. Recently, however, the uncertainties of Covid-19 have led to greater shared experiences of vulnerability among South Africans. This volume of State of the Nation offers perspectives that may help us navigate our way through the ‘new normal’ in which we find ourselves.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is having a major impact on all aspects of life, both in South Africa and globally. The chief technological developments associated with the 4IR offer much promise for human development and improvements in quality of life. Yet, as this book explores, these technologies are a double-edged sword, bringing both benefits and drawbacks, particularly in relation to the realisation and enjoyment of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers develops an argument about how individual migrants, coming from four continents and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, are in many ways affected by a violent categorisation that is often nihilistic, insistently racial, and continuously significant in the organisation of South African society.
Miriam Tlali was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and activist against apartheid and patriarchal confinement. She worked consistently to build literary and political community, was one of the founders of Staffrider magazine, promoting the work of younger writers, and was the most prolific writer of her time.
Wangari Maathai was a scholar, writer, environmental activist, human rights champion, and Nobel Prize laureatte. In her life and thought, she tenaciously sought to expose the precarious lives of people across a variety of communities: women, rural communities, political prisoners, Kenyans, Africans, and citizens of the global South saddled with the burdens of international debt.
The book thus takes issue with the characterisation of the South African state as “developmental”. The crucial aspect of care is missing from the practice for this to be the case. Thus, while the grants address the immediate survival needs of many South Africans, social justice requires quite a different approach, an approach of care that would grant agency and dignity to recipients.
Ndabaningi Sithole: A Forgotten Founding Father is a biographical mapping of the political and intellectual contributions of Rev Ndabaningi Sithole to the liberation of Zimbabwe.
Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) nations have become a strong engine of South-South Cooperation. The most significant outcome of the emergence of BRICS is the shift they have brought to the balance of power in global affairs.