Justice In Africa Research Articles

“The Face of the Buffalo”: Interspecies Relationality in Nawal El Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile

In several interviews, the Egyptian American writer and feminist Nawal El Saadawi has emphasized her commitment to women’s rights and gender justice in Africa and the Arab world. However, there is hardly any reference regarding her engagement with animals. Yet her writing is replete with animal subjectivity. Therefore, this paper examines animal representations in El Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile by unearthing what we conceptualize as her “complex animal imaginary,” a concept encompassing the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic currents in her novel. Although her narrative language constitutes and conveys such vocabularies, this hardly undermines El Saadawi’s recognition of interspecies relationality and how central the nonhuman is to the flourishing of humans. As such, we highlight her register of animality that presents humans in zoomorphic imagery, stressing that this strategy not only makes legible human suffering but also flattens animal subjectivity, thereby reducing the buffalo, named Aziza, in this case, to a figure of abjection. However, we argue that this representational strategy neither erases animal vitality nor reinscribes speciesism. But instead, it uncovers animal suffering in society. By focusing on interspecies relationality in God Dies, we amplify El Saadawi’s contribution to ongoing conversations on animal studies, postcolonial ecocriticism, and posthumanism.

The Life and Thought of H. Odera Oruka: Pursuing Justice in Africa

The Life and Thought of H. Odera Oruka: Pursuing Justice in Africa

On the quest for epistemic justice in Africa: Unpacking the methodic crisis

On the quest for epistemic justice in Africa: Unpacking the methodic crisis

Algorithms and Administrative Justice in Africa: A Case Study from Nigeria

Algorithms and Administrative Justice in Africa: A Case Study from Nigeria

The Implications of Autochthony-Based Victimization for Reparative Justice in Africa

The concept of autochthony or ‘indigeneity’ has been employed in multiple contexts across Africa and refers to people with historical connections to particular territories. It can be manipulated by political elites who demonize perceived ‘allochthonous’ minorities or ‘outsiders’. Though autochthony-related violence is often considered to constitute or resemble genocide or ‘ethnic cleansing’, the contested nature of these concepts necessitates further consideration of the impact of such violence beyond the genocide lens. This essay explores the potential implications of such hostilities and violence for ‘restorative’ or ‘reparative’ justice. It focuses on the examples of the protracted violence in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR), where both peace and justice seem elusive for many communities, and the missed opportunities to foster reparative justice for victims of the last major conflict in Côte d’Ivoire (2010–11). In focusing on victims of autochthony-related violence, this essay considers the potential specific, multilayered, and intersecting needs of such victims and the challenges they may face within the context of any broader, comprehensive processes of reparative justice. Given the challenges that this essay highlights, it concludes by recommending that scholars further consider a conceptualization of reparative justice encompassing the multilayered experiences of autochthony-based victimization.

Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa. Edited by Elias O. Opongo and Tim Murithi. New York: Routledge, 2022. 202 pages. $127.50.

<i>Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa</i>. Edited by Elias O. Opongo and Tim Murithi. New York: Routledge, 2022. 202 pages. $127.50.

Movement For Justice In Africa And State Transformation In Liberia

Abstract Historically, social movements have designed and implemented various modalities for the transformation of the state. Some of these modalities have contributed to the various state transformation projects, while others have not. Overall, state transformation projects have had various outcomes, including success, failure and a mixture of successes and failures. Against this backdrop, this article examines the state transformation project that was undertaken by the Movement for Justice in Africa (moja0 in Liberia from 1973–1980. Specifically, the article interrogates the various modalities that moja designed and implemented in its quest to transform the Liberian society. In terms of a “balance sheet,” some of the modalities, including the political conscientization campaign, the training of cadres, the assistance to labor movements, and coalition building with other progressive forces succeeded in promoting the state transformation project. On the other hand, however, moja did not succeed in transforming state structures, state policies, and power relations. Two major factors contributed to these challenges: 1) moja’s left-wing populist ideology was an obstacle to the organization’s diagnosis of the major causes of the multidimensional crises of underdevelopment that enveloped Liberia; and 2) moja prematurely embraced the Doe-led military regime that came to power after the April 12, 1980 coup, thereby jeopardizing the future of the organization.

Too poor to be clean? A quantile ARDL assessment of the environmental Kuznets curve in SADC countries

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a fit of the environmental Kuznets curve for Southern African development community (SADC) countries. To this end, we estimate a quadratic regression between greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N20, CH4), per capita income and other controls, using the pooled mean group (PMG) and quantile autoregressive distributive lag (QARDL) models applied to annual data spanning from 1990 to 2021. On one hand, the PMG (Pooled mean group) estimators reveal an EKC fit for CO2 emissions (turning point = $4675), an inverse EKC for CH4 emissions (turning point = $6310) and no fit for the N20 emissions. On the other hand, the QARDL estimators further reveal more significant effects existing at the tail end distributions of the curve for all classes of emissions with turning points in the upper (lower) quantiles being higher (lower) than those from the PMG estimators. Further analysis informs us that only Seychelles have crossed the EKC ‘turning point’ at the upper quantile while the remaining countries are ‘too poor to go green.’ Overall, these findings have implications for the debate on climate justice in Africa.

Gender relations and social justice in Africa: Toward a duty-based approach to gender-based violence

A large and important part of social relations is gender relations between men and women. Over time, the manifestation of such relations has often been one of violence, particularly violence against women. Different approaches have been deployed to deal with the experience of gender-based violence (GBV). One popular approach is the human rights framework that suggest that GBV can be addressed by granting certain rights to women. We argue that while a human rights framework holds some promise in resolving GBV, it is limited in some ways because it does not take the cultural perceptions of gender relations that envision gender duties into account. As part of our argument, we show that social relations in African communities ought to be primarily based on the principle of duty to the other, rather than an emphasis on rights. We conclude that there is a need to complement the rights-based approach with a duty-based approach to effectively address GBV.

Communal solidarity and the challenge of intergenerational punitive system in Africa: The Yoruba experience

The transference of qualitative punitive system in Africa to the next generations is challenged by the hegemonic situations created by the Western colonial ‘theory-maker’. The reality of this formal structure promotes individual character of the law which undermines the transformative cultural principles for intergenerational legal justice in Africa. This paper, therefore, examines the communal solidarity system within the Yoruba culture in order to arrive at the socio-legal sustainability discourse for the next generations. The study employs the conceptual, critical and reconstructive methods of philosophy with a view to sustaining communal solidarity for intergenerational punitive system. The findings show that communal solidarity in Yoruba culture goes beyond the formal Eurocentric principles that celebrate individualistic for a coherent interconnection among social structure, law and belief system towards the certitude and trust making for harmonious human well-being and future generations. Also, it promotes a restitutive principle whereby the offender is reconciled to himself, the victim and the community at large, which seals generational bond not only within the family but the community at large. More so, the notion advances a creative and flexible human activity, whereby human beings are amenable to change and deserve integration into the community with the saying that bi a ba fi owo otun na omo eni, a fi t’osi fa’a mora (when a man beats his child with his right hand, he should draw him to himself with his left hand). Therefore, the study constructively addresses the dispensation of justice with legal certainty, legal diversity and social order for maximally advanced and sustained future.

Book Discussion - Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa

Book Discussion - Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa

Toward a Decolonized Moral Education for Social Justice in Africa

Many moral and social problems affecting African people and development could be associated with (neo)colonial moral education problems in Africa: perpetuation of excessive materialism, individual competitiveness, and demonization of African traditional values. To solve African moral problems and realize Pan-African goals, we need a more contextualized approach to moral education in schools that takes into account moral values from African context. Hence, this paper proposed strengthening moral education in Africa through a decolonial educational approach that disrupts the conventional through anti-colonial curricular and pedagogical practices of moral education for social justice. It first conceptualized moral education and social justice and reviewed literature on moral education in Africa to illuminate its colonizing elements. The proposed decolonized moral education model, critiquing Kohlbergian moral development theory as ignoring the (neo)colonial struggles of colonized and Indigenous people, draws on Ubuntu philosophy, Afrocentricity, and postcolonial theories to develop five processes for the decolonization—(a) Indigenous knowledge, values, and practices’ consciousness raising, (b) moral diversity mapping and comparison, (c) critical evaluation of Indigenous moral disrupters, (d) prosocial anger toward historical/ongoing moral annihilation and complicity, and (e) Indigenous moral agency. The curriculum and practice implications of the Model are discussed.

Consolidating an integrated rights approach: socio-economic constitutional justice in Africa

Consolidating an integrated rights approach: socio-economic constitutional justice in Africa

The Nature of Traditional Justice in Africa: A Case Study of the Bukusu People of Kenya

The traditional justice systems have throughout history been fundamental in solving disputes and conflicts in African communities. They are seen as an alternative or a complement of the formal court systems. These courts are based on customary practices, traditions and rules of communities. In some countries, the traditional justice systems operate within the state control while in other countries the law recognizes them as mechanisms that are used to solve disputes and conflicts. Though some see these mechanisms as backward and not promoting development, most Africans in rural settlements prefer them. Most Africans resort to traditional justice systems to solve their disputes because of three reasons. One is that most Africans live in rural areas where the services of the formal court systems are limited. Two, the formal courts may not be able to offer the type of justice appropriate for disputes between people living in rural areas where such disputes can cause conflict within the communities thus affecting the relationship that exists between them. Three, the formal court systems may not subscribe to the cultural and religious traditions that are applied during the resolving of the disputes. The rural people because of the sacredness attached to it revere these traditions. This article seeks to examine the nature of traditional justice systems in Africa.

Theology of Trinitarian Communion as Remedy to Insecurity in Africa

God is a supernatural, Eternal and Omnipotent Being. The rich Christian theology presents God as perfect unity in tri-personal mode of operation. Using the transcendental and contextual method, the research examines the exposition of trinitarian communion as the apex of security, love, unity and tranquility. This notion is captured in the Greek terms of perichoresis and Circumincession – meaning the penetration of the inner coinherence within the psychology of the Trinity. The research assesses the inner dynamics that forms the unity of God in Tri-personal essence, making it serve as a theological discourse to create a culture of peace, love, unity and justice in Africa. These features of metaphoric-psychic-spiritual realities captured manifestly, the ideals of divine essence espoused to model the human domain; thus, serving as remedy against the prevalent culture of feud, conflict and war. In its conceptual womb, Ubuntu structures and tailors a common hegemony of the philosophy of unity to mediate peace in Africa. Thus, the inner coinherence present in the essence of the Trinity is faith-in-action; paving way to resolving concrete African issues on security, finance, agriculture and the likes. The Communion of God in the Trinity therefore, is elixir of unity.

Genocide and the Politics of Memory in the Decolonisation of Namibia

This article examines how Namibians recalled colonisation by Germany (1884–1915) under subsequent South African colonial rule (1915–90). Focusing on Herero communities and political leaders between 1915 and the beginning of an armed struggle in 1966, it argues that invoking the first colonial occupation became an idiom that allowed the Herero to challenge the continued depredations of settler colonialism, negotiate the colonial encounter, and advance particularistic interests. Drawing on hitherto neglected documentary sources and newly collected oral histories, I illustrate how Herero petitioners to the United Nations intertwined memories of the genocide of the Herero and Nama (1904–08) with those of what came to be understood as the Holocaust during the 1960s to criticise South Africa’s imposition of apartheid in Namibia. In this way, I demonstrate the ways in which remembering the first colonial occupation shaped the emergence of modern Namibian political discourse as well as post-colonial restorative justice campaigns. The article thereby underlines the importance of memory making in the decolonisation of Namibia and contributes to a long history of the end of empire and restorative justice in Africa that reaches back to the First World War.

“Their Color is a Diabolic Die,” Colonialism and the State of Environmental Justice in Africa

Environmental justice is crucial to the discourse on the African environment since Africa bears a significant share of the world’s resources, and conversely, it is home to a large number of globally disadvantaged people, whose access to the wealth of their native lands is beyond their reach. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how colonialism and the structures it has laid down in Africa are impeding environmental justice. Content analysis was used in the data collection. In this article, drawing from the slum arrangements in the cities of four African countries colonized by the British and French as case studies, it was revealed how colonialism has caused the degeneration of the African environment. Furthermore, colonialism created a class system that has fed social and economic inequality and has resulted in an intra-racial system of oppression that has made Africa’s poorest neighborhoods more vulnerable.

Authority and Servant Leadership: Effective Tool for Service in the Church &amp; Society in Africa

Authority is likening to a driving agent, which is divine or human. By experimental and analytical method, we explore the magisterial interpretation by evaluating modern trends on the application of authority. Research examines the Christian teachings from the Bible and Sacred Tradition. Jesus Christ had taught the principle of pragmatic authority based on Servant Leadership at the washing of His Disciples’ feet. The quest for a Servant Leader: to feed the poor, to protect orphans, to fight for justice in Africa; is value-style of leadership in the 21st century world.

Environmentally Just Futures: A Collection of Community-Driven African Environmental Education and Improvement Initiatives.

Advocating for healthy environments is a matter of justice. Changes in environments have tremendous impacts on the health of communities, and oftentimes, individuals are unable to safeguard themselves through individual actions alone. Efforts frequently require collective action and are often most effective when led by the communities most impacted. In this spirit, we launched “Vibrations”, an African environment photo essay contest. Through funding and publicity, we aimed to support community-led environmental improvement and education initiatives presently taking place on the continent. We received nearly two dozen submissions and selected eight winners. The winners come from five countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa) and have taken on a range of projects aimed at improving environments across a variety of African regions. Projects included efforts to combat pollution, create environmentally conscious school curricula, utilize clean energy sources, and spread awareness about environmental justice concerns in local communities. It is our hope that this report highlights these transformative community-driven efforts, promotes continued conversations on environmental justice in Africa, and encourages meaningful action via policy changes and collaborations throughout the African continent and beyond.

Authority and Servant Leadership: Effective Tool For Service in The Church &amp; Society in Africa

Authority is likening to a driving agent, which is divine or human. By experimental and analytical method, we explore the magisterial interpretation by evaluating modern trends on the application of authority. Research examines the Christian teachings from the Bible and Sacred Tradition. Jesus Christ had taught the principle of pragmatic authority based on Servant Leadership at the washing of His Disciples’ feet. The quest for a Servant Leader: to feed the poor, to protect orphans, to fight for justice in Africa; is value-style of leadership in the 21st century world.