Social Apartheid Research Articles

Critique of the Necropolitical Economy of The Internet of Things: Brains, Biohacking, and Social Apartheid

Science and technology are converging with centralized political and economic interests in research fields and industries such as neurology, weapons manufacturing, AI, biosurveillance, and human augmentation. This convergence is international in scope and entails a technoscientific intensification of anti-democratic governing procedures. It therefore poses an international challenge to democracy. In this paper, I critically survey diverse applications of a key governing procedure according to which this convergence is being engineered. I also highlight apposite features of the political/libidinal economy through which it operates. To do so, I merge Achille Mbembe’s analyses of necropolitics/necropower with Deleuze and Guattari’s diagrammatic analyses of paranoic-fascisizing procedures of unconscious social production, linking both to the IoT. With the latter established as a universal infrastructure, necropower deploys global and specific (in contrast to partial and nonspecific), anti-democratic integrative procedures in both scientific R&D and geopolitics to decode the human brain, hack biosystems, and engineer social apartheid.

Language and Politics: Prose as a Medium of Societal Apartheid in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

This paper studies the use of prose in Julius Caesar as a tool of political and social apartheid and class discrimination. Usually, Shakespeare assigns blank verse to upper-class characters and prose to lower class ones. The study analyzes three occasions in which prose is used by two patricians and an eloquent cobbler. The paper means to explain the diversion of patricians to prose and add another voice to the already heaping interpretations given in criticism. It argues that the diversion of the two patricians to prose has two functions. Firstly, it shows that prose is indigenous to the poor and the patricians use it when they address the poor or talk about them. Secondly, Shakespeare shows that the diversion of the patricians to prose is a wrong choice and leads to moral depravity or failure of mission. In contrast, the cobbler uses prose effectively because it is indigenous to him and he feels at home using it. The study uses the contextual approach to analyze the three speeches. Keywords: Prose, blank verse, patricians, plebeians, Aristotelian rhetoric, republican politics.

Structural violence and hope in catastrophic times: from Camus’ The Plague to Covid-19

Covid-19 has triggered a resurgence of interest in Albert Camus’ book, The Plague. The novel is a complex narrative of an epidemic, stressing the human factor in addressing a social crisis as well as how individuals experience the personal drama of quarantine, isolation and death. These existentialist tropes have powerful resonance in the age of Covid-19. However, Covid’s interlocking with structural violence worldwide requires a different engagement with The Plague beyond an aesthetics of suffering and hope. Both Camus’ book and Covid-19 intersect with structural violence and suffering which are mediated differentially. Covid-19 intensifies other social catastrophes feeding on the ruins of structural inequality and the racism that condemns the marginalised to loss of agency, social apartheid and disposability. It also lays bare the necropolitics of neoliberalism – its power to dictate life and death undergirded by racialised, class, gendered and neocolonial logics. We witness emerging cartographies of power combined with virulent nationalism, authoritarianism and xenophobia. The Covid crisis is also likely to expand disaster capitalism, digital imperialism and algorithmic surveillance, further entrenching racial, class and gender hierarchies. If humanity is to avoid the pitfalls of these myriad fields of disaster intervention, what is needed is reflective analysis that has to aim at major societal change, at decolonisation that ends systemic abandon and racist structural violence. Camus’ book fails to assist this.

Examining Hate Speech as an Abiding Threat to Justice: The Case of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India

It needs to be very clearly emphasized that discrimination on the basis of caste is an age-old phenomenon; indeed so predictable a phenomenon that it often occurs implicitly. If the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes have continued to suffer under the undue burden of a stigmatized identity and abiding discrimination in present-day India despite the ponderous safety net of statutory safeguards, the onus must lie with a deliberate form of marginalization or disparagement that aims to secure the exclusion of individuals on the basis of their membership of a particular group—through hate speech. This prejudice-driven crime has gone on to determine the way the dominant social class has been and continues, consciously and unconsciously, aiding and abetting the maintenance of status quo through their private utterances. This practice of unconscious and unpunished speech occurring casually in unsuspecting familial settings perhaps stands out in its greatest potential to damage, disrupt, cause a permanent mind change and ingrain and invigorate social apartheid.

La mujer afrodescendiente frente al fascismo del apartheid social en Cartagena de Indias: ¿esperanzas para el cambio en un contexto de histórica discriminación?

La mujer afrodescendiente frente al fascismo del apartheid social en Cartagena de Indias: ¿esperanzas para el cambio en un contexto de histórica discriminación?

Decentralisation and tax interactions between actors: what lessons the Cameroonians experience?

The purpose of this article is to question the relevance of the theoretical foundations of tax interactions between actors within the framework of administrative decentralisation in Cameroon. Indeed, the theoretical research reflects two explanatory logics to these interactions. The first assumes the potential mobility of tax-bases of Tiebout (1956), Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986), Wildasin (1988) and Hoyt (1991). The second is based on the agency relationship between the actors through the assumption of political competition comparison by Hirschman (1970), Brennan and Buchanan (1980). In Cameroon, a theoretical study of decentralisation shows that the legislature opted for a part in a tax equalisation as a solution to the phenomenon of spatial segregation or 'social apartheid' and to the other hand to a centralised tax management level of the central government to curb the dangers of the mobility of the tax-base and political sanction by the population - voter. Therefore, two major lessons from this: first, 'the local tax policy is specific to each country and takes into account the contextual specificities' and second, 'the choice of tax decentralisation must take into account the mobility of tax-bases'.

The Right to a Haitian Name and a Dominican Nationality: La Sentencia (TC 168-13) and the Politics of Recognition and Belonging

In this essay, I examine the historical precedent to la sentencia (TC 169-13), the sentence handed down by the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Tribunal on September 23, 2013. Aptly described as civil death, social apartheid, and administrative genocide, la sentencia, I argue, is the Dominican state’s most recent attempt to contain race and nation. It reveals a multilayered dispersal of state power—the legislative, judicial, administrative, military, and bureaucratic “right to decide” the fate of generations of Haitian descendants’ right to exist within the boundaries of the nation-state. By centering the testimonies of affected youth, I seek to bring their experiences of fear, uncertainty, and angst to the fore, while also examining how the coalitional politics of this new generation is reframing the meaning of nationality by injecting a discourse of justice and dignity into a politics of belonging and recognition. The grassroots struggle is ultimately an antiracist struggle for the right to a Haitian name and a Dominican nationality.

Land Reform: Unfulfilled Obligation in Southern Africa and Beyond

ABSTRACTLand reform remains a relevant but contentious issue in southern Africa. It nearly caused the collapse the Southern African Development Community (SADC) after its tribunal ruled against the Zimbabwe land reform programme (which resulted in the removal of white settlers from land they had occupied for decades and, in some cases, for over a century). The major challenge for southern Africa and most of the African continent is to untangle itself from the provocative and salient legacy of social, economic and psychological apartheid on its territory for almost a century without disrupting development endeavours (Chigara 2012). This article exposes the theoretical foundations influencing the powers at play that compromise most of the efforts that have been directed at trying to facilitate transitions from colonialism and its legacies to societies egalitarian. Land rights have suddenly become very important and it appears that these rights only apply to those whose ownership of land has been legitimised by colonialism. The article recommends the application of already existing legal frameworks at domestic, regional, continental and global levels to meaningfully engage land reform challenges that confront SADC and the continent of Africa as whole as a consequence of the general non-compliance to the rule of law and justice itself.

The Impact of Gated and Guarded Development Concept from the Social Aspect: Non Resident Perspective

Abstract Gated and Guarded Development Concept (GACOS) offers competent security and maintenance besides ensuring an exclusive and private lifestyle. Despite the rise in the number of GACOS developments, they are mired in various issues and controversies specifically negative social connotations. These developments are perceived to denote ‘social apartheid’ within a residential neighbourhood. Hence, an empirical study has been conducted to investigate the social effects arising from GACOS development with the Ipoh Conurbation area as the case study. Findings from this empirical study indicated that there exists a social gap between residents within a GACOS development and those within the surrounding areas.

Breakdown Is Built into It: A Politics of Resilience in a Disabling World

Resilience is an interdisciplinary concept that has been interrogated and investigated in a number of fields of research and practice including psychology, climate change, trauma studies, education and disaster planning. This paper considers its position within critical disability studies, popular understandings of disability and the emergence of a disability culture...

INTERFACES ENTRE APRENDIZAGENS E EXPECTATIVAS DE VIDA E EXPERIÊNCIAS ESCOLARES DE MULHERES ENCARCERADAS: ENFRENTANDO A REALIDADE DA REINTEGRAÇÃO SOCIAL

Nos últimos anos, a educação da pessoa privada de liberdade foi colocada na pauta político-educativa brasileira como um direito subjetivo. Apostou-se nela como ferramenta indispensável para a chamada reintegração social da pessoa encarcerada, porquanto pode contribuir para diminuir os índices alarmantes de reincidência. Neste artigo, refletimos sobre a problemática da reintegração com base nas histórias de vida narradas por mulheres presas em um presídio de João Pessoa – PB. Sem negar a importância da proposta pedagógica que a escola do presídio oferece, consideramos necessário estabelecer um diálogo entre as aprendizagens de vida e a experiência escolar da mulher antes de ser presa; as aprendizagens da prisão e suas expectativas e/ou planos para a vida em liberdade ao concluir a sentença e buscar se inserir numa sociedade regida por preconceitos sociais ainda enraizados. Questionamos se a escola prepara as mulheres para um mundo real ou para um mundo ilusório. De acordo com os depoimentos das mulheres, verificamos as inúmeras dificuldades que a escola da prisão enfrenta, para garantir às encarceradas o ideal ressocializador necessário ao enfrentamento do mundo real dentro e fora das grades. Também concluímos que, na prisão, é preciso investir em projetos e programas que estabeleçam mais articulação entre educação e trabalho e que contribuam para que a sociedade participe mais das proposições e ações voltadas aos ideais de reintegração social dessa população. Consideramos esse apartheid social também uma questão educacional que precisa ser aprofundada em âmbito acadêmico e enfrentada politicamente.Palavras-chave: mulheres encarceradas; aprendizagens de vida; educação em prisões; reintegração social.

Complicating a Rudimentary List of Characteristics: Communicating Disability with Down Syndrome Dolls

Apparently some people upon coming across [Down Syndrome dolls] were offended. […] Still, it’s curious, and telling, what gives offense. Was it the shock of seeing a doll not modeled on the normative form that caused such offense? Or the assumption that any representation of Down Syndrome must naturally intend ridicule? Either way, it would seem that we might benefit from an examination of such reactions—especially as they relate to instances of the idealisation of the human form that dolls […] represent. (Faulkner)

From disability to ability: changing the phrasing of the debate

Persons with disabilities have endured discrimination and live under social apartheid. While enlightened people recognise the role that society has in disabling people with impairments, there remains a struggle to remove the negative stigma associated with this form of social diversity. There is no silver bullet that will enable persons with disabilities to exercise their human rights as full citizens. One strategy to assist in this struggle is the use of language. This paper focuses on how language can be utilised in the struggle against oppression. This paper reconsiders how disability discrimination is conceived and labelled. There is no uniformly accepted label to describe the discrimination and oppression that is explained by the social model or the non-radical social model. This paper explores how the labels of disableism and ableism have emerged to explain this concept. This paper analyses these terms and argues for the adoption of ableist nomenclature.

Atendimento psicológico a populações de baixa renda. Considerações acerca do interjogo cultura e subjetividade

A clínica psicanalítica com populações de baixa-renda constitui-se como um campo novo de trabalho e de pesquisa. A Psicanálise, pelo menos no Brasil, é, freqüentemente, acusada de ser ineficaz no tocante a este tipo de atendimento, sendo um dos seus mais instigantes desafios sua inserção na realidade brasileira, marcada por imensa apartação social. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discutir o atendimento psicanalítico a populações de baixa renda, tomando como eixo de reflexão a indissociabilidade entre o singular do sujeito e o universal da cultura, aqui tematizada como um dos fundamentos de nosso dispositivo clínico na busca da compreensão do sujeito que sofre. Discutimos, ainda, como a psicanálise nos dá as ferramentas apropriadas, sobretudo, quando estabelecemos um diálogo com outros campos do saber.

`It's not a matter of inhumanity': a critical discourse analysis of an apartment building circular on `homeless people'

Based upon Critical Discourse Analysis (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 2003), this study analyses a report of a meeting, distributed as a circular to residents of a middle-class apartment building in Asa Sul, Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. The circular is the outcome of a meeting held between the apartment building's representative, local business people and Federal District Government authorities concerning `homeless people' in the environs of the apartment building and local business establishments. The discursive analysis of the text indicates that it serves in a sense to camouflage the street situation as a social issue. At the same time, it nullifies `homeless people' (Thompson, 1990) by legitimating social apartheid in Brazilian society (Buarque, 2003). The analysis seeks therefore to discuss the naturalization of misery in contemporary societies through the internalization of hegemonic discourses that serve to blank out basic social rights.

Innovation and Disability

Innovation and Disability

Chinese Women Migrants and the Social Apartheid

Au Loong-yu and Nan Shan examine the conditions of the women among the 150 million migrant workers who have left the rural areas in search of jobs in China. They underline that fierce social regression has accompanied Chinese enormous economic growth where women migrants particularly are exploited in ‘the ‘world's greatest sweatshop’. They argue that hukou system or household registration has proved to be as useful to ‘capitalist construction’ as it once was for ‘socialist construction’. It now acts a powerful force for pressing down the wages of rural migrants and preventing them from getting better jobs in the cities.

Sport, Segregation and Space: The Historical Geography of Physical Recreation in the South African City of Pietermaritzburg

AbstractUsing the city of Pietermaritzburg as a case study, sport is treated as a lens through which to view aspects of the political, social and economic history of Natal and South Africa. Successive, reinforcing ideologies of imperialism, segregation and apartheid created a system of inclusion and exclusion through which the cohesion of White society was promoted by regarding sport as a social service; while Black communities were largely ignored. The authorities in the main spurned the opportunity to uplift these communities through provision of facilities for healthy exercise. Instead, their main concern was territorial segregation to control behaviour and particular instrumental use was made of municipal beerhalls, a form of recreation that produced revenue for general administrative purposes. However, the ambiguities of group areas legislation in relation to social apartheid did eventually provide scope for resistance. From the 1960s onwards the struggle over recreational facilities was an important part of the anti‐apartheid movement in Pietermaritzburg: through their campaigns non‐racial sports organisations challenged plans for autonomous, racially defined suburbs and promoted the idea that the city was no longer the preserve of Whites.

Estado democrático de direito e políticas públicas: estatal é necessariamente público?

O presente texto tem como cenário o "apartheid social contemporâneo" que caracteriza a sociedade de controle globalizado onde, apesar da precarização do mercado de trabalho, difunde-se cada vez mais a subjetividade do trabalho formal como a verdadeira natureza do homem. Nesta perspectiva, o "cidadão humano" é aquele que se vincula, rápida e prontamente, à lógica capitalista. Neste contexto, coloca-se em análise o que significam as políticas públicas formuladas e implementadas por este Estado capitalista. Para tal, apresenta-se um pequeno histórico do mito do Estado Democrático de Direito no Brasil, em especial, a partir dos chamados novos movimentos sociais que emergem na segunda metade dos anos de 1970 e por toda a década seguinte. Utilizando-se da perspectiva foucaultiana que se contrapõe aos postulados tradicionais da esquerda, pensa-se o poder como relação de forças imanentes materializadas em práticas, técnicas e disciplinas, diversas e dispersas, presentes em todo o campo social, envolvendo igualmente dominadores e dominados. A partir daí, parte-se para a afirmação de práticas publicizantes que necessariamente não precisam estar vinculadas ao Estado; de direitos construídos na experiência concreta dos homens, de suas lutas, e não do Homem idealizado, de direitos idealizados. Parte-se, enfim, para repensar a relação entre Estado e políticas públicas.

Fame and Disability

Fame and Disability