Struggle For Justice Research Articles

The comrade on the crossroads of scholarship and struggle: Troubling the exile of Frantz Fanon from social and political psychology

AbstractThis article traces the presence and absence of Frantz Fanon in the field of social and political psychology. Our work is guided by an assemblage of methods— a critical analysis of mainstream scholarship, a collective interrogation with a transnational gathering of colleagues and friends, and a deep reading of Fanon's texts on struggle, internalized oppression, violence and a new humanism. Through this, our paper is a call for radical disciplinary reflection on why Fanon has been ruthlessly exiled from social/political psychology, the potential his writings hold for courses, scholarship, and struggle, and how we might more boldly theorize, as he did, from within the fire of struggles for justice and liberation.

Complex indebtedness: justice and the crisis of liberal order

Abstract A prominent feature of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order is diverse calls for justice, including epistemic and historic justice. For a long time, that order understood itself in liberal terms and as capable of delivering justice accordingly. Asking a second-order question, about how questions of justice are framed in the international order, leads us to the conclusion that the liberal order's account of the connections that make the system hang together is partial, if not deeply flawed. Building on long-established and more recent traditions of scholarship aligned with the global South, we introduce a different account of international order and its core dynamics: complex indebtedness. Such an account enables not only a better appreciation of the justice claims currently being made in and against the liberal international order, it also more plausibly explains their origins, interconnections, and multiscalar and polymorphic character. By facing squarely the political parameters of indebtedness, we can make better sense of how to approach claims for justice in the present and future. The argument is illustrated with the examples of struggles for racial justice, white nationalism and South–South co-operation.

Climate Apartheid: Challenging Religious Communities to Engage Climate Change and Its Intersecting Issues

Climate change, poverty and racism/xenophobia are interrelated and must be analysed from an intersectional perspective. The late SA Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself coined the term “climate apartheid”, highlighting the fact that “people who are wealthy and have access to enough resources can anticipate and adapt to climate change, while people who are poor and who live in poor countries have less ability to do so” (Mc Carthy 2021). In unpacking the ways in which the undue impacts of climate change rest more heavily on people of colour and women, further arguments are made for the global situation of eco-injustice to be framed within an understanding of systemic environmental apartheid and its intersectional effects. Much like during the period of South African apartheid, many religious communities are silent and complicit in eco injustice due to pietism, passivity, and fundamentalist theology(ies). The call is, therefore, made for religious communities to mobilise against this state of affairs using the lessons learnt in other struggles for justice. Keywords: Ecojustice, Climate apartheid, faith and climate change, race and climate change

Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy and modern rural education

Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy and modern rural education

The Curse of Manhood: Reflections on Male-Bashing in Radical Separatist Feminist African Literature

ABSTRACT: Feminism represents the battle for equal access to opportunities in society for males and females and, therefore, a necessary struggle for social justice. It is sometimes the case, however, that feminism degenerates into a battle against men, a tendency Mawuli Adzei refers to as “radical separatist feminism” (47). In African literature, this standpoint is reflected in the abject degradation of male characters, who are usually presented as the oppressors of women, enemies of women, barriers to women’s progress, and only without whom women would be able to achieve their highest potentials in society (Adzei 47). Against this backdrop, and using El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero as a primary text, this paper, while acknowledging the validity and necessity of the crusade for gender equity in African societies, contests the logic fueling male-bashing by foregrounding certain often-ignored variables in this debate: first, the faulty homogenization/essentialization of men and women (and by extension, the neglection of intersectionality) and, second, the constraints certain cultural expectations pose to men. I conclude by highlighting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s point that—because feminism is potentially liberating for both women and men—we can all be feminists.

American slave stories

American Slave Narratives are a genre of literature that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, providing first-hand accounts of the experiences of enslaved African Americans. These narratives were often written by former slaves themselves and aimed to expose the harsh realities of slavery, including the physical and emotional abuse, the inhumane living conditions, and the lack of basic human rights. The slave narratives were not only powerful tools in the fight against slavery but also served as a means of preserving African American culture and history. They provided a voice to those who had been silenced and erased from the official historical record. Through these narratives, readers gained a new understanding of the complexities of slavery and the resilience of those who endured it. Today, American Slave Narratives continue to be studied and celebrated for their historical significance and literary merit. They offer a window into a dark chapter of American history and serve as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for equality and justice.

Функциональная теория журналистики: к постановке проблемы

The transformation of the mass media system requires a timely review of the theoretical foundations of their existence. From the point of view of understanding the modern media system, it is fundamentally important to determine the foundations of its functioning. In this article, an attempt is made to form a functional theory of journalism based on an analysis of existing concepts and modern media trends. The main functions of the media are singled out: informational, communicative, vox populi, political, entertainment, the function of socialization and the function of the struggle for social justice. The significance of these functions is explained in relation to the current situation in the field of journalism. The essence of each of them and its influence on various levels of media functioning are revealed. An additional function of journalism is called historiographic. The levels of its manifestation in the work of modern mass media are explained.

Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America by Thomas Aiello (review)

Reviewed by: Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America by Thomas Aiello Wade Davies Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America. By Thomas Aiello. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2022. ix + 271 pp. Bibliographic essay, index. $34.00 cloth. Sports historians have long hoped for a grand basketball narrative that appeals equally well to scholarly and popular audiences and centers the game at the heart of the American experience, alongside baseball and football—two sports that have elicited far more scholarly attention. Thomas Aiello has finally written that book. It comes in the form of a concise yet sweeping narrative that traces basketball's evolution, both at the college and professional levels, from its origin and early development in the 1890s, through its mid-twentieth-century maturation, and to its ascent as a premier professional sport, embodied by the post-1970s National Basketball Association (NBA). Aiello strikes an effective balance between in-depth scholarly analysis of basketball's evolving social significance, particularly relative to struggles for gender equality and racial justice, and inspirational stories about all-time great players and teams. Casual readers will particularly appreciate later chapters featuring Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, and, of course, Michael Jordan. The book serves almost as well as a survey of twentieth-century American history as it does a basketball history, in that extended sections are devoted to detail ing broader societal developments—including the Civil Rights Movement, AIDS epidemic, passage of Title IX, COVID-19 pandemic, and Black Lives Matter—before relating these topics back to the sport and its players. Basketball is presented as equally reflecting and influencing the society around it. Aiello so deftly weaves these varied and weighty discussions into his narrative that his book would be as equally well placed as a text for a United States history survey course as for a more focused sports history course. Aiello's otherwise comprehensive narrative does, however, fall a little short in fully capturing basketball's widespread significance to a diverse population. He devotes primary attention to basketball's significance to African Americans and to race relations affecting Black athletes and communities, and deservedly so, but rarely mentions how important this game has been for other athletes of color or of diverse ethnicities, apart from brief mentions of Native American boarding-school teams and longer sections featuring early twentieth-century Jewish teams. More could be said about the intense hoops passion many Indigenous, Asian American, and Latino/a athletes have demonstrated through the years; and there is more to say as well about the game's early importance to American Catholics and other religious communities. These criticisms aside, this is still the most comprehensive and all-around best historical overview yet written about American basketball and is a volume that no sports historian or basketball enthusiast should do without. Scholars will also appreciate the extensive bibliographic essays Aiello includes for each chapter subject. [End Page 110] Wade Davies Native American Studies University of Montana Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The Kangaroo and Emu Between Legal Worlds: Unsettling the Recognition of Difference

This article examines the complex interplay between colonial legal systems and Indigenous laws, using the legal challenges faced by Arabunna Elder Kevin Buzzacott as a focal point. Buzzacott's 2004 conviction for the reclamation of a bronze Australian coat of arms, an act he deemed a fulfillment of his legal obligations under Arabunna Law, underscores the colonial legal system's refusal to acknowledge Aboriginal laws and ways of being. The authors argue that the colonial legal framework operates as a ‘nomocidal’ regime, perpetuating physical and conceptual violence against Indigenous peoples by asserting a singular legal authority that erases ontological difference. Through analysis of the Buzzacott case, the article further exposes the colonial legal system's preoccupation with Eurocentric notions of justice, which undermine Indigenous law-ways by eschewing engagement with ontological difference in favour of a universalist claim to authority. By exploring alternative legal worlds and ontologies, the authors advocate for a decolonial approach to justice that acknowledges and respects the multiplicity of legal realities. This shift requires a re-evaluation of the legal system to accommodate ontological pluralism, moving towards a more inclusive and just legal landscape that provides space for Indigenous laws and ways of being. The article is a tribute to Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, highlighting his struggle for recognition and justice as emblematic of the broader challenges faced by Indigenous peoples in colonial legal contexts.

АВТОРСЬКА ПІСНЯ ПЕРІОДУ РЕВОЛЮЦІЇ ГІДНОСТІ ТА ВІЙНИ НА СХОДІ УКРАЇНИ

The "author's songs" reflect the mood and emotions of Ukrainians during the "Revolution of Dignity" and the war in the East of Ukraine. These songs are important as a cultural phenomenon in the history of Ukraine, which demonstrates the feelings and thoughts of citizens through artistic expression. Moreover, they can serve as a source for understanding and analyzing the socio-political context of this period. On the other side, researchers can reveal the influence of these songs on society and the political process. The study of the author's songs can provide valuable conclusions about the role of art in developing civil society and various forms of struggle for freedom and justice that are especially important in the current context of national resistance. The purpose of the study is to analyze the Ukrainian "author's songs" of the period the "Revolution of Dignity" and the War in the East of Ukraine via their impact on the socio-political context. Systemic, semiotic, comparative, and comparative-typological methods were used in the research. Results. In the analyzed period of contemporary Ukrainian history, the "author's song" has provided support for the physical and moral mobilization of the Ukrainian people. Considering this, authors and performers of "author's songs" still maintain an important role in the cultural and political space. "Author's songs" reflect national traditions and cultural-historical memory, and provide the platform for the promotion of alternative public narratives to the authorities. Conclusions. "Author's songs" as a way to reflect reactions to the current socio-political context not only changed the perception of this genre for mass culture consumers but at the same time caused a significant impact on the national consciousness, provided a new attitude to the concept of nationalism and national self-identification. It was facilitated by the creativity of the bards, who created new ways of interacting with a disappointed society. This interaction got political significance due to the resonance of national sentiments and individual attitudes to the events of the authors-performers.

Chaucer's Wenches

Abstract: This essay analyzes the eighteen occurrences of the word wenche in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and argues that the idea of the "wenche" persists today, most notably as implicit justification for the rescinding of the constitutional right to an abortion in the US Supreme Court's monumental decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (June 2022). It takes a Black feminist approach by situating Chaucer's wenches in the context of Black women's history and tracing how the word's resonances continued their pernicious work of making meaning and shaping material realities long after the Middle Ages. It first gives a careful history of wench 's origins and accretion of meaning from the early to the late Middle Ages, paying particular attention to its relationship with the Latin ancilla . It uses the Wycliffite Bible as a lens to explore the term's rapidly accruing connotations of youth, servitude, femininity, and transgressive sexuality, and discusses the connections between "wenche" and reproduction in An Alphabet of Tales and Geoffrey the Grammarian's Promptorium parvulorum before tracing its symbolic freight across the Canterbury Tales and pointing to its underlying role in struggles for reproductive justice in our own time.

A Symphony of Voices: Wole Soyinka's Narrative on Pluralism and Radical Humanism

This abstract delves into the discourse of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives as manifested in four significant plays by Wole Soyinka, the renowned Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate. The selected plays for examination are "The Swamp Dwellers," "The Strong Breed," "Madmen and Specialists," and "A Dance of the Forests." Wole Soyinka's theatrical repertoire is characterized by its profound exploration of human agency, societal dynamics, and the clash of tradition and modernity. Through intricate plots, vibrant characters, and symbolic imagery, Soyinka navigates themes of power, oppression, spirituality, and the resilience of the human spirit. At the heart of his works lies a fervent commitment to radical humanism, advocating for individual autonomy, dignity, and social justice in the face of tyranny and societal decay. Furthermore, Soyinka's plays reflect a pluralistic worldview that celebrates the multiplicity of cultures, beliefs, and worldviews across Africa and beyond. He intricately weaves indigenous traditions, colonial legacies, and global influences into the fabric of his narratives, challenging monolithic narratives and embracing the complexities of cultural hybridity and interconnectivity. By closely examining the selected plays, this study aims to unravel how Soyinka employs dramatic techniques, linguistic innovation, and cultural symbolism to critique entrenched power structures, challenge hegemonic narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. Through the lens of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives, Soyinka's plays offer profound insights into the human condition and the quest for meaning, freedom, and belonging in a rapidly changing world. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Soyinka's literary legacy and its enduring relevance to contemporary discussions on identity, politics, and social transformation. By shedding light on the interplay of radical humanism and pluralistic perspectives in Soyinka's dramatic oeuvre, this study invites readers to engage critically with the complexities of human experience and the ongoing struggle for justice and equality.

The political life of mitigation: from carbon accounting to agrarian counter-accounts

ABSTRACT This article seeks to stimulate analysis of how accounting knowledge, techniques, and practices work to incorporate agriculture and land use into climate mitigation. Accounting plays a significant role in the ways that capitalism inserts itself into, reworks, or reorganises agrarian webs of life. To study these processes, we train our critical gaze on accounting itself – its epistemic foundations, instruments, and narratives, and their implications for agrarian livelihoods and relations. Through the notion of “agrarian counter-accounts,” we conclude by considering the potential of alternative methodologies and understandings of account-giving, taking, and holding in struggles for agrarian climate justice.

Political Prisoners: A Comparative Critical Reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Rahman’s Prison Diaries, and Mandela’s Conversations with Myself

Political leaders who fight against the abuse of power are frequently imprisoned for their political activities. Their voices challenge the existing autocratic rulers and their experiences inside and outside prison are essentially emblematic. This article explores power, politics and the prison life of three famous politicians of three continents: Antonio Gramsci from Italy (Europe), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from Bangladesh (Asia), and Nelson Mandela from South Africa (Africa). Prison Notebooks by Gramsci, Prison Diaries by Rahman, and Conversations with Myself by Mandela are extraordinary works, which contribute immensely to the shaping of prison literature. These authors wrote about loneliness, hegemony, state repression and their resistance against power to establish human rights. Focusing on Michel Foucault’s concept of power, domination and the systematic reformations to treat prisoners more humanely, this article undertakes a comparative critical reading of these three prison narratives about the imprisonment of the three politicians. The analysis explores their protest against power abuse and struggle for humanity, justice, equality and dignity, which make them icons of leadership in the world.

Learning from the Movement for Black Lives: Horizons of Racial Justice for Comparative and International Education

This opening editorial for the special issue “Black Lives Matter and Global Struggles for Racial Justice in Education” engages with the theory and praxis of Black Lives Matter (BLM). One cannot fully understand the powerful intellectual and political work of BLM without considering the macro-level structural forces of state violence, racial capitalism, and anti-Blackness that BLM boldly challenges. To this end, the editorial first outlines the origins of the Movement for Black Lives and the genealogy of Black resistance that informs it. We then interrogate the global legacies of state violence that BLM confronts and the foundational systems of anti-Blackness and racial capitalism that sustain structural inequalities in schools and society. Finally, we return to BLM’s charge to forge abolitionist horizons within and beyond the Global North in order to set out implications for the field of comparative and international education and global struggles for racial justice in education.

Youth activist paradoxes in the urban periphery of Lephalale: The struggle for employment and climate justice in a coal-rich region of South Africa


 
 
 
 
 
 Southern Africa is understood to be a climate change hotspot, with youth and children most likely to be affected. The region has already suffered climate variability, with increased occurrence of floods and droughts, which are expected to escalate in the future. Despite the fact that young people in the region are central to ecological and social justice debates, they are often depicted as uninterested and excluded from policy and decision- making spaces – especially those living in global and urban peripheries. In this article, I speak to the nexus of youth, social and environmental justice, and climate politics. I do so by unpacking the everyday concerns and negotiations of youth activists in the urban periphery of Lephalale in Limpopo, South Africa – not typically seen as an urban centre or a site of youth politics. Lephalale is viewed as a future hub of power generation in South Africa, the rapid growth of the town being based on the expansion of coal extractivism. The complexities and paradoxes around how youth are navigating their futures in this site of mega coal projects are explored through two case studies: the Lephalale Unemployment Forum and the Waterberg Environmental Justice Forum. With climate and environmental catastrophe producing both shrinking futures and horizons of possibility, I argue that youth contestation and negotiation of their futures hold out possibilities, even with their contradictions, for collective reimagining of urban space and development.
 
 
 
 Through the methodology I employed to explore these negotiations and contestations, I aimed to be cognisant of how research is embedded in context-specific power-laden social relations. While it was not explicitly collaborative research, what emerged from the process was the importance of slow, informal relationship-building before, during and after the research, which would be the basis for a collaborative research project years later. This way of conducting slow research is particularly necessary for engagement across racial, cultural and class divisions, as well as for research that traverses the boundary between academia and social movements in this time of crisis.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Defending the Commons: New Frontiers in Latin American Perspectives on Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice scholarship and action have different histories and genealogies. In this article, we combine our interdisciplinary formations in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and feminist political ecology to examine three case studies that show how place‐based communities understand, enact, and embody their struggle for environmental justice. We draw from Latin American and Caribbean scholarship on these issues and our experience in the field in Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. Our cases reveal that environmental‐driven grassroots organizing has a territorial inscription articulated around the defense of the commons and life itself [the right to existence, as many communities frame it]. The cases reflect communities' complex histories of colonial occupation, capitalism, and development. At the same time, they shed light on the transformations people envision. Thus, while some of the communities' actions enact decolonial practices, others inhabit a more fluid space of political contestation.

Protest Scenes in the Poetry of Muhammed Salih

This article examines the appearance of protest elements in the poetry of Muhammed Salih, an Uzbek poet, a representative of the «Metaphorist school» in Soviet Uzbek literature and the founder of protest and emigration poetry. In order to clarify this issue from all angles, the poet's protest poems were classified into two macrogroups: Soviet Union period (anti-Sovietism) and post-Soviet period protest (post-anti-Sovietism). The protest motif in the poet Salih's poetry can be noted as a new facet of the research work in the context of this article for the first time in the literature of Kazakhstan. In the first part of the article, the problem of nationalism (Turkism) and anti-Sovietism, which have become the main theme in M. Salih's work in the last forty years, was comprehensively analyzed. By using several literary methods, the characteristics of anti-Soviet protest, longing for independence and the achievement of sovereignty in the poet's poems were determined. The object and subject of the leitmotif «awakening» were studied in such poems as «Mother's Word», «Mouse in the Cage», «Awakening» written in this period. Focusing on the physics and metaphysics of the poems, the influence of the literature of the modernists before him was discussed. Special attention was paid to the beauty of allegory and metaphor in his poems and the peculiarity of writing, the meaning hidden in the surface of his poetry. The use of symbols and motifs characteristic of the classicist literature in the poet's poems was studied. In the second part of the article, the feature of protest poetry in the post-Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan was studied. On the basis of M. Salih's poetry, the expression of critical ideas and values such as independence, civil society, freedom of speech, and human rights were analyzed. The process of development of emigration literature in modern Uzbek literature was differentiated based on the poet's poems such as «Strange tree», «Love of the enemy of the people for the homeland», «Prayer of the exiled exile». The characteristics of Salih's poetic nature were comprehensively demonstrated. The influence of the poet's political and literary life in emigration was analyzed in a comparative and synergistic aspect. In M. Salih's protest poetry, the themes of Turkish unity and independence of Turkestan, which are of special importance, are partially connected with his nationalist (Turkish) poems. In the framework of such studies, an analytical forecast was made for the development of protest literature in modern Uzbek literature, the topics and issues raised, poetic power, and influence in the formation of civil society. The article focuses on the manifestations of protests during the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet period in M. Salih's works, and his poems are studied from several angles. His struggle for justice and his contribution to world knowledge were also taken into consideration.

Black Natural Law and Black Bioethics, Measured by References to Anna Julia Cooper and Womanist Wordings

Abstract Here is a critical appreciation of Black Natural Law (2016) by Vincent Lloyd and “black bioethics” (2020) by Keisha Ray and others. Both are measured by references to A Voice from the South (1892) by Anna Julia Cooper, A Singing Something: Womanist Reflections on Anna Julia Cooper (1994) and Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creations (1998) by Karen Baker-Fletcher. These “womanist wordings” suggest “black natural law” and “black bioethics” should be supplemented by art, and by recourse to nature (all of nature) and environmental bioethics, including struggles for environmental justice and earth healing.

Where Does It Hurt?

The question of an existential experience of hurt is not only relevant during present times of enduring hurt through realities such as a deadly pandemic, racialized violence, precarious educational realities, and ongoing struggles for justice in its many forms. The work of this poetic inquiry is enduringly relevant insofar as both institutions and people hold, create, sustain, and attempt to respond to hurt of many kinds. At times, we may cause more hurt than we soothe. As I write, I am grounded in the practices of poetic and literary analysis and position this piece a space and a form to hold the seemingly incommensurable questions for us as teachers, as artists, and as humans existing and living through a world of hurt. As a philosopher of education, I am perpetually concerned with the possibilities of a humanizing education that may soothe and eradicate existential hurt. I look toward poetry and art to show us the way.