The trouble with the human / William Mpofu and Milissa Steyn -- The intervention of blackness on a world scale / Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Patricia Pinky Ndlovu -- To what extent are we all humans?: Of culture, politics, law. and LGBT rights in Nigeria / Olayinka Akanle, Gbenga S. Adejare, and Jojolola Fasuyi -- Humanness and ableism: Construction and deconstruction of disability / Sibonokuhle Ndlovu -- Doing the old human / Cary Burnett -- Being a mineworker in post-apartheid South Africa: a decolonial perspective / Robert Maseko -- Meditations on the dehumanisation of the slave / Tendayi Sithole -- 'Language as being" in the politics of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o / Brian Sibanda -- The underside of modern knowledge: an epistemic break from Western science / Nokuthula Hlabangane -- The fiction of the juristic person: reassessing personhood in relation to people / C. D. Samaradiwakera-Wijesundara -- The cultural village and the idea of the 'human' / Morgan Ndlovu -- A fragmented humanity and monologues: towards a diversal humanism / Siphamandla Zondi.
Summary:
The 'human' emerges as a deeply political category, historically constructed as a scarce existential resource. Once weaponised, it allows for the social, political and economic elevation of those who are centred within its magic circle, and the degradation, marginalisation and immiseration of those excluded as the different and inferior Other, the less than human.Speaking from Africa, a key site where the category of the human has been used throughout European modernity to control, exclude and deny equality of being, the contributors use decoloniality as a potent theoretical and philosophical tool, gesturing towards a liberated, pluriversal world where human difference will be recognised as a gift, not used to police the boundaries of the human. Here is a transdisciplinary critical exploration of a wide range of subjects, including history, politics, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and decolonial studies.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.