Full Description
Decolonising the Human examines the ongoing project of constituting 'the human' in light of the durability of coloniality and the persistence of multiple oppressions
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.
Contents
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Chapter 1 The Trouble with the Human - William Mpofu and Melissa Steyn
Chapter 2 The Invention of Blackness on a World Scale - Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Patricia Pinky Nkete
Chapter 3 To What Extent Are We All Humans? Of Culture, Politics, Law and LGBT Rights in Nigeria - Olayinka Akanle, Gbenga S. Adejare and Jojolola Fasuyi
Chapter 4 Humanness and Ableism: Construction and Deconstruction of Disability - Sibonokuhle Ndlovu
Chapter 5 Doing the Old Human - Cary Burnett
Chapter 6 Being a Mineworker in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Decolonial Perspective - Robert Maseko
Chapter 7 Meditations on the Dehumanisation of the Slave- Tendayi Sithole
Chapter 8 'Language as Being' in the Politics of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o - Brian Sibanda
Chapter 9 The Underside of Modern Knowledge: An Epistemic Break from Western Science - Nokuthula Hlabangane
Chapter 10 The Fiction of the Juristic Person: Reassessing Personhood in Relation to People - C.D. Samaradiwakera-Wijesundara
Chapter 11 The Cultural Village and its Idea of the 'Human' - Morgan Ndlovu
Chapter 12 A Fragmented Humanity and Monologues: Towards a Diversal Humanism - Siphamandla Zondi
Contributors
Index
