Responsible Politics in Africa and South Africa

"This essay sets out to discuss politics and responsible political leadership. It situates the discussion in the context of Africa in general and South Africa in particular. The essay does not purport to paint a comprehensive and broad representation of politics and political leadership but employs an African feminist pragmatic critical methodology in discussing responsible politics and political leadership. This approach uses contextual case studies, stories and experiences to elucidate political, ethical, and epistemological concepts and discourses [...]", p. 304 (Introduction

Women's moral agency and the quest for justice in Africa

Peer reviewedThis article explores women’s moral agency in post-apartheid South Africa and Africa by examining the intersections of governance and the public space; we shall also look at the agency of African women from the perspective of African feminist social ethics. The article begins by discussing the African post-colonial state. It then goes on to evaluate the portrayal of African women’s agency in the dominant discourses of the human sciences, particularly as these are articulated in South Africa. The purpose of this article is to unearth how African women’s agency is perceived, interpreted and understood. We also want to evaluate whether African women inhabit or reject the negative way in which they are portrayed. The second part of the essay identifies and discusses African women’s agency and demonstrates the ways African women agitate for justice, and claim political agency and citizenship. The essay then calls for emancipatory and transformatory justice in the public sphere and in the human sciences; it rejects the objectification of African women, and protests against treating them as objects of research. Instead, it understands African women as subjects and agents in their own lives, including in the private and public spheres.Research Institute for Theology and Religio

Bioprospecting and intellectual property rights on African plant commons and knowledge: a new form of colonization viewed from an ethical perspective

This study engages in an ethical examination of contemporary socio-ecological and economic issues which takes seriously the plight of Africa, African communities, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. It studies the impact of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights regimes on the protection, use, access to, and conservation of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge in Africa. The study also examines the ways in which northern multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their agents prospect and convert African resources (biological commons and indigenous knowledge) into their intellectual property as well as private property. It argues that the transfer of African biological commons and indigenous knowledge is exacerbated by economic globalisation and the neo-colonial mentality of conquest concealed under the guise of commerce. The study demonstrates through concrete case studies the tactics used by northern multinational corporations to claim these resources as their intellectual property rights and private property. It observes that the privatisation of biological commons and indigenous knowledge only brings about nominal or no benefits to African communities who have nurtured and continue to nurture them. It also observes that this privatisation results in fewer benefits for biodiversity as they lead to the promotion of monoculture, i.e. commercialisation of all things. To address the injustice and exploitative implications of bioprospecting, biopiracy and intellectual property rights, the study recommends the adoption and implementation of the African model law, the establishment of defensive intellectual property rights mechanisms, and the strategy of resistance and advocacy. It suggests that these measures ought to be grounded on the African normative principle of botho and the Christian ethical principle of justice.Systematic Theology and Theological EthicsD.Th.(Theological Ethics

A journey on the path of an African feminist theologian and pioneer, Mercy Amba Oduyoye : continuing the pursuit for justice in the church and in society

Peer reviewedThe central thrust of this article is a review of Mercy Amba Oduyoye’s contribution to African feminist theologies in her pursuit of justice in the church and in society, particularly with regard to gender justice. The article studies the context in which African feminist theologies emerged and some of the thematic areas that stimulated their “eruption” in the African church and academia. It also explores their implications for the church and society. This article suggests that it is imperative that African feminist theologies, especially those which have been adopted by the members of the Circle of Concerned Women Theologians, be used to expand the theological methods and lenses of doing theology beyond cultural hermeneutics in order to attend to the ecological, economic and social struggles that impact life in Africa. The affirmation of the relevance of cultural hermeneutics, it is suggested, ought not to exclude the possibilities of expanding the contours of analyses or using other hermeneutical approaches such as ecological, economic and social analyses − particularly in Africa where most people are hindered from experiencing fullness of life because of ecological degradation, economic exploitation and social power struggles in local and international politics.Research Institute for Theology and Religio

African feminist reflections on the Accra Confession

Peer reviewedThis article sets out to discuss, from an African feminist theological perspective, the Accra confession: Covenanting for justice in the economy and the earth (hereafter the Accra Confession). It uses descriptive analyses to understand the role and implications of the confession for ecological, gender and economic justice. The first part of the essay briefly describes the history behind the confession. The second part gives a detailed overview of the contents, scope and thematic issues addressed by the confession. The third interprets the confession and analyses its implications for the church and society. The fourth part explores feminist and women’s responses and or critiques of the Accra confession, thus outlining its relevance for feminist theologies and ethics, and their conceptions of economic, ecological and gender justice.Research Institute for Theology and Religio

The Idea of a University in the Post-Covid-19 World

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it. Arundhati Roy, Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction, 202