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- Convenor:
-
Serges Alain Djoyou Kamga
(University of South Africa)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH118
- Start time:
- 1 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
African countries are urged to establish democracy, advance human rights and solve conflicts when they arise. Yet, these initiatives are informed by Western approaches. This panel unpacks the merits African cultures and traditions in supplementing global mechanisms seeking better life for all
Long Abstract:
Since time immemorial, the African continent is urged to establish democracy, advance human rights and solve conflict when they arise. However, these initiatives are generally sponsored by the international community or Northern donors with no or little understanding of local contexts. Consequently, "modern" approaches to advancing democracy, human rights, or conflicts resolutions are not always responsive to local contexts and are often perceived as preserving colonial-style approaches to African affairs. They overlook African traditional approaches to issues that should be central to African communities. Therefore these traditional mechanisms increasingly come under pressure and run the risk of being marginalized.
The aim of this panel is to highlight the advantages of African traditional approaches to democracy, human rights or conflict resolutions in Africa. For some time, a growing number of scholars have examined the value of African traditions and culture in advancing democracy, human rights and conflicts resolutions for Africa's development. The papers in this panel will contribute to this new wave of research. In this respect, without necessarily linking democracy, human rights and conflicts resolutions together, papers in this panel will revolve around how African culture can be tapped into to supplement the global standards of human rights, or democracy or conflicts resolution for example.
Ultimately, the panel enables scholars to unpack African cultures and traditions and how they can be relied upon to significantly supplement global standards that seek a better life for all.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Vusi Gumede (University of South Africa)
Paper short abstract:
The paper reflects on a better approach to development and fostering democracy as well as associated issues. In the main, the paper proposes a better approach to socio-economic development in Africa, taking into account the paramount importance of democracy, human rights and peace-building.
Paper long abstract:
The paper revisits the discourse on development in Africa, following on footsteps of leading development thinkers in Africa. About twenty years ago, Claude Ake (1996) extensively dealt with the question of development (or lack thereof) in Africa. Ake's important book was published same year as Arturo Escobar's Encountering Development. Indeed, the debate about development - inclusive development to be specific - has continued unabated. Escobar (1996) essentially argued that the narrative of development had been problematic as it had not taken into account how the Third World was encountering development. Then there is Amartya Sen (1999) who views development as freedom. Concern with or about development in Africa, much earlier, was about underdevelopment as Walter Rodney's timeless book (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa) and Frantz Fanon's works (especially in The Wretched of the Earth), among others, demonstrated. With the exception of Ake (1996) and the various works of Samir Amin, most works have not sufficiently problematized development and in particular not many proposals have been advanced towards ensuring that development is inclusive in Africa. The paper, as it revisits the discourse on development in Africa, examines the role of social policy for inclusive development with the aim of proposing how, from the perspective of social policy, could development be more inclusive in Africa. While the paper tackles inclusive development or socio-economic development (in Africa) broadly, it reflects on a better approach to development and fostering democracy as well as associated issues.
Susanne Epple (Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main )
Paper short abstract:
In the West, social order is mainly maintained through law enforcement institutions, while in Africa, parallel to the formal system, other institutions enforce social order. This paper sheds light on the role of age-systems in East Africa in exercising social control and rehabilitating offenders.
Paper long abstract:
Many values underlying African conflict resolution mechanisms differ from those in the West, where punishment of a wrongdoer and protection of the society are prioritized. In many African contexts, the rehabilitation of a wrongdoer through the reconciliation of conflicting parties are most important, as peace is considered a precondition for the well-being of the whole society. To achieve these, local mechanisms and institutions have widely continued to exist parallel to the formal judicial systems imported from the West.
Among the Bashada of Southern Ethiopia, one of such institutions is their age-system. One of its central functions is social control: members of the same age-set are accountable for each other's behaviour and responsible to sanction any wrongdoer among them. The emphasis of peer group responsibility has proven to be very effective in Bashada for two reasons. First, young men seem to respect but also to accept the sanctions of their age-mates more than those imposed by elders. Second, when age-mates publicly scold or whip their friend, they also urge him to return to socially accepted behaviour and to contribute to the good reputation of their age-set. In this way, group-solidarity is enhanced and wrongdoers given the chance to improve.
The significance of peer groups for the socialization of adolescents has been widely recognized also in the West. However, their potentials to serve as more responsible agents in the socialization of adolescents, in social control among young adults and the rehabilitation of wrong-doers, deserves more recognition.
Serges Alain Djoyou Kamga (University of South Africa)
Paper short abstract:
This paper shows that the African notion of Ubuntu is a source of law in South Africa. It had informed the interim Constitution and then the final Constitution and had been at the centre of the South African jurisprudence
Paper long abstract:
For time immemorial, the cultural value which epitomises togetherness and 'caring for each other' in a community has been the way of life in various African communities including South African. Accordingly one is his/her brother/sister keeper. This philosophy which developed into a way of life has been a reality before the period of Enlightenment in Europe, considered as the beginning of the human rights discourse. In other words, prior to the Enlightenment era, the human rights discourse in the form of caring for one another was a live reality in Africa under the Ubuntu philosophy.
The aim of this paper is to examine how the African notion of Ubuntu had been incorporated into the South African national legal system in order to foster respect for 'modern' human rights or to ensure that human rights are culturally embedded within the South African society. The South African model is chosen for a case study for several reasons: The country went through a peaceful transition from Apartheid to democracy for the application of Ubuntu; the latter informs the adoption of the democratic constitution in 1996, and the South African jurisprudence is charactersised by reliance on Ubuntu in numerous judgements. In making its case, the paper will unpack the concept of Ubuntu before examining its application as a source of law in the South African legal context.
Itaru Ohta (Kyoto University) Motoji Matsuda (Kyoto University) Gebre Yntiso Deko (Addis Ababa University)
Paper short abstract:
Africa is viewed as being in a state of deficiency in addressing conflicts. Hence, foreign solutions are prescribed for local problems. Against the backdrop of flawed views and prescriptions, this paper sheds light on ‘African potentials’ in handling conflicts and attaining peaceful coexistence.
Paper long abstract:
African societies, like other peoples in the world, have rich histories, cultural heritages, knowledge systems, philosophies and institutions that they shaped and reshaped in due course. However, African people are often viewed as incapable of addressing their problems on their own and the continent is portrayed as being in a state of deficiency. Based on such erroneous perspectives, global solutions are prescribed, out of context, for local problems. The prescription or imposition of the so-called liberal peace-building approach (ceasefire monitoring, peace negotiations, disarmament, demobilisation, security sector reforms, civil society capacity building, good governance and economic reorganisation) is a case in point. Against the backdrop of paternalistic thinking, this paper intends to shed light on what we call the African potentials (values, knowledge, practices, philosophies, and institutions) in handling conflicts and attaining coexistence. Without recognizing and integrating local peace approaches, the top-down global prescriptions cannot be expected to be effective because the later are unlikely to be accepted as legitimate by communities. Based on a new book titled "African Virtues in the Pursuit of Conviviality: Interrogating local solutions in light of global prescriptions" that we have edited in 2017, we intend to critique the liberal peace (which is based on ethos specific to the west) and discuss the features of key African virtues such as collectivity, hybridity, adaptation, resilience, innovativeness, and honesty, among others. Concrete examples of operational African potentials will be presented to illustrate the line of argument.
Marianne Séverin (Science Po Bordeaux)
Paper short abstract:
Conflict is a social phenomenon and can be found everywhere. The Baleng community relies on traditional knowledge system to address conflicts. To this end, it applies the philosophy of peace versus anger, and relies on the power community spiritual forces to avoid and resolve conflicts
Paper long abstract:
Aspiration in peace and stability led the Baleng community to develop methods of normalization with the objective of avoiding or solving especially intra-societal conflicts but also in its relationships with nearby villages. It exists a varied range of dissuasive practices and modes of conflict prevention, the violence being channelled by specific sociopolitical structures and oral or tacit agreements with legal or magico-religious character.
The conflict prevention is essentially ensured through proverbs and tales which are mainly transmitted by families. The diplomacy is also the way by which the Baleng Chief tries to prevent conflicts with the nearby villages.
When conflicts arise in spite of their prevention, the Baleng community developed well ranked traditional mechanisms of resolution. The conflict in Baleng grouping says itself « a'a tcha'ang » or « ndja'a tcha'ang » or better still « gwo'o mvet » which literally means destroying the anger; overcome the anger; settle dispute; cut the problems; cut through knots; crush; scatter ; scatter then remove the anger, the nervousness, the negative energy, the evil, the disagreement, the hostility, the indifference between people. These mechanisms leave the judgments of people to those of the invisible strengths.
This paper explores how theses traditional mechanisms of conflicts prevention and resolution resisted the modernism, which are the current value and which shall be the possible improvements to bring to it?