Prophecy and the Pandemic: The Vindication of Decolonial Legal Critical Scholarship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2522-6800/10144Keywords:
prophecy, critical legal scholarship, decolonial theory, decolonisation, global pandemic, legal education, LLB CurriculumAbstract
The ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic offers the legal academy a special opportunity to reflect on various conceptual, ideational, and ideological questions that cleavage the academy and society. In this exposition, I embrace an exegetical-cum-legalist enunciation to analyse the material conditions that define the lives of the historically and presently colonised peoples of South Africa. In the main, this treatise advances two arguments: (1) that the present socio-economic conditions illustrate the decisive thrust of decolonial legal critical scholarship and its ability to predict the future; and (2) that critical approaches to the law constitute a legitimate intellectual prophetic engagement. I conclude by insisting that decolonial legal critical scholarship should be the cornerstone and a focal point of emphasis in the calls to shift [and decolonise] all facets of the law and its curriculum.
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Cone J, ‘Strange Fruit: The Cross and the Lynching Tree’ in Dibeela and others (eds), Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Sun Press 2014).
Davis DM, ‘Is the South African Constitution an Obstacle to a Democratic Post-Colonial State?’ (2018) 34(3) South African Journal on Human Rights <https://doi.org/10.1080/02587203.2018.1543839>
Dibeela P, Lenka-Bula P and Vellem V, Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Sun Press 2014) <https://doi.org/10.18820/9781920689254>
Dugard J and Sánchez AM, ‘Bringing Gender and Class into the Frame: An Intersectional Analysis of the Decoloniality-as-Race Critique of the use of Law for Social Change’ (2021) 32(1) Stellenbosch Law Review <https://doi.org/10.47348/SLR/v32/i1a2>
Gravett WH, ‘Of “Deconstruction” and “Destruction” - Why Critical Legal Theory Cannot be the Cornerstone of the LLB Curriculum’ (2018) 135(2) South African Law Journal.
Koopman N, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord: An Indispensable Parameter for Theology in Public Life?’ in Dibeela and others (eds), Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Sun Press 2014).
Madlingozi T, ‘Mayibuye iAfrika?: Disjunctive Inclusions and Black Strivings for Constitution and Belonging in “South Africa”’ (LLD thesis, Birkbeck University of London 2018).
Madlingozi T, ‘Post-Apartheid Social Movements and the Quest for the Elusive “New” South Africa’ (2007) 34(1) Journal of Law and Society <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2007.00383.x>
Madlingozi T, ‘Social Justice in a Time of Neo-Apartheid Constitutionalism: Critiquing the Anti-Black Economy of Recognition, Incorporation and Distribution’ (2017) 28(1) Stellenbosch Law Review.
Modiri J, ‘The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A Study in Race, Law and Power in the “Afterlife” of Colonial Apartheid’ (LLD thesis, University of Pretoria 2017).
Modiri J, ‘Conquest and Constitutionalism: First Thoughts on an Alternative Jurisprudence’ (2018) 34(3) South African Journal on Human Rights <https://doi.org/10.1080/02587203.2018.1550939>
Modiri J, ‘The Colour of Law, Power and Knowledge: Introducing Critical Race Theory in (Post-) Apartheid South Africa’ (2012) South African Journal on Human Rights <https://doi.org/10.1080/19962126.2012.11865054>
Ortega O, ‘Nevertheless, God: The Theology of the Absurd’ in Dibeela and others (eds), Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Sun Press 2014).
Ramose M, ‘Towards a Post-conquest South Africa: Beyond the Constitution of 1996’ (2018) 34(1) South African Journal on Human Rights <https://doi.org/10.1080/02587203.2018.1550937>
Rautenbach C, ‘The Many Colors of Covid-19 in South Africa: A Legal Perspective’ in Werner Gephart and Jule Leko (eds), In the Realm of Corona Normativities II: The Permanence of the Exception (Vittorio Klostermann 2022) <https://doi.org/10.5771/9783465145875-197>
Shange N and Sindane N, ‘If Poverty not Eradicated, Looting will Happen Again’ (News24, 28 July 2021) <https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/guestcolumn/opinion-violent-events-will-continue-to-take-place-if-poverty-is-not-eradicated-as-a-matter-of-urgency-20210728> accessed 12 February 2022.
Mudau P and Mtonga S, ‘Extrapolating the Role of Transformative Constitutionalism in the Decolonisation and Africanisation of Legal Education in South Africa’ (2020) 14(1) Pretoria Student Law Review Journal.
Sindane N, ‘Why Decolonisation and not Transformative Constitutionalism’ (2021) 15(1) Pretoria Student Law Review Journal.
Smit D, ‘Resisting “Lordless Powers?”: Boesak on Power’ in Dibeela and others (eds), Prophet from the South: Essays in Honour of Allan Aubrey Boesak (Sun Press 2014).
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Published
2022-06-29
How to Cite
Sindane, Ntando. 2022. “Prophecy and the Pandemic: The Vindication of Decolonial Legal Critical Scholarship”. Southern African Public Law 37 (1):13 pages. https://doi.org/10.25159/2522-6800/10144.
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