The Thinker (a pan-African quarterly) publishes peer reviewed articles with well-constructed opinion pieces. We welcome Africa-centred articles from diverse perspectives. Online ISSN: 2616-907X Print ISSN: 2075-2458
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Economic Diplomacy, Foreign Direct Investment, and the Path to Sustainable Development: Evidence, Barriers, and Strategic Opportunities for Guinea
Guinea occupies a paradoxical position in global investment discourse: a nation endowed with extraordinary mineral wealth, including the world’s largest bauxite reserves, substantial gold deposits, diamonds, and one of the richest iron ore deposits on earth, yet one that has historically failed to translate these endowments into broad-based economic development through foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite sustained government efforts to deploy economic diplomacy as a strategic lever for attracting capital, FDI inflows declined sharply over the past decade, undermining state revenues, employment, and development trajectories. This study critically examines the effectiveness of Guinea’s economic diplomacy in attracting FDI, identifies the principal structural and institutional barriers impeding investment, and proposes evidence- based strategies for improvement. Employing a descriptive mixed-methods design, the research draws on structured interviews with 25 key stakeholders, including diplomats at the Guinean Embassy in Pretoria, government officials, and business representatives, supplemented by questionnaire surveys and documentary analysis. Thematic analysis revealed six critical impediments: corruption (identified by 75% of participants), inadequate infrastructure (80%), political violence and insecurity (70%), bureaucratic bottlenecks (60%), language barriers (40%), and limited institutional capacity.
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Change and Contradiction: Hungary’s Foreign Policy Across its 2011 and 2024 European Council Presidencies
This study traces the significant alterations in Hungary’s national identity and strategic culture between its 2011 and 2024 presidencies of the Council of the European Union, highlighting how these shifts have reshaped the country’s foreign policy orientation and behaviour in the international system. Situated against the backdrop of Hungary’s unique historical experiences—including the long shadow of Trianon, decades of communist rule, and the post-1991 imperative of Europeanization—the paper seeks to clarify how Hungary moved from a firmly Westward-leaning, Euro-Atlantic trajectory toward a more sovereignty-centred and identity-driven approach to diplomacy. The objective is to examine how these internal reconfigurations have informed Hungary’s contemporary foreign policy choices and the tensions they have produced within the EU. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative content analysis of core documents such as the Fundamental Law (2011) and Hungary’s post-presidency foreign policy programme, complemented by discourse analysis of speeches made by key decision makers, most notably Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. This mixed qualitative approach enables the systemic identification of recurring narratives and identity markers visibly shaping Hungarian foreign policy. The findings suggest that Hungary’s recent foreign policy conduct reflects not episodic populist opportunism but rather a coherent recalibration of strategic culture shaped by longstanding grievances, post-communist identity reconstruction, and a recognition of shifting global power realities. This recalibration is evident through policies such as the Eastern Opening, strategic neutrality in the Russia–Ukraine conflict, the securitization of migration and Hungary’s selective veto usage within EU and NATO frameworks. The study concludes that Hungary’s evolving foreign policy posture provides valuable insight into how identity, populism, and geopolitics intersect to redefine the external behaviour of small states within a transforming European and global order.
Reframing South Africa’s Energy Diplomacy: An African imperative and geopolitical strategy for Just Energy Transition
In response to the ongoing threats posed by climate change, South Africa has joined the rest of the world in advancing decarbonisation efforts. As one of the signatories of the signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to the Paris Agreement, South Africa is committed to a transformational transition to a net-zero emission economy by 2050 through its energy diplomacy. This article presents a comprehensive examination of the important role of energy diplomacy in the current geopolitical context. As nations increasingly face challenges related to energy security, sustainability, and climate change, energy diplomacy has emerged as a vital instrument for fostering international cooperation and collaboration. This study, therefore, showcases South Africa’s successful energy diplomacy initiatives, including strategic partnerships between the Global North and the Global South. It also examines the impact of multilateral agreements such as the five-year Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) from 2023-2027. However, given the existing socio-economic challenges that are exacerbated by the climatic changes, it is imperative to conduct a qualitative content analysis of South Africa’s energy diplomacy.
Brazil-Russia-China-South Africa (BRCS) Paradox: Reconciling Normative Ambitions with Strategic Interests in the United Nations
This paper examines the strategic tactics used by Brazil, South Africa, China, and Russia within the United Nations to promote their interests. An analysis of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Reform (2017–2019), United Nations Development System Reform (2018–2021), and International Court of Justice (ICJ) Judicial Selection (2023) uncovers four tactics of normative realpolitik: (i) procedural contestation, (ii) personnel placement, (iii) financial leverage, and (iv) coalition coordination. The argument challenges traditional international relations theories by demonstrating that states combine normative rhetoric with material and procedural strategies to promote institutional change in ways that exceed the explanatory scope of both realism and constructivism.
Trump 2.0, Personality and Power:Assessing Trump’s Foreign Policyin a Multipolar World Order
The evolving role of the United States on the international stage during the second presidency of Donald Trump, coupled with the trend towards a multipolar global system, necessitates a thorough reassessment of the foundational elements of U.S. foreign policy-making. Traditionally, analyses of U.S. foreign policy have been anchored in the rational actor model, which emphasises rational calculations. However, there is a noticeable gap in scholarship that incorporates the personal traits, character, belief systems, and experiences of individual U.S.. leaders into this analysis. The election of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States in 2024 presents a significant opportunity to revisit U.S. foreign policy through a more idiosyncratic lens, particularly in light of the declining influence of the U.S. within the international system. This study employed a qualitative research approach, utilising a desk review as the primary source of secondary data, and applies thematic and content analysis as the principal methods for data analysis. The findings assert that Trump's inward-looking policies expressed in the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan, ambitious nationalist and expansionist agenda such as the acquisition of Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal and renaming of Mexico, abrupt withdrawal from multilateral institutions, erratic trade wars among others are adversely affecting U.S. global leadership position. These actions are creating space for revisionist states such as Russia, China and BRICS bloc to occupy in the absence or relative decline of the U.S. thereby making the multipolar world imminent.
Balancing Act: South Africa’s Foreign Policy, Peacebuilding and SDG 16 in an Era of Renewed Unilateralism
South Africa has established a post-apartheid foreign policy based on the principles of peace, justice, and inclusive governance, positioning itself as a supporter of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). However, renewed unilateralism in global politics, intensified by the return of a second Trump administration, is weakening multilateral institutions and placing greater pressure on middle powers to choose between normative commitments and strategic interests. This article examines how South Africa manages this dilemma by drawing on constructivism, middle power theory, and the English School to explain how identity, international norms, and strategic interests shape foreign policy behaviour. These insights inform a 2×2 scenario planning framework in which normative commitment and strategic interest alignment operate as independent variables and the resulting scenario functions as the dependent variable. The framework is applied to three case studies: the 2014 Lesotho mediation, the 2013 Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Africa’s voting behaviour in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. The analysis finds that South Africa most often occupies the values-interests dilemma quadrant, where normative commitments are maintained rhetorically but weakened in practice by geopolitical and economic pressures. The article concludes that South Africa must recalibrate its diplomacy to remain strategically adaptive while preserving its credibility on SDG 16 in an increasingly divided international order.
Reexamining Foreign Policy in the New World Order
Amid the changes in global politics, including interstate conflicts, coups, shifting alliances, new administrations, ambitions toward multipolarity, and the testing of international law, it has become apparent that states will always act in their own national interests, even at the expense of other states. Post-pandemic, numerous events have continued to confute the democratic peace theory and substantiate the view that realism always shapes a country’s foreign policy through soft or hard power. While much of these developments in global politics threaten global peace and security and compel states to act in the best way that shields them from the geopolitical shocks that come with these changes, it becomes crucial to review and scrutinize the notion, practice, and understanding of foreign policy which can be defined as an activity of the state with which it fulfills its aims and interests within the international arena (Petrič, 2013). Although this definition depicts an uncomplicated scene, its practice has evinced how complex foreign policy can be through a series of current events. This can be attributed to the determinants of foreign policy, which often encompass diverse conditions, interests, and decisions at the state level, which may, unwittingly, yield unfavorable outcomes in the international arena. Different authors have conceptualized foreign policy in several ways, as follows.
The Re-examination of South Africa’s National Interests in a Post-International and Heterarchy Era
This study assesses South Africa’s national interests and argues that they ought to be revised in light of the current international order, in which myriad non-state actors, ideologies, wars, the emergence of innovative technologies, and environmental threats challenge centralized state power. The study recognizes that postinternational theory departs from state-centric theory. Mathebula (2024) explains postinternationalism as a new world order encompassing a conglomerate of nonstate actors, including multinational corporations, civil society entities, technology behemoths, international normative systems, and global trends and influences. Mathebula (2024)’s definition is derived from the writings of James N. Rosenau, regarded as an architect of postinternationalism. James N Rosenau explains that the global system has become turbulent due to extensive change, making it difficult to understand global life solely from an “international politics” perspective, as much of politics extends beyond national boundaries and state-to-state relations. A central definition of heterarchy is central to the construction of this body of literature, its central tenets and thesis. Belmonte and Cerny (2019) define heterarchy as an organizational system in which elements are not fixed in a single chain of command but can be positioned in multiple ways depending on context.
Solidarity to Strategy: Reviewing Commitments to Pan-Africanism and Regional Integration Post-1990s by Lusaka, Harare, and Pretoria Nexus
This study looks at how South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia approached their commitments to regional integration and Pan-Africanism since the 1990s. Using a qualitative, comparative desktop method and theme analysis, it explores how each country’s political views, economic standing, diplomatic strategies, and historical heritage have shaped its roles and contributions in the Southern African region. While Zimbabwe has pursued symbolic and assertive activities like land reform and regional peacekeeping with varying results, Zambia has maintained a consistent, quiet diplomacy approach based on its backing from the liberation period, according to the studies interrogated. Although South Africa has pushed for institutional and economic unification through its post-apartheid influence, it still has an inconsistent foreign policy and regional engagement. Findings indicate that the three states have taken a variety of noteworthy but inconsistent actions, underscoring the need for further collaboration, strategic goal alignment, and further research into the long-term effects of their regional roles. This study argues that national priorities must be in line with common African objectives for regional integration to be successful.
Integration of Pan-Africanism and Regionalism in African Higher Education: A Cross-Disciplinary Study at the University of Johannesburg
This paper critically examines pedagogical ways to integrate Pan-Africanism across different disciplines at the University of Johannesburg such as Economics, Politics, Law, Medicine, Science, and Engineering. This is to foster African identity, unity, and development of Pan- Africanism through the University Curricula. This aligns with the call for a decolonized South African higher education and across the continent. This research aims to explore the opportunities and challenges faced within various disciplines in fostering Pan-Africanism. A mixed-methods approach was employed, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods. A literature review and a structured survey of n=44 respondents, which consisted of both open-ended and closed-ended questions. The participants included students (undergraduates and postgraduates), alumni, and academics. Findings suggested a common lack of exposure to Pan-Africanism, as 52.3% of survey participants indicated that they were “somewhat familiar,” while 25% reported “not familiar at all.” The findings further indicated that Pan-Africanism and Regional Integration are transformative and feasible; however, practical application lacks and varies by disciplines as in economics, politics, and law. They are very theoretical as compared to Medicine and Science as is evident in these disciplines. Pan-Africanist pedagogies would play a pivotal role in critically examining colonial history, different cultural narratives, collaborations of African countries, and curriculum integration.
The Future of Pan-Africanism: The Transformative Role of Higher Learning Institutions
Pan-Africanism remains a vital framework for addressing Africa’s historical fragmentation and advancing unity, self-determination, and economic sovereignty. Yet despite renewed efforts through initiatives such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), many of its ideals remain aspirational rather than institutionalised. This study argues that higher learning institutions (HLIs) hold transformative potential in bridging this gap between ideology and implementation. Using a qualitative, document-based approach, the paper analyses policy frameworks, institutional strategies, and academic literature to assess how universities advance Pan-Africanism through curriculum reform, research collaboration, and leadership development. Findings indicate gradual progress in embedding Pan-African ideals, but persistent challenges such as Eurocentric curricula, limited academic mobility, and resource constraints hinder deeper impact. The study concludes that aligning higher education with continental priorities can convert Pan-Africanism from political rhetoric into a practical development agenda, positioning universities as key agents in shaping a unified and self-reliant African future.
Reimagining Pan-Africanism in South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe: An Analysis of Youth Perspectives
This paper examines how youth in South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are redefining Pan- Africanism in the twenty-first century. Moving beyond traditional state-led approaches, youth are advancing new forms of solidarity through activism, digital expression, entrepreneurship, and cultural production. Comparative analysis reveals that while political and economic conditions vary across the three countries, shared struggles against inequality, unemployment, and exclusion unite youth in their pursuit of justice, dignity, and African self-determination. South African youth channel Pan-African ideals through social movements and cultural activism; Zambian youth through digital innovation and entrepreneurship; and Zimbabwean youth through art and informal networks that resist repression. Together, these experiences signal a shift from Pan-Africanism as an elite political project to a grassroots movement driven by youth agency and creativity. The study concludes that for Pan-Africanism to remain relevant, governments and regional institutions must recognise and support youth as central actors in shaping Africa’s collective future.
Psychology in South Africa’s responses to marginalised identities and the decolonial project: A systematic narrative review
Marginalized identities have become a focal point in Psychology. Higher education institutions for example have attempted to promote diversity and inclusion through curriculum and policy changes. However, complex issues affecting marginalized identities persist, requiring transformative socio-economic and epistemic justice. This paper explores how Psychology in South Africa has responded to these challenges in the context of advancing the decolonial project. A systematic narrative review of publications (N=16) from the South African Journal of Psychology over five years (2020-2024) was conducted. The analysis examined how Psychology in South Africa has taken up the decolonial project by addressing the oppressions of three marginalized groups: (1) ‘Foreigners’ facing xenophobia; (2) the LGBT+ community experiencing homo-, bi-, and transphobia; and (3) disabled individuals confronting ableism. The review indicates that Psychology in South Africa is actively involved in problematizing the legacy of coloniality, however there is a need for more meaningful collaborations within the discipline.
Copyright (c) 2025 University of Johannesburg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
‘Ersatz Europeans and Their Minions’: Performing Whiteliness in Non-white Postcolonial African Ghettoes
White lust and Black shame among blacks across all classes is a phenomenon that has not been fully explored and accounted for particularly as part of a residual inter-generational colonial psychosis expressed in everyday talk among black folk in postcolonial Africa. This leads to the questions: What aspects of whiteness or coloniser/colonised transactional relationships do the former colonised blacks manifest in conversations? How does whiteness refracted by class, gender, and ethnicity, remap itself onto new psycho-social relationships among blacks in former British settler colonies like Zimbabwe and South Africa? How are contemporary class differences expressed in terms of distance from or closeness to imagined whiteness in everyday ghetto language and communication? This research analyses meanings that attach to terms murungu (white person), and its plural form varungu (white persons) as used by Shona speaking black Zimbabweans in address or with reference to phenotypical non-white individuals as people engage in naturally occurring and undirected conversational talk in three different locations. In Black Skin White Masks, Fanon broached the idea of the psychotic split personality as a condition suffered by the colonised subject resulting from the colonial situation itself. The situation taught the blacks to place in a pedestal and pursue all that was white, to self-hate and to seek escape from their black skin that kept their soul prisoner. The article seeks to show cases through which everyday talk by black Zimbabweans online and in Zimbabwean based taxis reveals deeper undertones of black shame and an exaltation of whiteness. It concludes that we can still trace colour schizophrenia through everyday talk among ordinary black people of Southern Africa.
African Union Strategic Response Against Terrorism in Africa: The Case of Somalia
Terrorism remains a critical global security challenge, with African nations facing some of its most severe consequences. The African Union (AU) has played a central role in counterterrorism efforts, particularly in addressing the threats posed by extremist groups such as Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This paper critically examines the AU’s counterterrorism strategies, focusing on Somalia, where Al-Shabaab continues to threaten regional stability. The study assesses the effectiveness of AU-led initiatives, including intelligence-sharing mechanisms, joint military operations, and diplomatic interventions.
Connections between post-1994 Health Care and Street-level Bureaucracy
Performance metrics continue to be a useful tool for modifying bureaucratic procedures in the workplace, although the majority of bureaucracy research and intervention has been centred on increasing efficiency. Lipsky (1980) contends that street-level bureaucracy is compelled to consider the public objectives of efficiency and cost effectiveness, except for unique circumstances like a new service plan for locating clients. This conceptual article, which is based on secondary sources like journals, explains how the provision of health services changed during the apartheid era and how it was notably progressive considering the passage of laws protecting patients’ constitutional rights. The article further argues that improvements in people’s access to health care were brought about by the democratic dispensation, departing from a time when segregation of South African health services was regulated by law.
The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Teaching and Learning: Coping Strategies for Foundation Phase Educators in Capricorn South District – Limpopo Province
This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on teaching and learning in the Foundation Phase (FP) at Moonlight Primary School, a rural Quintile 1 school in Capricorn South District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Employing a qualitative case study design, data were gathered through in-depth interviews with three FP educators, document analysis, and field notes. Findings reveal that limited technological infrastructure, inadequate access to learning materials, and insufficient digital literacy training posed major barriers to effective teaching and learning. Educators adopted low- tech coping strategies such as distributing printed materials, using phone calls and SMS to engage parents, and utilising community radio programmes to sustain learning continuity. However, persistent challenges, including the digital divide, inconsistent parental involvement, and limited institutional support, deepened educational inequalities. The study underscores the need for targeted investment in digital infrastructure, comprehensive educator training in blended learning, and decentralised support mechanisms to enhance educational equity and resilience in under-resourced rural contexts.
Crisis of Trust and Military Takeovers in West Africa: Analyzing Factors and Citizen Reactions in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger
The recurrent military coups in West Africa, with the most recent cases in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, point to an increasing crisis of trust between citizens and their governments. According to the Colpus 2023 report, military coups have increased significantly across the African continent since 2020, indicating the deterioration of democratic systems due to diverse political, social, and economic causes. Although each country has a distinct context, a variety of interacting factors encouraged military takeover resulting in a worrying pattern spanning history, politics, and geopolitics. Drawing from secondary data including media reports, peer reviewed research, reports from international organizations, and grey literature, this paper offers conceptual, and comparative account of this development. The paper highlights how governance failures, rampant corruption, insecurity from violent extremist groups, and socioeconomic inequalities contribute to eroding public trust. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to both scholarship and policy by providing insights into interplay between governance, security, and societal trust and advances theoretical debates on democratic resilience and coup prevention for the future of the region
Empowering African women with the skills required in the workplace in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)
Africa has been characterised by gender and social inequalities that have affected different dimensions of women’s lives. Even in the modern era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), most women do not have the right skills to secure and keep profitable employment. Grounded in human capital, postmodern feminism, and empowerment theories, this study unpacks how to empower African women with skills relevant in the 4IR. An integrative review approach is used. Out of 917 articles screened, 24 peer-reviewed articles (2018–2023) on 4IR, women, and Africa were retained and analysed using a manual content analysis method. Results reveal the need for a robust regulatory framework backed by government funding and support to address past inequalities and tackle the underdevelopment of 4IR and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills in women.
Neglectful Parenting Style and its Impact on the Upbringing of the Girl child as Depicted in M.E. Wanda’s Kunjalo-ke
The upbringing of a child plays a critical role in shaping their personality, behavior, and overall development. This process entails the act of nurturing and guiding a child to maturity. It encompasses emotional, social, and intellectual support parents or caregivers provide for children. Neglectful parenting, however, a style characterised by a lack of responsiveness, attention, and emotional involvement by parents, poses significant challenges, particularly to the girl child. This paper explores the impact of this type of parenting style on the upbringing of the girl child through the lenses of social learning theory. It highlights the evident challenges and long-term consequences as depicted in M.E. Wanda’s novel, Kunjalo-ke. The article examines the immediate and lasting effects of neglectful parenting. This includes lack of trust, impaired social development and poor academic performance, lack of emotional security and identity formation, sense of deceptiveness, and intergenerational trauma.
Teaching for social justice: Importance of including Adolescent Literature with an Afrocentric context in the South African English Language Curriculum
The purpose of this paper is to review literature to understand the importance of including Adolescent Literature with an Afrocentric context in the English Language Curriculum. Its focus is on how crucial it is that the prescribed literary setwork for English Language learners, particularly grade 12 learners, mirror the geographical and social realities of learners, and promote local knowledge and heritage in local contexts while being sensitive to global imperatives. The theoretical frameworks of Decolonization, Afrocentricity, and Identity form the foundation of this argument as they are linked with the National Curriculum Statement’s principle of social transformation which motivated this writing, teaching literature for social transformation. The findings of this review revealed that teaching literature that is age appropriate and reflects leaners’ life experiences and history, in terms of geographical and social realities, can help learners understand literature and encourage reading. This review recommends further empirical research on Afrocentrism in education and the teaching of Adolescent Literature in South African contexts in the hopes that it would encourage South African setwork selectors to consider selecting Adolescent Literature with an Afrocentric context for South African English Language learners.
Transport justice for students: Transport crisis and some suggestions
Unsafe, costly, and unreliable travel is a significant issue for students from working-class and poor communities. Among the consequences are missed classes, late arrivals, and dropouts from university. This article examines the challenges faced by female students in Johannesburg and Bellville (near Cape Town), where local universities predominantly serve students from working-class communities. Public transport articles rarely address the experiences of young women who are students of the university education system in South Africa. The article suggests ways to improve the transportation conditions for these students based on in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 and 2022 and secondary sources. The findings reveal that women not only feel unsafe in their communities and homes but also when using different modes of transport to travel to and from the universities. The article concludes with suggestions and proposals to enhance the transportation conditions for women from working class communities in higher education.
The university is one place, among many others, to sow and nurture decolonial thought, analysis, reflection, and action; analytical-actional thought, and thoughtful-reflective actionings, inside, outside, despite—and that both spite and crack—the institution of higher education. This article offers reflections from the author’s own lived experience of decolonial sowings and cracking during more than two decades at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, an international graduate-level public university formed in the decade of the 90s as part of the Andean Community of Nations. Its specific focus is with the planting and cultivation of a doctoral program-project collectively postured from the outset as an otherwise of graduate study grounded in decolonial praxis in which coloniality/decoloniality were central and guiding conceptual and analytical tools. Through a recount of some of the collective processes and practices of decolonial sowings and cracking, the article offers an I-we narrative that works to undo critiques of coloniality/decoloniality as an abstract universal, bringing to the fore decoloniality’s actional character and embodied praxis.
Double Critique Revisited, Or Does It Matter Who is the Most Legitimate Victim?
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has accentuated the parallel existence of discordant and impervious narratives – the global anticolonial and the more local anti-Soviet/Russian. Caught up in their victimhood rivalry, both narratives demonstrate their inability to engage in pluriversal thinking and be ready to sacrifice their privileges, real or symbolic. The invasion has also shown the poverty of the global theory that continues to flounder in the swamp of emasculated universalism or to grab on to the provincial and ignorant ”stand pointism” unable to practice solidarity with anyone and for anything. These are disturbing signs of a surrender to modern/colonial futureless agonistics that seeks to spite the enemy rather than to generate anything constructive. In its early years decolonial option stressed the importance of double critique. Today the double critique often shrinks to a one-sided rejection of the straw-manned collective west, while decolonial thinkers too easily pardon dictators and rogue states who manipulatively use their anti-Western rhetoric. Paradoxically, this bias reproduces the same modern/colonial paradigm which decoloniality claims to delink from while dismissing Ukrainians as mere victims or dispensable lives. The essay analyzes the reasons for this current dangerous binarization in decolonial thinking and reflects on possible ways for revamping the complexity of the double critique and hopefully, for reimagining decoloniality in the 21st century.
Epistemic Freedom: Itineraries of a Concept
The concept of epistemic freedom, which I introduced in Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization (2018), is elaborated in this article to give it context and to highlights its itineraries. This reflective article provides five problematic epistemes that necessitates struggles for epistemic freedom. These are racist, (en)slave, colonial/imperial, endocentric/patriarchal, and capitalist/neoliberal epistemes. These inextricably intertwined epistemes are constitutive of Eurocentric epistemologies and its reproductions at a world scale and make it difficult for alternative epistemologies from the Global South to flourish. They also underpin contemporary global economy and its asymmetrical power dynamics, which continues to marginalise decolonial ways of thinking, seeing, and praxes.
The Emergence and Development of Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN) in South Africa
One of the fundamental challenges facing many of the decolonial initiatives today is the challenge of reproducing coloniality in the name its opposite, which is decolonization or decoloniality. This happens as a result of many reasons that include among them, the problem of entrapment in colonial mindset that comes with being socialized into a consenting colonial subject and the deliberate attempt to be part of the racket by selfish individuals, among others. Whether deliberate or not, the challenge of contradictions within the decolonial movement is a long-standing challenge that we cannot afford to neglect. For there are always invaluable lessons to be learnt in order to move the struggle to the next level. In this short treatise, I intend to review the challenges and prospects of the ADERN initiative within a modern university institution in South Africa with a view of unmasking some few lessons for the overral decolonial struggle after the demise of juridical-administrative colonialism.
Delinking, Decoloniality and De-Westernisation
The planetary world-wide conversation on decoloniality, there has been some conceptual confusion that in this essay I am attempting to elucidate. The elucidation is not based on the premise that decoloniality is endowed with a universal meaning, like modernity, but it is based on the analytic and prospective meaning that decoloniality acquired after the seminal work of Peruvian sociologist and activist Anibal Quijano. Additionally, my argument is based on the conceptual distinctions I have been making since 2010, between decoloniality and de-westernization.
Theorising Decolonial Silences in the Neoliberal University
During the summer of 2020, several universities and academics made highly radical and progressive statements about their positionality and progressive aims in the context of the Black Lives Matter Protests. The same was observed in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and in the UK, several universities even offered admissions and fellowships to Ukrainian students and academics. This culture of ‘radical politics’ and protection of academic freedom was soon to change.
Insurgent Decolonial Theory and the Role of the Intellectual
This article explores the various ways the intellectual committed to liberation and decolonization has been represented and how combative and insurgent decolonial modes of theorizing contribute to this radical tradition. First, I provide an overview of decolonial thought to challenge the notion that decolonial theory is a coherent whole without contradictions and tensions. I then offer varying ways anticolonial and decolonial intellectuals have contributed to combative scholarship. I propose an insurgent decolonial theory that makes connections between texts and contexts, between theory and praxis, and between the symbolic and material dimensions of coloniality and decoloniality. Insurgent decoloniality resists modernity/coloniality’s project of death while planting and cultivating life.
Haitian Creole, A Perpetual Victory on Coloniality
This article examines Haitian history and identity through the lens of Haitian Creole as both a cultural creation and a victory against coloniality. Jean Casimir argues that Haiti cannot be understood solely through frameworks imposed by European colonial states, but rather through the fractures and continuities that have shaped the nation since its revolutionary origins. Three ruptures are central: the divide between state institutions and colonial structures, the separation of coastal elites from rural “outside people,” and tensions among leaders of varied social and educational backgrounds. These fractures did not create rigid hierarchies but revealed tensions within a society bound by collective pride in autonomy and resistance.