Decolonising The Human: Reflections From Africa On Difference And Oppression

Product Description


Decolonising the Human examines the ongoing project of constituting ‘the human’ in light of the durability of coloniality and the persistence of multiple oppressionsThe ‘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.


About the Author


Melissa Steyn holds the South African National Research Chair in Critical Diversity Studies and is the founding director of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies. She is best known for her publications on whiteness and white identity in post-apartheid South Africa.

William Mpofu is a researcher at the WITS centre for diversity studies at the University of Witwatersrand. He is also a member of the Africa Decolonial Research Network.