THE LIMITS OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY: ETHNIC POLITICS AND ITS CONSTRAINTS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN POST-COLONIAL POLYETHNIC SOCIETIES?

2011 ◽  
pp. 15-32
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Western Democracy

From the Margins to Centre Stage: ‘Indian’ Demonstration Effects in Malaysia’s Political Landscape

Urban Studies ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1257-1278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Bunnell ◽  
S. Nagarajan ◽  
Andrew Willford
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Peninsular Malaysia ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
National Scale ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Racial Differentiation

This paper traces senses of injustice among Indian Malaysians which found expression in the ‘illegal’ Hindraf rally in Kuala Lumpur in 2007. While underlying ethnic and racial differentiation has been rendered through law in the post-colonial nation-state, the focus here is on a specific locality: resettlement flats for Indians displaced for the construction of Malaysia’s federal government administrative centre, Putrajaya. Ex-plantation workers are shown to be symbolically peripheral (to the spectacular ‘national landscape’ of Putrajaya) and to have experienced everyday forms of ethnicised marginalisation. The rally in the commercial heart of Kuala Lumpur—involving tens of thousands of Indian Malaysians from across peninsular Malaysia—mobilised what were previously largely localised grievances such as those associated with the Putrajaya estate evictions. It is shown how this ethnic transgression not only contests the ‘second-class’ position of Indians in Malaysia, but may also contribute to a redrawing of the ethnic contours of Malaysia’s legal and political landscape. More broadly, the Hindraf events also serve as a reminder that rights and social justice claims expressed in key urban centres continue to have important national-scale dimensions, even in an ostensibly neo-liberalised global economy.

scholarly journals Liturgy and non-colonial thinking: Speaking to and about God beyond ideology, religion and identity politics – Towards non-religion and a unbearable freedom in Christ

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann-Albrecht Meylahn
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Face ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Voice

It has been argued that most countries that had been exposed to European colonialism have inherited a Western Christianity thanks to the mission societies from Europe and North America. In such colonial and post-colonial (countries where the political administration is no longer in European hands, but the effects of colonialism are still in place) contexts, together with Western contexts facing the ever-growing impact of migrants coming from the previous colonies, there is a need to reflect on the possibility of what a non-colonial liturgy, rather than a decolonial or postcolonial liturgy, would look like. For many, postcolonial or decolonial liturgies are those that specifically create spaces for the voice of a particular identified other. The other is identified and categorised as a particular voice from the margins, or a specific voice from the borders, or the voices of particular identified previously silenced voices from, for example, the indigenous backyards. A question that this context raises is as follows: Is consciously creating such social justice spaces – that is determined spaces by identifying particular voices that someone or a specific group decides to need to be heard and even making these particular voiceless (previously voiceless) voices central to any worship experience – really that different to the colonial liturgies of the past? To give voice to another voice, is maybe only a change of voice, which certainly has tremendous historical value, but is it truly a transformation? Such a determined ethical space is certainly a step towards greater multiculturalism and can therefore be interpreted as a celebration of greater diversity and inclusivity in the dominant ontology. Yet, this ontology remains policed, either by the state-maintaining police or by the moral (social justice) police.Contribution: In this article, a non-colonial liturgy will be sought that goes beyond the binary of the dominant voice and the voice of the other, as the voice of the other too often becomes the voice of a particular identified and thus determined victim – in other words, beyond the binary of master and slave, perpetrator and victim, good and evil, and justice and injustice, as these binaries hardly ever bring about transformation, but only a change in the face of master and the face of the slave, yet remaining in the same policed ontology.

scholarly journals Cults, Crosses, and Crescents: Religion and Healing from Colonial Violence in Tanzania

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 519
Author(s):  
Nancy Rushohora ◽  
Valence Silayo
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Colonial Violence ◽  
Colonial Government

More often than not, Africans employed local religion and the seemingly antagonistic faith of Christianity and Islam, to respond to colonial exploitation, cruelty, and violence. Southern Tanzanians’ reaction during the Majimaji resistance presents a case in point where the application of local religion, Christianity, and Islam for both individual and community spiritual solace were vivid. Kinjekitile Ngwale—the prominent war ritualist—prophesied that a concoction (Maji) would turn the German’s bullets to water, which in turn would be the defeat of the colonial government. Equally, Christian and Islamic doctrines were used to motivate the resistance. How religion is used in the post-colonial context as a cure for maladies of early 20th-century colonialism and how local religion can inspire political change is the focus of this paper. The paper suggests that religion, as propagated by the Majimaji people for the restoration of social justice to the descendant’s communities, is a form of cultural heritage playing a social role of remedying colonial violence.

scholarly journals PREFACE: SOCIAL JUSTICE IN CHILD, YOUTH AND FAMILY STUDIES

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon A. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Family Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Selection Of

<p>This special issue of the <em>International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies</em> offers critical insights into contemporary social justice issues impacting the lives of children and young people, their caregivers, and their communities. The authors write from a range of fields as they question taken-for-granted knowledges within social work, child welfare, health promotion, psychology, sociology, education, human rights, and women’s studies. As such, the collection includes feminist, post-colonial, post-structural, and post-modern analyses organized through an editorial standpoint of critical pedagogy. The preface offers additional insights into my own personal, professional, epistemological, and pedagogical locations that illuminate my role of guest editor, and further contextualizes the transdisciplinary selection of manuscripts within a social justice discourse.</p>

scholarly journals Social Justice in the Fiction Series of 'Mata' Okky Madasari for Girl's Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ary Budiyanto ◽  
Latifah .
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Eastern Indonesia ◽  
Other World ◽  
Children's Stories ◽  
Global World

How is the life of the East Indonesia ’world’ seen by a small Javanese women with her cosmopolitan glasses? Okky Madasari, the winner of the Equator Literary Award 2012, created a series of fantasy stories about the adventures of Mata, her mother and her imaginary friends as they explore areas far from the bustle of Jakarta. This article examines the first three novels in the series: Mata di Tanah Melus (which represents the culture of East Nusa Tenggara); Mata dan Rahasia Pulau Gapi (set in Ternate, North Maluku); and Mata dan Manusia Laut (which tells the story of Mata’s adventures in Bajo, Southeast Sulawesi). The exotic world seen through Mata’s eyes draws upon the post-colonial discourses which continue to influence Indonesian girls in the modern, global world of capitalism. This is contrasted with the narration of the Mother and miraculous friends of Mata in seeing ’the other world and others’ in the eastern tip of Indonesia. This study uses a sociological approach to literature to uncover the issues of inequality and social justice that occur in post-colonial eastern Indonesia. Okky and his Mata series show that embodying Indonesianness is the task of a maturing imagination which develops upon ideals of the nation’s children. The series encourages little girls like Mata to open their eyes to see the history, reality and direction of their country and nation. Keywords: girl’s education, social justice, children’s stories

Ethnicity in Electoral Politics in Ghana: Colonial Legacies and the Constitution as Determinants

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052094326
Author(s):  
Clement Sefa-Nyarko
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Political Divide ◽  
Indirect Rule

This paper assesses political allegiances in Ghana, positioning its ethno-political divide into the historical contexts of institutional design and colonialism in Africa. It argues that whilst the colonial policy of Indirect Rule solidified ethnicity in Africa, post-colonial governments used it differently, with varying effects on institutional design and state-building. In concert with other constitutional provisions, Ghana’s Article 55 of 1992 Constitution has curtailed extreme ethnic politics through the limit it places on ethnicity in party politics. Whilst outlawing ethnicity in politics, the constitution provides other depoliticised outlets for expressing diversity, especially through decentralisation and legitimisation of chieftaincy institutions. Despite these safeguarding provisions, the Asantes and Ewes have consistently taken entrenched political positions since 1992, and this article explicates some of the drivers using longitudinal election results. It draws on institutional design complexities in multi-ethnic societies in Africa to propose lessons and convey implications for Ghana’s Fourth Republic Constitution.

scholarly journals Between divine and social justice: emerging climate-justice narratives in Latin American socio-environmental struggles

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-414
Author(s):  
Celia Ruiz-de-Oña Plaza
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
Religious Factor

Abstract. This exploratory study traces the emergence of climate justice claims linked to narratives of Latin American social movements for the defence of life and territory. I argue that in post-colonial settings, religious and historical injustices and socio-cultural factors act as constitutive elements of environmental and climate justice understandings which are grounded in territories immersed in neo-extractivism conflicts. Environmental and climate justice conceptualizations have overlooked the religious fact present in many Latin American socio-environmental movements. As a result, the intertwined notions of divine justice and social justice are unacknowledged. To illustrate this claim, I examine socio-environmental and climate justice claims in a cross-border region between Guatemala and Chiapas. This region has a common ethnic background but divergent historical trajectories across the border. Diverse nuances and intensities adopted by environmental and climate justice practices and narratives on both sides of the border are examined. The case study reveals the importance of religion as a force for collective action and as a channel for the promotion of place-based notions of climate justice. The text calls for the examination of the religious factor, in its multiple expressions, in the theories of climate and environmental justice.

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