South-South Dialogue: In Search of Humanity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/jie.2017.24Keywords:
Coloniality, abstraction, understanding, fiction, space, hunhuAbstract
This paper is a meditation on the idea of South-South dialogue, beginning with the South-South Dialogues: Situated Perspectives in Decolonial Epistemologies symposium held at the University of Queensland in 2015. I interrogate the concept of South-South dialogue, apposing it to the Cartesian ‘I think’, and then question the plausibility of the concept. On the basis of a Gadamerian conception of understanding, I suggest that what passes for South-South dialogue is in fact more likely to be North-South or even North-North dialogue. This is buttressed by an examination of Valentin Mudimbe's Parables and Fables. I go on to suggest, however, that by staying within the realm of the concept, in what could be called a Cartesian paradigm, Mudimbe misses the important role that South-South dialogue can play. Drawing on the work of Sara Motta, Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and the concept of hunhu, I claim that the promise of South-South dialogue is the creation of spaces in which humanity is fostered.
Downloads
References
AdichieC. (2007). Half of a yellow sun. London, UK: Harper Perennial.
AndreottiV. (2016a). The difficulties and paradoxes of interrupting colonial totalitarian logicalities. In E. Duarte (Ed.), Philosophy of education 2015 (pp. 284–288). Urbana, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society.
AndreottiV. (2016b). The educational challenges of imagining the world differently. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d’études du Développement, 37(1), 101–112. doi: 10.1080/02255189.2016.1134456
ChalmersG. (2014). The Con-Stitutional Re-Cognition (S)cam-Pain: The campaign for the hidden recognition of first nations peoples’ racial inferiority. Indigenous Law Bulletin, 8(15), 27–30.
ChamoiseauP. (1997). Texaco. trans by Rose-Myriam Réjouis & Val Vinokurov (Eds.). London, UK: Granata Books.
DangarembgaT. (2001). Nervous conditions. London, UK: Women's Press Classic.
DerridaJ. (1978). Writing and difference. trans. by Alan Bass (Ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
DescartesR. (1984). The philosophical writings of descartes: Volume II. trans. by John Nottingham, Robert Stoothoff, & Dugald Murdoch (Eds.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
DusselE. (1996). The underside of modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor, and the philosophy of liberation. trans. by Eduardo Mendieta (Ed.). Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.
FanonF. (2008). Black skin, White masks, trans by Richard Philcox(Ed.). New York, NY: Grove Press.
FrankfurtH. (2008). Demons, dreamers, and madmen: The defense of reason in descartes's meditations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Funkadelic. (2005). Free your mind...and your ass will follow. Southfield, Michigan: Westbound Records.
GadamerH.-G. (2000). Subjectivity and intersubjectivity, subject and person. Continental Philosophy Review, 33(3), 275–287. doi: 10.1023/A:1010086224341.
GadamerH.-G. (2004). Truth and method. trans. by Joel Weinsheimer & Donald Marshall (Eds.). London, New York: Continuum.
GerimaH. (Director & Writer). (1993). Sankofa [DVD]. USA, Ghana, Burkina Faso, UK, Germany: Channel Four Films.
HeymanW., & StronzaA. (2011). South-south exchanges enhance resource management and biodiversity conservation at various scales. Conservation and Society, 9(2), 146–158. doi: 10.4103/0972-4923.83724
KierkegaardS. (1988). Stages on life's way: Studies by various persons. trans. by Howard Hong & Edna Hong (Eds.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
LevinasE. (1969). Totality and infinity. trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Ed.). Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: Duquesne University Press.
Maldonado-TorresN. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3) 240–270. doi:10.1080/09502380601162548
Maldonado-TorresN. (2012). Levinas's hegemonic identity politics, radical philosophy, and the unfinished project of decolonization. Levinas Studies, 7(1), 63–94.
MarecheraD. (1993). The house of hunger. Oxford, UK: Heinemann.
MottaS.C. (2011). Notes towards prefigurative epistemologies. In S. Motta & A. Gunvald Nilsen (Eds.), Social movements in the global south: Dispossession, development and resistance (pp. 178–199). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
MudimbeV. (1991). Parables and fables: Exegesis, textuality, and politics in Central Africa. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
MudimbeV., & de Sousa SantosB. (2014, February 4). Conversation of The World - Valentin Y. Mudimbe and Boaventura de Sousa Santos [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvHFQGMtKlY. Accessed 29 March 2016.
MukandiB. (2015). Chester Himes, Jacques Derrida and inescapable colonialism: Reflections on African philosophy from the diaspora. South African Journal of Philosophy, 34(4), 526–537. doi:10.1080/02580136.2015.1113821
MungwiniP. (2015). Dialogue as the negation of hegemony: An African perspective. South African Journal of Philosophy, 34(4), 395–407. doi:10.1080/02580136.2015.1120136
NakataM. (2007). Disciplining the savages: Savaging the disciplines. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press.
NietzscheF. (2001). The gay science: With a prelude in German rhymes and an appendix of songs. trans, by Josefine Nauckhoff (Ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
RamoseM. (1999). African philosophy through Ubuntu. Harare, Zimbabwe: Mond Books.
(1979). Third world quarterly. 1(2), 117–122. doi: 10.1080/01436597908419428.
SpivakG. (1988). Can the subaltern speak?. In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Education.
SridharanK. (1998). G-15 and South-South cooperation: Promise and performance. Third World Quarterly, 19(3), 357–374. doi: 10.1080/01436599814299.
TaylorC. (2002). Gadamer on the human sciences. In R. Dostal (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gadamer (pp. 126–142). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
WarnkeG. (2002). Hermeneutics, ethics and politics. In R. Dostal (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gadamer (pp. 79–101). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
WarnkeG. (1979). South-South dialogue. Third World Quarterly, 1(2), 117–122. doi: 10.1080/01436597908419428.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 The Author(s)The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education is in the process of transitioning to fully Open Access. Most articles are available as Open Access but some are currently Free Access whereby copyright still applies and if you wish to re-use the article permission will need to be sought from the copyright holder. This article's license terms are outlined at the URL above.