Browsing by Author "Du Toit, Louise"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Human rights discourse : friend or foe of African women’s sexual freedoms?
    (SUN MeDIA Bloemfontein, 2014-12) Du Toit, Louise
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: From an overview of the current state of the global debate on human rights, the need to strike a balance between the transcendent and immanent dimensions of such rights claims is distilled as an important guideline. The implications of such a balance are spelled out in a list of seven principles that should guide the activation of human rights claims in any context. In the second section of the article this general framework is brought to bear on the serious issue of sexual violence against women in the South African postcolony. I argue that at least one of the reasons for the fundamental un-freedom of women in contemporary South Africa is the clash between two dominant, but opposing frameworks that tend to quash the radical potential that a claim to the fundamental right to bodily integrity holds for women. Strategically, it is vitally important that human rights activism be used to bolster this cause in the South African context. This should, however, be done very consciously and explicitly with the various dangers for perversion and co-optation, as spelled out in this article, firmly in mind. Ideally, feminist thinkers and activists should forge solidarity around a critical, transcendent claim to bodily bolstered integrity as strongly as possible by indigenous traditions of women’s resistance to oppression and exploitation. Such a claim should be mobilised for an internal critique of the master narrative of South African liberation. Such a stance will resist and refuse both dominant frameworks that collaborate – despite their overt mutual opposition – to portray African tradition and identity as irredeemably patriarchal.
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    "Die pot kook oral" : NP van Wyk Louw, Johannes Degenaar en Afrikaanse dekolonisering
    (Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, 2020) Du Toit, Louise
    Die hoofdoel van hierdie artikel is om moontlike dekoloniale momente in NP van Wyk Louw se denke na te speur. In die eerste plek gee ek 'n kort oorsig oor die kritiese gesprek tussen Louw en Johan Degenaar, met die vraagstuk rakende die "voortbestaan" van 'n "volk" as die vernaamste fokuspunt. Ek oorweeg veral Degenaar se kritiek op Louw se nasionalistiese politieke raamwerk en die redes vir sy kritiek. Teenoor "volksnasionalisme" en ander vorme van nasionalisme as raamwerk vir politiek in Suid-Afrika stel Degenaar 'n pluralistiese model voor. In die tweede deel van die opstel, in reaksie op Degenaar se vernaamste kritiek teen Louw, probeer ek vasstel tot watter mate 'n mens Louw kan interpreteer as 'n dekoloniale denker. Weens die dramatiese omwentelinge in die "Afrikaanse volk" se politieke lot oor die loop van die twintigste eeu, staan Louw op 'n sekere manier nader aan "ons" (Afrikaanssprekendes in Suid-Afrika in 2020) as Degenaar. In hierdie gedeelte vra ek hoe ons die dekoloniale momente in Louw se denke kan herwin ter wille van die hedendaagse besinning, sonder om die apartheidsgeskiedenis te ontken. In die proses moet ons die blindekolle van Louw en van Afrikanernasionalisme deeglik verreken, maar, stel ek voor, ook soek vir produktiewe aanknopingspunte tussen Louw as proto-dekoloniale denker en die hedendaagse dekolonisasie-debatte.
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    When bodies speak differently : putting Judith Butler in conversation with Mahatma Gandhi on nonviolent resistance
    (MDPI, 2021) Du Toit, Louise; Vosloo, Jana
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This article puts political philosopher Judith Butler in conversation with Gandhi, on the topic of nonviolent resistance. More particularly, we compare them on a systematic philosophical level. Although we focus on Gandhi’s more activist side, by delving into the ontological presuppositions that Butler and Gandhi share, we can do some justice to how his activism is firmly rooted in a faith-based understanding of the world. We discuss four themes in each of which they complement each other: namely, the ontological roots of the nonviolent imperative; their rejection of an instrumental view of violence; nonviolent resistance seen as communicative action; and nonviolence viewed as a way of life. This discussion shows that while they have very different starting points and vocabularies, and while some tensions remain, there is much scope for cooperation, solidarity and alliance between religious and nonreligious practitioners of nonviolent resistance.
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    "When everything starts to flow" : Nkrumah and Irigaray in search of emancipatory ontologies
    (South African Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities, 2015) Du Toit, Louise
    A more explicit, comprehensive and sustained dialogue between the African philosophical and western feminist traditions would yield insights at once rich and useful to both traditions, and beyond. Here, I place the work of Belgian philosopher Luce Irigaray in discussion with Ghanaian Kwame Nkrumah's conception of ‘consciencism’. What they most saliently share is an understanding of how the dichotomies central to traditional western philosophy (mind-body and idealism-materialism) have been key in the structural exclusion and oppression of the ‘others’ of this dominant tradition. Both are convinced that western metaphysics serve ideological purposes and help to perpetuate relations of domination. Both struggle with the question of how to effectively resist this specific violence of the western philosophical tradition without repeating its logic. Most importantly for the current analysis, in their search for sources for resistance and emancipation, Nkrumah and Irigaray do not remain with diagnoses; instead both assume or construct a fluid ontology outside or a beyond this dominant symbolic order.