Overview

‘Moral Eyes is based on interviews with university students in four African countries: Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Each country exemplifies a distinctive axis of discrimination and privilege—religion, language, ethnicity, and race—though with a good deal of intersectional overlap. The authors use the interviews to theorise about deep issues of injustice, history, and restitution. Through an emphasis on the historical dimension of contemporary injustice, they insightfully expand the familiar moral framework of victim-perpetrator-bystander to include ‘inheritors of unjust benefit’ and ‘resisters’. They also reveal significant differences in how historical memory plays out in these four countries. Global North readers, of whom I hope there will be many, will derive great illumination from seeing familiar issues of social justice discussed in a wholly African context, including a diversity unlikely to be familiar to these readers. Moral Eyes is a wonderful book and an excellent contribution to the literature on moral education, social justice, and the moral character of transitions to a more just society.’ –Lawrence Blum, Professor of Philosophy, Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Author of High Schools, Race, and America’s Future: What Students Can Teach Us About Morality, Diversity, and Community

Full Product Details

Author:   Sharlene Swartz ,  Anye Nyamnjoh ,  Emma Arogundade ,  Jessica Breakey
Publisher:   HSRC Press
Imprint:   HSRC Press
ISBN:  

9780796925114

ISBN 10:   0796925119
Pages:   176
Publication Date:   01 March 2018
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Foreword Acknowledgements Abbreviations Note on race terminology Chapter 1 Studying privilege and injustice: Why, how and from whose perspective Introduction Who conducted the research and where Conceptual theories we draw on Whose understandings of injustice we retell, and how Limitations of our study Structure of the book Part I Histories Of Injustice Chapter 2 Race in South Africa: The unravelling rainbow Introduction South Africa’s Apartheid history The rise in critical consciousness among young South Africans Contemporary moments Conclusion Chapter 3 Language and ‘the Anglophone Problem’ in Cameroon: A loveless marriage Hope and despair in Cameroon Other identity-based privileges Language and Anglophone marginalisation: Historical background Conclusion Chapter 4 Ethnic conflict in Sierra Leone: A terrifying silence Introduction Historical background to ethno-politicisation What has been done so far? Other issues in Sierra Leone Conclusion Chapter 5 Interrelated fault lines of religion, ethno-politics and language in Nigeria: Divided by rule Introduction A history of conflict and injustice Context and issues through the participants’ eyes Other issues in Nigeria Hope Conclusion Part II Restitution Chapter 6 How is speaking of restitution helpful? Introduction Thinking about restitution Participants define restitution The actions Obstacles and impediments What does it all mean? Chapter 7 Locating selves and the past in the present Introduction The past in the present Participants positioning of themselves through labels Conclusion Chapter 8: The moral role of victims Introduction Who are the victims? Commonalities The moral role of victims in bringing about justice Conclusion Chapter 9 Tracing spider webs: The role of privilege in injustice Introduction What is privilege? The blinding power of privilege: Failure of individual responsibility Radical reflexivity and consciousness in action Conclusion Chapter 10 Ostriches: Knowing but failing to act Introduction Knowledge and action Revisiting the duty of rescue Bridging the knowledge–action gap: ‘Everyday acts’ Examples of everyday action Conclusion Part III A Theory Of Change Chapter 11 How change happens: Seeing and acting Introduction Ways of seeing Theory of action: The centrality of personhood Seeing and acting: The Swartz pentangle Dialogue that links knowledge and action Conclusion Chapter 12: The possibility of emancipatory narrative research Introduction Research as intervention in Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Nigeria Research as intervention in South Africa Conclusion and recommendations Appendices Appendix 1 Characteristics of participants Appendix 2 Information sheet and consent form Appendix 3 Research instruments for each country Reference list Author Biographies Index

Reviews

Author Information

Sharlene Swartz is South African, a deputy executive director at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa, an honorary professor of philosophy at the University of Fort Hare, and an adjunct associate professor of sociology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She holds undergraduate degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Zululand, a master's degree from Harvard University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her areas of expertise are the just inclusion of young people in a transforming society and the interpersonal and communal notions of restitution. Her current research follows these focal points. Her work is characterised by a focus on Southern theory, emancipatory methodologies and critical race theory. Sharlene has authored nine books, including Another Country: Everyday Social Restitution (2016); Ikasi: The Moral Ecology of South Africa’s Township Youth (2009); Teenage Tata: Voices of Young South African Fathers (2009); Youth Citizenship and the Politics of Belonging (2013); and Studying While Black: Race, Education and Emancipation in South African Universities (2018). Anye Nyamnjoh is Cameroonian; he works at the HSRC as a researcher. Previously he lectured part-time in the Department of Political Studies and Philosophy at UCT. He taught on the politics of Africa and the Global South and on business ethics. He holds an undergraduate and a master’s degree from UCT. His expertise is social and political philosophy; his current research focuses on social attitudes and restitution, interrogating South African attitudes towards social transformation. Anye has co-authored two journal articles on these topics, soon to be published. He also wrote a journal article called ‘The phenomenology of Rhodes Must Fall: Student activism and the experience of alienation at the University of Cape Town’, which was published in Strategic Review for Southern Africa (2017). His doctoral study will engage with youth movements and decoloniality in South Africa. Emma Arogundade is South African by birth. However, she is connected to Nigeria by marriage and motherhood. She is a PhD candidate in the sociology department at UCT, where she is exploring issues of morality, racialised identity and restitution in South Africa. She holds an MPhil in critical diversity studies from UCT. Emma has lectured extensively on diversity, race, class and gender, and in community development, at UCT and at the School for International Training. She assisted with editing three volumes of the Celebrating Africa series at UCT and has co-authored two journal articles and two book chapters. Her work centres on identities, feminisms and narrative theory. She uses these frameworks to explore issues such as community development, motherhood and moral identities, as well as the more complex intersection of privilege, oppression and forms of resistance. Jessica Breakey is South African and a MPhil student in the sociology department at the University of Cambridge. She completed her MA by dissertation at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. That study focused on the symbolic, theoretical and physical manifestations of fire in the 2015–2016 South African student movements. She holds a BA Hons in African Studies and a BA, both from UCT. Jessica has received several scholarships: she is a Mandela, Rhodes, Oppenheimer and Chevening Scholar, who strives to be a passionate and relevant intellectual. She hopes, above all else, that she will one day see a South Africa that is fair and good. Her contribution to this book is her first published work. Abioseh Bockarie is a Sierra Leonean who is currently a German Academic Exchange (DAAD) scholar. She is preparing to engage in PhD research in development studies at the South African–German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Ruhr University, Bochum. She holds a master’s degree in development studies from UWC and an undergraduate degree from UCT. Her expertise and current research involve assessing the structural issues that limit the economic capabilities of women living in South Africa's informal settlements.

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