HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE NON-HUMAN BLACK BODY

When a black student threw faeces at a statue of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, it sparked the formation of #RhodesMustFall, a black radical student movement that sought to address systemic racism at the white liberal university through its dema...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sur : international journal on human rights 2018-12, Vol.15 (28), p.119-126
Main Author: A. Kayum Ahmed
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
black body
human rights
non-human
rhodesmustfall
social movements
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:When a black student threw faeces at a statue of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, it sparked the formation of #RhodesMustFall, a black radical student movement that sought to address systemic racism at the white liberal university through its demand to decolonize the institution. #RhodesMustFall adopted a decolonial framework centred on Black Consciousness, Pan-Africanism and Black radical feminism, but simultaneously rejected human rights discourses embedded in South Africa’s progressive constitution. This paper examines the arguments developed by #RhodesMustFall in its rejection of human rights, including the idea that human rights is incapable of contemplating the non-human: an entity, often a black body, that takes on human characteristics but is not recognized as human. Drawing on empirical data, including 46 interviews with #RhodesMustFall student activists, this article considers how social movements shape conceptualisations of race in post-apartheid South Africa.
ISSN:1806-6445
1983-3342