Dr Jeff Handmaker and Professor Sindiso Mnisi have published a special issue of the South African Journal on Human Rights on language-related systemic inequalities in South Africa.
The publication is largely published on an Open Access basis.
Each article is written partly in several of South Africa’s indigenous languages, followed by an English-language translation and analysis. The nine contributions publication cover a wide range of contested topics in South Africa's highly pluralistic legal culture, including land, gender and patriarchy, customary marriage, public participation and exploitation of natural resources.
Each of the contributions highlights examples of systemic inequalities that provide a critical sounding board for further exploring the potential for learning how South Africa’s constitutional legal order needs to more explicitly take into account a grounded and rehumanized understanding of justice and rights.
Explaining their justification in pursuing this innovative and ambitious project, they quote Professor Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí:
'studies that are based on particular cultural groups are essentially exercises in translation at different levels: translation from oral to written; translation from one culture to another; and finally, translation from one language to another.
'Each category—written, oral, culture, language—is permeated with all sorts of unstated assumptions, and each move is fraught with potentials for missteps. Language is crucial […] All researchers, regardless of discipline, are translators in one way or another, and this must be borne in mind in the practice of research.'
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- Crisis, Politics and Law Academic Team