Reimagining Justice, Human Rights and Leadership in Africa: Challenging Discourse and Searching for Alternative Paths (Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development)

Failed attempts in Africa to develop, democratise and instil virtues of a just state and society which promote benevolent leadership and advance political and economic rights and freedoms call for a ‘new’ imagination. By exploring a wide range of issues concerning justice, human rights and leadership, this book makes two major contributions to the extant literature in each of these areas. Firstly, as a project in decoloniality, it constitutes an ‘epistemic break’ from mainstream logics and approaches to understanding state, society and development in Africa, presenting an approach that is filtered through a Euro-American lens that reifies the hegemony of a particular spatio-temporality.  In other words, it emphasises the importance of situatedness by thinking from rather than about or with Africa. And secondly, it addresses a fundamental shortcoming in decolonial thought, which is often criticised for rejecting western paradigms of thought without providing viable alternatives.

Everisto Benyera is an Associate Professor of African Politics in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. He is a decolonial reader and holds an MSc in International Relations from the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD in African Politics from the University of South Africa. He researches on transitology and transitional justice focusing on indigenous, traditional and non-state reconciliation, peacebuilding and healing mechanisms. He is the editor of the journal Politeia, Journal of Political Sciences and Public Administration and Management and his publications are accessible via:  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2706-9097.