Theorizing Social Justice Ambiguities in an Era of Neoliberalism: The Case of Postapartheid South Africa
Abstract
In this essay, Sharon Subreenduth explores how social justice policies have both global–local and historical dynamics and maintains that, as a result, dominant Western models of social justice limit engagement with alternative modes of understanding social justice in non‐Western locations. She uses the South African experience as a case study for examining the complexities of social justice policy in the context of the decolonizing efforts that undergird national policy in South Africa as it simultaneously negotiates neoliberal globalizing dynamics. The essay specifically analyzes the neoliberal concept of choice and how it figures within the discourse and practice of race and education within society. Moving beyond binaries, Subreenduth highlights the murky areas of social justice and articulates what they tell us about meta‐analysis, narrative, resistance, complicities, infiltration, and the neoliberal il/logic of local–global histories.
Number of times cited: 4
- Stephanie Curley, Jeong-eun Rhee, Binaya Subedi and Sharon Subreenduth, Activism as/in/for Global Citizenship: Putting Un-Learning to Work Towards Educating the Future, The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education, 10.1057/978-1-137-59733-5_37, (589-606), (2018).
- Bongani D. Bantwini and Moeketsi Letseka, South African Teachers Caught Between Nation Building and Global Demands: Is There a Way Out/Forward?, Educational Studies, 52, 4, (329), (2016).
- Nathaniel Mayengo, Jane Namusoke and Barbara Dennis, The testimony of neoliberal contradiction in education choice and privatisation in a poor country: the case of a private, undocumented rural primary school in Uganda, Ethnography and Education, 10, 3, (293), (2015).
- Emma Elliott, A Review of “Therapeutic Nations: Healing in an Age of Indigenous Human Rights”, Educational Studies, 50, 4, (398), (2014).
