Aletta J. Norval

Memory, Identity and the (Im)possibility of Reconciliation: The Work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa

APARTHEID – . . . May it thus remain, but may a day come when it will only be for the memory of man. A memory in advance. . . very close to silence, and the rear-view vision of a future for which apartheid will be the name of something abolished. Confined and abandoned to this silence of memory, the name will resonate all by itself. . . . The thing it names today will no longer be. Jacques Derrida Without the truth, there can be no reconciliation. G. Werle

Hegemony after deconstruction: the consequences of undecidability

Hegemonic decisions institute and shape the ideological terrain in which politics occurs; different forms of decision will structure the terrain in different ways. This article explores the decisions inaugurating specifically democratic forms of hegemony. It analyses this question by investigating the conditions under which such decisions emerge. Its starting‐point is Laclaus account of hegemony as a decision taken in an undecidable terrain. However, by utilizing a morphological approach, I argue that undecidability cannot be understood and its consequences for politico‐ideological analysis cannot be developed to the full, unless the other terms giving sense to undecidability are taken seriously. In particular, I give attention to Derridas account of responsibility and democracy‐to‐come, linked to a very specific understanding of the subject and the decision. I argue that once we understand undecidability in this context, it can no longer be regarded as a mere propadeutic to hegemony per se. Rather, it contains important insights into the institution of democratic political orders.

Democratic Identification A Wittgensteinian Approach

This article explores the formation of democratic subjectivity and its connection to change. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s account of aspect seeing, it seeks to elucidate the processes through which political grammars change. More specifically, it illuminates two dimensions of the formation of democratic political subjectivity: the initial “identification as” a democratic subject and its repeated renewal, necessary to the maintenance of a democratic ethos. I argue that by drawing a distinction between “aspect dawning” and “aspect change,” it is possible to capture the key characteristics of these two dimensions. This account is developed in contrast to existing democratic theory, which either does not deal sufficiently with the formation of subjectivity or does not give full attention to the specific requirements of the formation of democratic forms of identification.

“Writing a Name in the Sky”: Rancière, Cavell, and the Possibility of Egalitarian Inscription

Democratic theory is often portrayed as torn between two moments: that of disruption of rule, and the ordinary, ongoing institutionalization of politics. This dualism also marks contemporary democratic theory. In Jacques Rancières theory of politics it takes the form of an emphasis on the ruptural qualities of the staging of novel democratic demands and the reconfiguration of the space of political argument. The reconfiguration of existing political imaginaries depends upon a moment of inscription, which remains underdeveloped in Rancières work. Arguing that the possibility of inscription is indeed thematized in Rancières more historical writings, but is often ignored by commentators, this article seeks to draw out the implications of a focus on inscription for democratic theory and practice. To flesh out this account, the article draws on Cavells writings on exemplarity and the role of exemplars in fostering both critical reflection and the imagination of alternatives. The focus on such exemplars and an aversive, nonconformist ethos together facilitate a better understanding of what is required for such novel demands to be acknowledged and inscribed into democratic life.

Democracy, pluralization, and voice

This article explores different theoretical and political dimensions of voice in democratic theory. Drawing on recent developments in political theory, ranging form James Bohmans work on the movement from demos to demoi in transnational politics, to William Connollys writings on pluralization, it develops a critical account of the emphasis within conventional pluralism on the representation of extant identities. Instead, it foregrounds the need to engage with emerging identities, demands, and claims that fall outside the parameters of dominant discursive orders. Building on the works of Rancière and Cavell, it highlights the importance of an analytical engagement with the emergence and articulation of new struggles and voices—the processes through which inchoate demands are given political expression—so as to counter the ongoing possibilities of domination, understood here as a ‘deprivation of voice.’ The article develops an account of the centrality of the category of responsiveness to such claims and demands for democratic theory, especially in relation to a range of democratic struggles in our contemporary world. In so doing, it contributes to a growing body of work that questions the taken for granted character and status of the institutional forms of liberal democaracy.

‘No reconciliation without redress’: articulating political demands in post-transitional South Africa

This article investigates the articulation of political demands by Khulumani, a South African a victim support group. The analysis of their demands is situated in the context of their response to the shortcomings of the TRC and the failures of the South African government to live up to their promises and commitments on reparation for victims of gross human rights abuses under apartheid. The article draws on a post-structuralist approach to discourse analysis, in particular on the work of Laclau and Rancière, to analyse the processes through which demands appear on the political stage and are articulated in response to other political projects. Concretely it traces out the change from a discourse of ‘reconciliation’ to one of ‘redress’, showing how the latter opens up a new horizon of political imagination and action.

Reinventing the Politics of Cultural Recognition: The Freedom Front and the Demand for a Volkstaat

The Freedom Front (FF), the only ‘far right’ party to take part in the 1994 election and achieve parliamentary representation, occupies a politically significant position in contemporary South African politics.2 While for most commentators it is merely an unpleasant relic of the apartheid era, I will argue in this chapter that their discourse raises a series of important questions which stand at the heart of contemporary theoretical and political debate on cultural diversity and recognition, and on the constitutional forms in which they may be exercised.

Moral perfectionism and democratic responsiveness: reading Cavell with Foucault

Starting from existing interpretations of Cavells account of moral perfectionism, this article seeks to elaborate an account of democratic responsiveness that foregrounds notions of ‘turning’ and ‘manifesting for another’. In contrast to readings of Cavell that privilege reason-giving, the article draws on the writings of Cavell as well as on Foucaults work on parrēsia to elaborate a grammar of responsiveness that is attentive to a wider range of practices, forms of embodiment and modes of subjectivity. The article suggests that a focus on the notions of ‘turning’ and ‘manifesting for another’ is crucial if we are to account for the processes through which political imagination is opened up so as to bring about novel ways of being and acting. The arguments are illustrated with reference to recent events in the Arab Spring as well as to the politics of redress in a post-transitional social movement, Khulumani.

Public faces? A critical exploration of the diffusion of face recognition technologies in online social networks

In recent years, we have witnessed a rapid spread of biometric technologies from the security domain to commercial and social media applications. In this article, we critically explore the repercussions of this diffusion of face recognition to everyday contexts with an in-depth analysis of Facebook’s “tag suggestions” tool which first introduced the technology to on-line social networks. We use Nissenbaum’s framework of contextual integrity to show how the informational norms associated with biometrics in security and policing - their contexts of emergence - are grafted on-line social networks onto their context of iteration. Our analysis reveals a process that has inadvertently influenced the way users understand face recognition, precluding critical questioning of its wider use. It provides an important deepening of contextually-driven approaches to privacy by showing the process through which contexts are co-constitutive of informational norms. Citizens are also offered a critical tool for understanding the trajectory of biometrics and reflect on the data practices associated with the use of face recognition in social media and society at large.

Introduction: Changing Paradigms and the Politics of Transition in South Africa

There is a past to be learned about, but the past is now seen, and it has to be grasped as a history, as something that has to be told. It is narrated. It is grasped through desire. It is grasped through reconstruction. It is not just a fact that has been waiting to ground our identities.1