Social Justice through Decoloniality in the Anthropocene

Monday, 7 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: FSE010 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC10 Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management (host committee)

Language: English

Societal concerns such as epistemic justice, environmental justice, legal justice, transitional justice, land justice, water justice, interspecies justice, racial justice, ethnic justice, and gender justice, in the Global South in particular, have all been reshaped and re-engendered by colonialism over the past four centuries. Some have asserted that this time period coincides with the Anthropocene. The legacy of colonialism is being experienced in the daily lives and beliefs of people, in the political, religious, legal, and educational spheres of social life in countries that have experienced political decolonisation; but in which there continues to exist an all-pervasive coloniality. Coloniality occurs not just in formerly colonised spaces but in those spaces subdued by Euro-American ideological and cultural domination.

Questions to be addressed in this session relate to, but are not limited to, the following:

How does coloniality and decoloniality relate to questions of participation, organisational democracy, and Self-management?

How does the current ‘world order’ contribute to or impede progress toward the civilised quest for Social Justice in an era of extractvism and exceptionalism?

How do we understand the role of civil society, social movements, trade unions, academics and others in the struggle for progressive transformation?

Session Organizers:
Dasarath CHETTY, Durban University of Technology, South Africa and Simangele CELE, University of Zululand, South Africa
Oral Presentations
The Burden of Labour in Emerging Student Habitations and Decolonial Options of Life
Pedro MZILENI MIHLALI, University of Zululand, South Africa, South Africa
The Lived Experiences of Women at Umlalazi Nature Reserve on Incema Grass Harvesting: A Decolonial Perspective
Joy MDINISO, South Africa; Simangele CELE, University of Zululand, South Africa
South Africa’s BELA Debate: Achieving Social Justice and Overcoming Coloniality (or not) in the Basic Education System
Louise HAGEMEIER, South Africa
Decoloniality, Participation, Organisational Democracy and Self-Management
Dasarath CHETTY, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
A Life of Its Own: Authority, Power and the Looting Crowd of 9-16 July 2021 in Kwazulu-Natal (and Gauteng), South Africa.
Paul Finlay STEWART, University of Zululand, South Africa
South Africa’s Social Entrepreneurship: Reflections on Its Decolonial Potential
Neo MOFOKENG, University of Zululand, South Africa
See more of: RC10 Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management
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