Acta Academica is an academic journal dedicated to scholarship in the humanities. The journal publishes scholarly articles that examine society, culture and politics past and present from a critical social theory perspective. The journal is also interested on scholarly work that examines how the humanities in the 21st century are responding to the double imperative of theorising the world and changing it. The journal appears four times a year and two of its issues are thematically focused. The journal is published in English.

Acta Academica is an academic journal focused on the humanities. It publishes scholarly articles that critically examine society, culture, and politics, both past and present, from a social theory perspective. The journal is also interested in research that explores how the humanities in the 21st century are addressing the dual imperative of theorizing the world and changing it. Acta Academica is published quarterly, with two of its issues thematically focused. The journal is published in English.

《Acta Academica》是一本专注于人文学科的学术期刊。该期刊发表的学术文章从批判社会理论的视角审视过去和现在的社会、文化和政治。期刊还关注21世纪人文学科如何应对理论化世界与改变世界的双重任务的学术研究。该期刊每年出版四期，其中两期为主题专刊。期刊以英语出版。

Acta Academica

While the literature on xenophobia views the phenomenon as a major challenge to the regional integration of Africa, the key nuances about how xenophobia affects regional integration, and how that could be tackled, have not been adequately captured. Addressing this knowledge gap, we examine the scholarly constructs surrounding citizenship and economic participation, as enablers of xenophobia and demonstrate how the state is called into these negotiations, and how that affects regional and continental integration. Methodologically, this paper adopts a thematic qualitative approach relying on relevant literature and theories from history, political science, migration studies, peace and conflict, international relations, sociology, and development studies. The analysis offers a three- pronged argument that xenophobia (i) generates new discourses of ‘othering’ or belonging, (ii) promotes perceptions of betrayal and retaliation in foreign policy framing or ad-hoc actions and/or attacks on non-nationals, and (iii) redefines rights of occupancy or territorial belonging. The analysis of these dynamics offers valuable knowledge on security, development, and regional integration of Africa from in-country ‘xenophobia studies’ to both in-country and continental/regional level understanding of xenophobia.

Sebastian Paalo

Samuel Adu-Gyamfi

Dominic Degraft Arthur

Acta Academica Critical views on society culture and politics

Xenophobia and the challenge of regional integration in Africa: understanding three cardinal dynamics

非洲的仇外心理与区域一体化的挑战：理解三大核心动态

The article analyses xenophobic narratives on Twitter in South Africa and Zimbabwe during the Covid-19 pandemic from March 2020 to July 2021. The study uncovers the politics of representation through discourse analysis of purposively sampled tweets. The article argues that xenophobic views perpetuated on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic period had the potential to influence negative attitudes towards Zimbabwean and other immigrants in South Africa. I show that Twitter was used as a platform to disseminate negative representations of Zimbabwean and other immigrants in South Africa. Political leaders on both sides of the border also utilised these representations to maintain their power. On the other hand Twitter played a critical part in mending the rift between Zimbabwean immigrants and some South Africans as it opened up communication between mainstream culture and other cultures. Regardless of this, social media platforms such as Twitter must be monitored and researched to understand the dynamics of representation of others, registering the need to respect and honour the constitutionally recognised freedom of expression.

Elizabeth Hove

Twitter and the politics of representation in South Africa and Zimbabwe’s xenophobic narratives during the covid-19 pandemic

推特与南非和津巴布韦在新冠疫情期间排外叙事的代表性政治

The African fictive landscape has been occupied with the subject of self-Other boundary in the context of xenophobia, geopolitics, racist tradition and migration, yet the topic has remained topical. Too often the term xenophobia has been used to mean the hatred of a stranger or foreigner, ignoring or under-estimating other opaque dynamics of xenophobia which could serve us in very important ways. The main contention of this study is that the definition of xenophobia in Africa should be expanded to mean the fear of difference whether one is white or black, national or non-national. This is meant to stir conversations that revisit the troubled terrain of self-Other boundaries in the context of nuanced forms of exclusionary practices in the postcolonial era. The study taps into literary writings which provide complex fictive cultural avenues to construct depth analyses of binary logics and the complexity of becoming in contemporary times. The study is located within the terrain of decolonial theorisations with the aim to enrich reflections on intricate mechanisms of exclusions that arise from the fear of difference and counter strategies that interject exclusionary discourses.

Esther Mavengano

Rethinking the boundaries of self-Other and the logics of de/coloniality in Harare North and One Foreigner’s Ordeal: a decolonial perspective

重新思考自我-他者边界与去/殖民逻辑：《哈拉雷北》和《一个外国人的磨难》的去殖民视角

The continuing rise of right-wing populisms and fascism across the globe, mobilised by various factors such as the use of social technologies and the weaponisation of nationalism, xenophobia, sexism and racism – to name a few – provokes important questions in terms of resistance. Moreover, given that the lines between the new populisms and fascism are becoming increasingly nebulous, it is imperative that we at least attempt to better understand the conditions – including the more hauntological, which is to say historically and structurally invisibilised – from which algorithmic governmentality and its corollary, recursive conduct, are born. On that account, I unpack two understandings of fascism, first tracing it macropolitically through the work of Hannah Arendt and, thereafter, looking at its more micropolitical and libidinal aspects vis-à-vis the work of Deleuze and Guattari. I do so because it is my contention that there is a historical correlation between Arendt’s theorisation of a generalised espionage and our contemporary surveillance systems, as well as between Deleuze and Guattari’s theorisation of desire and the harnessing of affect through machine learning methods and their deployment via social media platforms, all of which aid the propagation of certain forms of populism – and even fascism. This is what I call algopopulism: algorithmically aided politics that transforms the ‘we’ into the ‘they’ through what can be thought of as recursive conduct or the digital exercise of power and its structuring of the field of possible action and thought. In turn, I link this to Stiegler’s understanding of negative sublimation, a paralysis of the human spirit which occurs due to, among other things, the generalised proletarianisation of knowledge, ultimately provoking the short-circuiting of processes of transindividuation. Finally, I offer some notes on resistance.

Chantelle Gray

Algopopulism and recursive conduct: grappling with fascism and the new populisms vis-à-vis Arendt, Deleuze and Guattari, and Stiegler

算法民粹主义与递归行为：通过阿伦特、德勒兹与瓜塔里、斯蒂格勒的视角应对法西斯主义与新兴民粹主义

Traditionalism’s most influential contemporary revival, Dugin’s Eurasianism, is routinely characterised as being of the radical Right. The Decoloniality theory of Quijano, Mignolo and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, on the other hand, with its intellectual roots in Marxist dependency theory, presents itself as on the progressive Left. Yet, despite their different intellectual genealogies and drastically different reputations, both theoretical approaches have converged on a position with troubling practical consequences: epistemic ethnonationalism, the doctrine that which beliefs one should adopt and which concepts one should employ are determined by which ethnos/ethnie one belongs to. Both approaches deplore acceptance of Western beliefs and employment of Western concepts outside the West, both turn to existential phenomenology to ground their ethnorelativism, and both have influenced contemporary politics. I assess the theoretical underpinnings of both approaches, and argue that if neo-Traditionalism is to be classified as a Rightist body of thought, then Decoloniality theory ought also to be.

George Hull

Epistemic ethnonationalism: identity policing in neo-Traditionalism and Decoloniality theory

认知民族民族主义：新传统主义与解殖理论中的身份管控

In this paper, I reclaim Bernstein’s pedagogic device to think through and theorise higher education transformation and decolonisation in the global South. I am especially persuaded by Bernstein’s work on the pedagogic device and the endless possibilities it provides in re-thinking the public university and what it could be. Using South Africa as a case study, I focus on the decolonial calls sparked by the #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall protests in 2015/2016 around the need to critique, evaluate and dismantle the neoliberal university in South Africa. I suggest that Bernstein’s ideas of the field of production, the field of recontextualisation as well as the field of reproduction offer an intersectional, and dialectically useful, lens in making epistemic, ontological and methodological intervention(s) in transforming the university in South Africa. I end the paper with some concluding remarks on the discursive usefulness of Bernstein’s work in transforming the public university in the global South.

Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo

A decolonial reading of Bernstein’s sociology of education in transforming the university in South Africa

南非大学转型中的伯恩斯坦教育社会学去殖民化解读

In many ways transitional justice is a battle of narratives. Both at the conception and implementation stages, it is contested in part by different meanings of what justice is, how harm is understood, and who the victim and perpetrator are. All these determine the trajectory the processes will take. How we reach deeper understanding about these battles and their implications is a result of our choice of research methodology. In this article, I reflect on the use of narrative as a philosophy of understanding the world, as a data source, a lens, and a method of investigation in relation to understanding the trajectory of transitional justice in Zimbabwe between 2000-2013. While the findings of the research have been presented in other outputs, this article gives insight into the research methodology. It argues that using narratives of violence as a gateway to transitional justice research is key to understanding the nuances that determine the trajectories transitional justice processes may take in any context.

Chenai Matshaka

Narratives as a gateway to transitional justice

叙事作为过渡正义的门户

Acta Academica is an accredited, open access South African journal dedicated to scholarship in the humanities. The journal publishes independently refereed research articles in the humanities. It promotes the perspectives of critical social theory and engagements with postcolonial and post-developmental debates with special references to (Southern) Africa. The journal is thereby in support of scholarly work that examines how the humanities in the twenty-first century respond to the double imperative of theorising the world and changing it. The journal appears twice a year and is published in English. Acta Academica charges no submission and article processing fees.

Pierre De Vos

Jaco Barnard-Naudé

Spectres of reparation in South Africa: an interview with Jaco Barnard-Naudé

南非的修复幽灵：与雅科·巴纳德-诺德的访谈

Francis B. Nyamnjoh

Incompleteness as a framework for convivial scholarship and practice in healing

不完整性作为疗愈中友好学术与实践的框架

When approaching the climate crisis, there appears to be a universal tendency towards philosophical suicide. When faced with the sheer scale of the problem at hand, falling for the façade of easy solutions seems to be an expected response. However, this tendency towards philosophical suicide may complicate the fight against the climate crisis by drawing attention away from the problem at hand. To approach this problem, the overarching purpose of this article is to determine how the change in the philosophical approach to the absurd may assist in framing the fight against climate change. During the investigation into this problem, it was found that philosophical suicide is a real problem that may be chosen when easy solutions are offered for a problem that sufficiently threatens the individual’s state of existence. Furthermore, this philosophical suicide threatens the fight against climate change due to it leading individuals to believe lies perpetrated through strategies like greenwashing. This is of crucial importance since philosophical suicide threatens the fight against the climate crisis by not allowing individuals to consciously approach the problem. However, there does appear to be some hope. If the newer generations are sufficiently educated on the topic, there may be a chance that philosophical suicide, as well as the prevailing sense of dread that appears to be rampant in the younger generations, can be countered. In this way, educating individuals may enable them to consciously approach the absurdity of the climate crisis and, in doing so, revolt against it.

ISSN	0587-2405, 2415-0479
h-index	13

Publication Information	Publisher: Sun Media Corporation，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: Yes
Basic data	Year of publication: 2009，Proportion of original research papers: 0.00%，Self Citation Rate:N.A.， Gold OA Rate: 0.00%
Average review cycle	网友分享经验：24 Weeks

Acta Academica

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