Paper bridges: a critical examination of the Daily Dispatch's ‘community dialogues’
- Authors: Amner, Roderick J
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142645 , vital:38098 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02560054.2011.545564
- Description: A series of town-hall-like meetings called the ‘community dialogues’ were conducted in 2009 by the Daily Dispatch newspaper in East London, under the banner of public/civic journalism, a global journalistic reform movement begun in the United States in the late 1980s. the editorial leadership of the newspaper imagined a number of core journalistic and civic purposes for the dialogues and succeeded in achieving some of these. However, the newspaper's claim that the dialogues could help to build ‘horizontal bridges’ between diverse communities in East London is critically examined through the example of two community dialogues which took place in neighbouring locations - the predominantly white, middle-class suburb of Beacon Bay, and the informal African settlement of Nompumelelo - on consecutive days in 2009. This article argues that social inequalities, particularly acute in the South African context, may preclude the emergence of a shared vision of the common good, and that joint deliberation between diverse social groups in the pursuit of consensus may not be realistic or even an appropriate goal, especially if it means ratifying an unjust status quo.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Amner, Roderick J
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142645 , vital:38098 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02560054.2011.545564
- Description: A series of town-hall-like meetings called the ‘community dialogues’ were conducted in 2009 by the Daily Dispatch newspaper in East London, under the banner of public/civic journalism, a global journalistic reform movement begun in the United States in the late 1980s. the editorial leadership of the newspaper imagined a number of core journalistic and civic purposes for the dialogues and succeeded in achieving some of these. However, the newspaper's claim that the dialogues could help to build ‘horizontal bridges’ between diverse communities in East London is critically examined through the example of two community dialogues which took place in neighbouring locations - the predominantly white, middle-class suburb of Beacon Bay, and the informal African settlement of Nompumelelo - on consecutive days in 2009. This article argues that social inequalities, particularly acute in the South African context, may preclude the emergence of a shared vision of the common good, and that joint deliberation between diverse social groups in the pursuit of consensus may not be realistic or even an appropriate goal, especially if it means ratifying an unjust status quo.
- Full Text:
Putting old wine in new skins: the customary code of Lerotholi and justice administration in Lesotho
- Authors: Juma, Laurence
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/128780 , vital:36156 , https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844294.007
- Description: Although the interaction between the western colonizers and the African indigenous populations in the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced responses that were mostly inimical to the development of African customary law, the thrust of the onslaught against its principles was somewhat diminished by political considerations. Undoubtedly, the significance that African customary law acquired during this period was a measure of the purpose that the colonial project found in it.
- Full Text: false
Putting old wine in new skins: the customary code of Lerotholi and justice administration in Lesotho
- Authors: Juma, Laurence
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/128780 , vital:36156 , https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844294.007
- Description: Although the interaction between the western colonizers and the African indigenous populations in the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced responses that were mostly inimical to the development of African customary law, the thrust of the onslaught against its principles was somewhat diminished by political considerations. Undoubtedly, the significance that African customary law acquired during this period was a measure of the purpose that the colonial project found in it.
- Full Text: false
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