Papers by Karin Van Marle
Obiter, Sep 5, 2022
In this article I tentatively consider the notion of gender mainstreaming from an ethical feminis... more In this article I tentatively consider the notion of gender mainstreaming from an ethical feminist perspective. Underlying this is a tension, or paradox, between law"s limits and law"s potential, law"s poetry, poetry"s law. A few theoretical arguments come into play. Firstly, the multiple meanings of sex and gender are reconsidered. Thereafter feminist critiques against the notion of one feminist method as well as a feminist jurisprudence are combined with a critical perspective on the institutionalisation of human rights and the politics of law. I recall these arguments to inform my investigation into gender mainstreaming. Two aspects are considered: firstly, in light of the critical perspectives, the preference for gender mainstreaming instead of challenging from the margins; and secondly, how mainstream ing actually takes place. Relying on the notion of ethical feminism and concepts of "asymmetrical reciprocity", "city life", the "imaginary domain" and the "community of the ought to be", I ponder ways of making gender issues noticed beyond and within attempts at mainstreaming.
Acta academica, 2022
Reflections on The Good Ancestor 'There are many suns … each day has its own. Some are small, som... more Reflections on The Good Ancestor 'There are many suns … each day has its own. Some are small, some are big. I'm named after the small ones.' (Mda 2015: 23
Decolonising the Neoliberal University, 2021
Space and Culture, 2022
In this article, I reflect on the idea of university spaces as potential sites of conscience. I e... more In this article, I reflect on the idea of university spaces as potential sites of conscience. I explore how these spaces act not only as continuous reminders of past violence, marginalization, and exclusion, but as reminders also of ethical accountability and redress. The latter discloses opportunities and possibilities for a reinterpretation of such spaces, keeping in mind that the traces of the past will remain and that every attempt at erasure will be incomplete. The article considers how spaces or places that remain in the process of decolonization can be mobilized as sites of conscience. These sites/spaces/places manifest relationality also between materiality and symbol and between judgment and ethical accountability. The article focuses on issues surrounding the removal of a statue of the past president of the Republic of the Orange Free State, President M. T. Steyn at the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The university has a long and troubled...
Book synopsis: The book seeks to open and explore the liminal space of critique at the intersecti... more Book synopsis: The book seeks to open and explore the liminal space of critique at the intersection of law, aesthetics and politics. The essays in this volume elaborate and expand the meaning and significance of critique through an engagement with aesthetic forms. Although this endeavour has wider significance, the focus is primarily on South Africa. The various contributions arose out of a process of reading, writing and discussion among visiting scholars at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in 2010. The project responds to the limits of the transplantation of critical legal studies into different jurisdictions, especially South Africa. The essays develop an approach to critical legal thinking that is conscious of critique as a problem of genre and seek to open up this problem of genre in the context of critical legal studies.
2014 Conference theme: The Politics of Law and the Humanities: Crisis, Austerity, Instrumentalism... more 2014 Conference theme: The Politics of Law and the Humanities: Crisis, Austerity, Instrumentalism How will law and the humanities scholarship fare against the pressure of the science and technology paradigm that has now permeated the institutional frameworks of academia? Will it mime the general humanities and, as suggested by the defeatist pomp of many national “crisis reports”, merely retreat to its traditional position as the well-mannered guardian of liberal values? Will law and the humanities scholarship be subsumed under the science paradigm’s instrumental ethos by either taking on aims and objectives sanctioned by government policies or by domesticating its own political potential to address those very same policies? Or can we imagine more salutary alternatives to defeatism and instrumental subsumption?
Freedom of speech and the ethical activity of thinking In this article, following the work of Han... more Freedom of speech and the ethical activity of thinking In this article, following the work of Hannah Arendt, the author argues that thought should be placed at the centre of the refl ection on freedom of speech. For Arendt thinking is a necessary condition for the existence of an active political sphere and democratic politics. The absence of thought on the other hand is central to totalitarianism. Arendt, refl ecting on the trial of Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichman, noted how the absence of any activity of thinking and the rigid following of rules and clichés resulted in evil-what she calls the banality of evil.
Cover picture printed with kind permission: 'Get well soon' by Penny Siopis.
Law, Democracy and Development, 2019
The main aim of this article is to reflect tentatively on the importance of a continuing critical... more The main aim of this article is to reflect tentatively on the importance of a continuing critical jurisprudence. By thinking about the lives and legacies of the late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and his second wife, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, I want to reconsider a specific kind of critical jurisprudence, with particular attention to the issue of constitutionalism. I argue for a critical jurisprudence that responds to the many complexities that South African society faces , with nuance - not broad strokes and generalizations ; with care, neither aggressive nor defensive; and with thought, not strategic or calculated. I am of the view that this third position also has an important, albeit minor, place in legal scholarship and legal education and most pertinently in the LLB curriculum. Keywords: Critical Jurisprudence; Constitution As Living Document; LLB Curriculum; Arendt; Derrida; Nelson Mandela; Winnie Mandela
Journal of Law and Society, 2019
Griffith Law Review, 2007
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Australian Feminist Law Journal, 2013
Abstract In this article the authors focus on a 2012 decision by the South African Constitutional... more Abstract In this article the authors focus on a 2012 decision by the South African Constitutional Court concerning the eviction of those who inhabited an apartment building, Schubartpark, in the city of Pretoria. They trace the history of the building back to its original construction and the events that led to the eviction in 2011. The narrative of the building and its inhabitants is situated against the background of the interrelation between history, law, place and time. The authors tentatively draw on Chris Butler’s work on Henri Lefebvre in order to engage with the themes of the resistance of the everyday and the politics of inhabitance within the context of Schubartpark. Central to the discussion is the notion of law’s incapacity to hear, listen and thus respond to the experience, stories and resistance of the everyday.
Verbum et Ecclesia, 2015
The starting-point for the article is to provide a brief background on the Ubuntu Project that Pr... more The starting-point for the article is to provide a brief background on the Ubuntu Project that Prof. Drucilla Cornell convened in 2003; most notably the interviews conducted in Khayamandi, the support of a sewing collective, and the continued search to launch an Ubuntu Women�s Centre. The article will reflect on some of the philosophical underpinnings of ubuntu, whereafter debates in Western feminism will be revisited. Ubuntu feminism is suggested as a possible response to these types of feminisms. The authors support an understanding of ubuntu as critique and ubuntu feminism accordingly as a critical intervention that recalls a politics of refusal. The article ends by raising the importance of thinking about spatiality through ubuntu, and vice versa. It may seem strange to title an article Ubuntu feminism when feminism itself has often been identified as a European or Western idea. But, this article will argue that ubuntu offers conceptions of transindividuality and ways of social ...
Albie Sachs and Transformation in South Africa, 2014
Stellenbosch L. Rev., 2004
... Dorothea van Zyl goes further and argues that Van Melle actually manipulates readers in a sub... more ... Dorothea van Zyl goes further and argues that Van Melle actually manipulates readers in a subtle way to favour Bart's point of view.4 CN van der Merwe shows that Van Melle sometimes favours the male point of view and sometimes the female point of view.'1 Finally LS Venter ...
Pretoria Student Law Review, 2018
The first writing of Drucilla Cornell that I ever read and have reread many times thereafter was ... more The first writing of Drucilla Cornell that I ever read and have reread many times thereafter was her 1990 Cornell Law Review publication titled ‘The Doubly-Prized World: Myth, Allegory and The Feminine.’ Beyond Accommodation, published in 1991, can either be regarded as an elaboration of the ideas and thoughts raised in the 1990 article, or the latter could be regarded as a shortened version of the book. Be that as it may, Cornell, since the late eighties/early nineties, has been putting forward a multi-layered and complex feminist philosophy that no one can nor should attempt to summarise and from which no one should even attempt to take out the main themes or highlights. I can merely mention three notions put forward by Cornell in the book that not only influenced my engagement with feminist theory but also changed my understanding of law in a deep and profound manner. Firstly, the affirmation of sexual difference without relying on any given understanding or description of ‘woman...
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Papers by Karin Van Marle