Current Writing 32(2) 2020: Precarity in South/African Literary Texts

Abstract

This special issue of Current Writing – 32(2) 2020 – will consist of articles that analyse literary texts with a theme of precarity in various forms in contemporary Africa, and that illuminate ways in which authors evoke empathy for precarious or marginalised groups, thereby contributing to attitudes conducive to social justice and harmony. Internationally, precarity is currently gaining traction as a significant field of study. Key theorist Judith Butler views precarity as a type of precariousness by which human life can be understood from a communal and political perspective. All lives are precarious, as they are vulnerable and finite; however, precarity is maintained by political, social and economic systems which permit offences against humanity including poverty, disease, starvation, violence or death. Precarity studies is compatible with fields such as feminist, subaltern and postcolonial studies, which enable challenges to Eurocentric models of the precariat. Instead of relying solely on theorists from the centres of intellectual power, it is important to deploy theoretical conversations with commentators from the locations under study. While the research may employ concepts of precarity as defined by Judith Butler, it may also focus on theories developed within the African context, such as Achille Mbembe’s influential concept of necropolitics (2003). Mbembe maintains that while social and political regulation of people’s lives leads to forms of metaphoric and literal death, alternative, resistant viewpoints and agency are also possible. The special issue aims to examine African narratives about precarity as acts of communication possessed of their own aesthetics and truth-values, that the reader is called upon to respond to imaginatively in order to challenge injustice. Such narratives represent the predicament of individuals marginalised by various issues such as poverty, childhood, gender, sexuality, albinism, ethnicity, xenophobia, and migrancy. The issue aims to contribute to a new wave of scholarship on the theme of precarity, which has a strong social relevance. Cheryl Stobie will edit this issue of the journal. A 200-word abstract and a brief biographical note are to be sent to stobiec@ukzn.ac.za by 31 October 2019. The deadline for submission of the article, of about 6 000 words, is 28 February 2020.