JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFRICAN IMAGINATION: we, too, are humans

Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination is an interdisciplinary reading of justice in literary texts and memoirs, films, and social anthropological texts in postcolonial Africa. Inspired by Nelson Mandela and South Africa's robust achievements in human rights, this book argues that the notion of restorative justice is integral to the proper functioning of participatory democracy and belongs to the moral architecture of any decent society. Focusing on the efforts by African writers, scholars, artists, and activists to build flourishing communities, the author discusses variousquests forjustice such as environmental justice, social justice, intimate justice, and restorative justice. It discusses in particular ecological violence, human rights abuses such as witchcraft accusations, the plight of people affected by disability, homophobia, misogyny, and sex trafficking, and forgiveness. This book will be of interest to scholars of African literature and films, literature and human rights, and literature and the environment. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003148272, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Introduction -- Chapter 1: Narratives and the Common Good -- Chapter 2: Ecological Violence and the Quest for Justice -- Chapter 3: Mythic Consciousness, Witchcraft, and Human Rights Abuses -- Chapter 4: Barriers to Being: Albinism, Disability, and Recognition -- Chapter 5: Intimate Justice: Homophobia and Human Dignity -- Chapter 6: Dignity of Woman: From Misogyny to Sex-trafficking -- Conclusion: Politics of Love and the Common Good