Current Institutional Affiliation
Graduate student/ Teaching Assistant, Sociology

Award Information

Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa: Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship 2018
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
N/A, Stellenbosch University
The Concept of Violence in the Official Discourse of Commissions of Inquiry: colonial and post-colonial South Africa

The Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training (2016) and the feasibility of free higher education; the Marikana Commission of Inquiry into the tragic instances at Marikana (2012); and the Commission into allegations of police inefficiency in Khayelitsha (2012): with just a glance at the names of these commissions, it is clear that the official language espoused champions a particular way of thinking, and speaking of the subject under inquiry. Through an analysis of the official discourse of commissions of inquiry into police violence, I examine how official commissions are poised to address issues of structural violence. I discern how the high instance of official commissions is reflective of a larger dynamic of state-society relations in the context of South Africa's neoliberal economic framework and whether these commissions do meet the 'fact-finding' objectives they set out to do, or whether they are tools used to legitimate the state.

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