Laughter, refusal, friendship : thoughts on a "jurisprudence of generosity"

Abstract

The starting point for this note is previous reflections and contemplations on a politics of action, revolt, equivocation and risk. The wider concern of all of this is a contemplation of life, death, politics and law after apartheid. The tentative exploration entails an ethical and political reflection on life (ways of living/being), death (dying) and the law. I am interested in the possibility of women’s subjectivity and agency – in women’s existence as subjects, and more than that: as subjects with the capacity to resist and to refuse. In South Africa it seems as if transformation, socio-economic reparation and other social problems like poverty, violence and disease are addressed mostly through law and human rights. But, as is often argued and exposed, law and human rights are lacking in the capacity to effect real change.How can we find different ways to approach these issues in the face of the pervasiveness of law and human rights? I would like to repeat previous critiques on the continuance of the public/private dichotomy and ask (again) to what extent the ‘‘public’’ face of the new legal order (human rights and constitutionalism) is translated into the ‘‘private’’.This exploration also entails a challenge to and problematisation of current attitudes towards sex and gender from ethical and political perspectives, and exposes how these affect the lives and deaths of women. The issue of reconciliation or the absence of reconciliation between the sexes and genders and a transformation of sex and gender relations should also be raised. What are the place and the role of the law in the context of sex and gender relations? I have previously considered the approaches of slowness and attention and recall them here in reflecting on women’s lives and deaths.6 My concern here is what kind of agencies/subjectivities could support living a political and ethical life and, given the reality of so many deaths in the present context, could support us in mourning and in death? AFRIKAANS : Hierdie bydrae is gemoeid met die gedagte van ’n ‘‘jurisprudence of generosity’’, met ander woorde ’n benadering wat die allesoorheersende aard van die reg, en spesifiek die menseregtediskoers, kan uitdaag deur ’n ander politiek en etiek te bedink. Die uitgangspunt is vroulike subjektiwiteit en vroue se potensiaal om bestaande ordes in ’n post-apartheid konteks te weier. Nou verbonde aan weiering is die idees van aksie, opstand, dubbelsinnigheid en risiko. Hierdie gedagtes word oordink en bespreek met verwysing na aspekte van die werk van Hannah Arendt, Julia Kristeva, Gillian Rose, Adriana Cavarero, Drucilla Cornell en Roger Berkowitz, sowel as Patrick Hannafin, wat op Maurice Blanchot steun. Die outeur soek vir spore van ’n ‘‘jurisprudence of generosity’’ in onlangse grondwetlike hofbeslissings. Die onverwagse en onvoorspelbare wat sentraal is tot ‘‘generosity’’, aksie, opstand, dubbelsinningheid, risiko en weiering, is wat ’n ander politiek en etiek sou kon oopmaak.