In this study, I establish myself as both researcher and respondent and I use the literal and figurative interpretations of the word ‘body' to discuss how canonical epistemological paradigms, through their construction of indigenous knowledge systems, construct African bodies and how this impacts knowledge and research methods. I discuss how the corporeal bodies of Sangomas have been constructed, particularly through problematic research approaches which focus on observations of the corporeal body. Critical here, is how the imperial gaze is unrelenting in its deconstruction and reconstruction of African bodies. By engaging with the cosmology of Sangomas and their interaction with ancestors, I discuss the ineptitude of western-centric hegemonic research approaches in providing substantial responses to the variety of social phenomena with which the Social Sciences grapple. I focus on Sangoma practices of inhlolo (divination), ukuphupha (dreams and dream analysis) and the valorization of umbilini (intuition) as useful tools for the reimagination of research methodologies which have the power to transcend the corporeal lens with which canonical research approaches have become synonymous. Critical to the cosmology of Sangomas is community and the communal production and sharing of knowledge which I propose is a useful framework for transcending the individualistic researcherfocused approach which dominates Social Science research. Through an engagement with the fallaciousness of bifurcated knowledge systems, I argue that it is untruthful to assume that indigenous knowledge systems and western knowledge systems do not interact with each other or have never interacted with each other in the past. I recommend an approach to research which invites an integration of various knowledge systems and diverse ways of knowing. Furthermore, I propose, through a discourse analysis on my reflexive practice as a Sangoma, the concept of Ubungoma (as praxis) with its related theoretical and methodical approaches to decolonising the knowledge archive through ukuphupha as a pathway to insights, inhlolo as a quest for knowledge and ukuphahla as a decolonial research methodology.

Tax havens are denounced for eroding the sovereignty of states to tax in their jurisdictions. Using a critical interrogative lens of Empire and Imperialism, the aim of this investigation was to understand what the developmental history of the British Virgin Islands reveals about the function of tax havens in global political economy through traditions of state and taxation sovereignty. Drawing chiefly on a combination of tax, sociology and law scholarship anchored in international political economy, along with reviewing the minutes of the British Virgin Islands Legislative Council from 1950-1992, the study adopted a sociolegal perspective in exploring the relationship between tax havens, tax sovereignty and the aspirations of an equitable global tax regime. Beyond sovereign entitlement in allocating jurisdictional rights of states to tax income or capital, or a more expanded conception of tax equity through revenue sharing, the intervention of this thesis established the need to highlight the underpinnings of the international tax system by understanding the structures which maintain tax haven dependency and their development in the first instance. The basic thesis of this study is that dependency continues to the present as a function of unequal integration helping to order and maintain a hierarchical global political economy. This thesis was built on an account of post-colonial dependency through a structural lens of a reconstituting empire and neo-colonial imperialism in the development of the British Virgin Islands in two key phases. First, the political developments of the 1950 independence decade in the legislative council's relationship with sovereignty in a federated imperial structure, which then conditioned the socioeconomic development from 1960 up to 1984. Highlighting the economic apparatus of the colonial state which structurally depended on international investment through political links maintained to Britain, the second phase is demonstrated as neo-colonial imperialism and external reliance evinced through the function of the Executive Council. The thesis traced a consistent line of legislative amendments from the dawn of legislative independence providing tax incentives packages and exemptions aimed at attracting foreign capital through extensive tax holidays. This phase of neo-colonial imperialism reached its apogee in the International Business Companies Act of 1984. The parallels in the financial architecture imposed by the Foreign Commonwealth Office at the twilight of the 20th Century has striking similarities to the more recent initiatives targeted at tax havens, illustrating how the interests of metropolitan powers are maintained. Therefore, I argue and demonstrate that, the development of the British Virgin Islands as a tax haven and its integration in international political economy reveals a tradition of sovereignty in the post-colonial context which shapes neo-colonial imperialism wherein effective sovereignty remains located in the global north.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Bruell / No rational decision can be made concerning how to live without confronting the problem of justice—both what it is and whether it is good to be just. In this essay I examine Plato’s articulation of these problems in the Gorgias and the Republic. Through detailed analyses of Socrates’ exchanges with several interlocutors, I establish, first, that despite some real and apparent differences, all the interlocutors share the same fundamental conception of justice, which could be called justice as fairness or reciprocal equality (to ison). The core of justice lies in refraining from pleonexia (seeking to benefit oneself at the expense of another). Second, according to this view, the practice of justice is not intrinsically profitable; it is valuable only as a means to the acquisition or enjoyment of other, material goods. This conception thus implies that committing successful injustice is often more profitable than being just. Third, the critics of justice recognize and openly acknowledge this fact; hence, their position is more coherent than common opinion. Fourth, the core of the Socratic defense of justice lies in the claims that the practice of pleonexia is incompatible with the possession of a well-ordered soul and that the possession of a well-ordered soul is necessary for happiness. Thus, despite appearances to the contrary, Socrates does not argue that justice, as it is commonly conceived, is intrinsically profitable. He is able to refute the critics of justice because the latter lack a coherent understanding of the human good. Finally, Socrates’ defense of justice nonetheless remains incomplete because he deliberately refrains from giving a sufficient account of the nature of the soul and its good. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Trois modèles de gouvernance dominent actuellement la recherche consacrée aux politiques environnementales : un modèle libéral, qui se fonde sur les capacités autorégulatrices du marché et les vertus d'innovations techniques du régime de la libre-entreprise ; un modèle utilitariste, qui repose sur le calcul économique d'un planificateur central, intervenant par des taxes et des quotas pour corriger les défaillances de marché ; un dernier modèle enfin de démocratie délibérative, qui s'appuie sur les capacités de gestion commune des ressources par les populations, par le biais de mécanismes de délibération. Ont été ainsi principalement appliquées jusqu'à présent à la question écologique les théories de la justice (le libéralisme, l'utilitarisme et la démocratie délibérative) et les solutions institutionnelles (le marché, l'administration, le forum) héritées des Lumières. Cet ouvrage se propose d'examiner si ces modèles modernes de gouvernance sont vraiment adaptés à la spécificité du défi du développement durable. En retrouvant les axiomes fondateurs de chacun de ces modes de gouvernance, pour les confronter ensuite aux problèmes spécifiques soulevés par la question écologique, il démontre que les paradigmes politiques modernes s'avèrent peu adaptés aux dimensions spécifiques introduites par la problématique du développement durable, à savoir la préservation de l'environnement naturel et le souci des générations futures, dans un contexte d'économie industrielle mondialisée. Ce travail conduit alors à mettre en lumière les points fondamentaux d'achoppement concernant l'efficacité potentielle des stratégies de gouvernance imaginées jusqu'à présent en se référant à ces doctrines et prépare la voie à des modèles alternatifs de gouvernance. / Three models of governance are actually dominating the contemporary research devoted to the environmental policies: a liberal model, which is founded on the auto regulatory processes of the market and the capacities of technical progress fostered by the regime of free enterprise ; an utilitarian model, which is based on the economic calculation of a social engineer, intervening on markets by enforcing taxes and quotas; a deliberative democracy model, which lies on the ability of common pool management by the populations, using deliberative mechanisms. Thus, what have been applied by now to the ecological stake are the theories of justice (liberalism, utilitarianism and deliberative democracy) and the institutions framework (the market, the central administration, the forum), coming for the Enlightenments. This works propose to examine if these models of governance are really adapted to the peculiarity of the sustainable development objective. We have first restored the fundamental axioms of these technics of government, in order to confront them, in a second time, to the specific problems raised by the ecological crisis. We show that those political paradigms have great difficulties to integrate the particular dimensions of sustainability, that is the preservation of the natural environment, the equity toward future generations, in our present context of a global industrial economy. This thesis exhibit the main concrete obstacle to the efficiency of the strategies of governance imagined so far and prepare us to create ones.

Thesis advisor: David Hollenbach / Transnational migration presents a problem for universal human rights. Because migrants do not have full citizenship in their countries of residence, they are left out of the distribution of social goods within a nation-state. Contemporary theories of justice largely remain trapped in the framework of the "bounded society," which members enter by birth and leave by death. The dissertation argues that the protection of universal human rights depends on turning particular relationships of exploitation into relationships of co-responsibility. The dissertation draws on two sources of Christian ethics, the Bible and Catholic social teaching on migration in order to maintain both the importance of the unity of the human family, the universality of human rights, and the importance of the political community. The work of three political philosophers suggests that in order to respond to transnational migration, an ethics of migration must maintain both the universality of human rights and the moral significance of the political community, but must discard the ideal of the bounded society. The resources of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament indicate that care for the stranger must be foundational to a Christian ethics of migration. Catholic social teaching on migration maintains both the universality of human rights and the right of the state to control its borders, but ultimately fails to address whether and in what circumstances the state should prioritize its citizens over migrants and potential migrants. The dissertation uses Jon Sobrino's reflections on Christian solidarity in order to address this lacuna in Catholic social teaching on migration. It argues that the political community must protect the human rights of migrants because, in most cases, migrants are in relationships with citizens. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

This thesis assesses the relation between equality and justice by exploring and identifying the relation between equality and justice in Rawls's theory of justice, Sandel's communitarian account of Justice and Sen's capability approach. And these accounts of justice are evaluated from an egalitarian point of view. The main argument defended in the thesis is that justice requires equality. Accordingly, these three accounts of justice are evaluated by taking their understanding of equality into consideration. Egalitarian evaluation of these accounts of justice reveals that all three of them fall short in accordance with the relation between equality and justice in their understanding of justice. Keywords: Capabilities, distributive justice, egalitarianism, equality, fairness, inequality, justice, social justice, virtues

This thesis analyses a diversity of Christian understandings of the Kingdom of God in relation to the church’s mission for social justice. Its central argument is that the Christian praxis of the eschatological reality of the Kingdom is the church’s alternative to philosophical and ethical theories for social justice. Through an in-depth analysis and evaluation of previous scholarship, this study examines secular philosophical and ethical theories of both ancient and modern times as means of transforming the systemic injustices of society, and affirms their inadequacy to attain the highest good for humanity without a true knowledge of the justice of the sovereign God. Through a hermeneutic approach to the biblical material, the study finds the fundamental concept of God’s justice in narrative and thematic form throughout the Bible. God is the source of love, power, righteousness and justice, and practising justice is a divine mandate for believers. Critical analysis of the diversified concept of the Kingdom of God finds that each view of eschatology, whether premillennialism, postmillennialism, or amillennialism, has its unique characteristics and insights, but without a comprehensive, coherent and integrative conceptual framework for the Kingdom, any one view of eschatology poses difficulties and jeopardizes the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The study finds that the two-kingdom doctrine of Luther and Calvin, together with Barth’s doctrine of Law and Gospel, support an understanding of the universal Lordship of Christ over both the church (the spiritual realm) and the world (the civil realm), that Ladd’s ‘inaugurated eschatology’ appropriately synthesises the views of ‘consistent eschatology’ and ‘realized eschatology’ as ‘one redemptive event in two parts’, and that E. Stanley Jones’ ‘total Kingdom’ concept effectively summarises God’s comprehensive plan for human life. For the last century, however, the evangelical church has been preoccupied with an overemphasis on individual pietistic experience, vertical relationship with God, personal conversion and over-reaction to the social gospel movement. The relative non-participation of the evangelical church in action for social justice evidences an uneasy conscience; their narrow interpretation of the Kingdom of God has resulted in the church’s withdrawing from social involvement as well as obscuring the horizontal relationship between humanity and creation. The study concludes that Christianity is not an abstract concept but is concerned with the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God and with its embodiment through the church on earth, which implies the formation of a renewed socio-political reality. The church is thus the prototype of the Kingdom of God, with a mandate to display God’s justice as the divine redemptive plan that will culminate in the restoration of the communion of all humanity in God. In seeking a balance between this concept of the Kingdom and the church’s mission of evangelism and social justice, the study finds that there is a need to call the evangelical church to incarnate the Word of God in proclamation and action – an integrated mission of evangelism and social justice. / Thesis (PhD (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

This thesis analyses a diversity of Christian understandings of the Kingdom of God in relation to the church’s mission for social justice. Its central argument is that the Christian praxis of the eschatological reality of the Kingdom is the church’s alternative to philosophical and ethical theories for social justice. Through an in-depth analysis and evaluation of previous scholarship, this study examines secular philosophical and ethical theories of both ancient and modern times as means of transforming the systemic injustices of society, and affirms their inadequacy to attain the highest good for humanity without a true knowledge of the justice of the sovereign God. Through a hermeneutic approach to the biblical material, the study finds the fundamental concept of God’s justice in narrative and thematic form throughout the Bible. God is the source of love, power, righteousness and justice, and practising justice is a divine mandate for believers. Critical analysis of the diversified concept of the Kingdom of God finds that each view of eschatology, whether premillennialism, postmillennialism, or amillennialism, has its unique characteristics and insights, but without a comprehensive, coherent and integrative conceptual framework for the Kingdom, any one view of eschatology poses difficulties and jeopardizes the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The study finds that the two-kingdom doctrine of Luther and Calvin, together with Barth’s doctrine of Law and Gospel, support an understanding of the universal Lordship of Christ over both the church (the spiritual realm) and the world (the civil realm), that Ladd’s ‘inaugurated eschatology’ appropriately synthesises the views of ‘consistent eschatology’ and ‘realized eschatology’ as ‘one redemptive event in two parts’, and that E. Stanley Jones’ ‘total Kingdom’ concept effectively summarises God’s comprehensive plan for human life. For the last century, however, the evangelical church has been preoccupied with an overemphasis on individual pietistic experience, vertical relationship with God, personal conversion and over-reaction to the social gospel movement. The relative non-participation of the evangelical church in action for social justice evidences an uneasy conscience; their narrow interpretation of the Kingdom of God has resulted in the church’s withdrawing from social involvement as well as obscuring the horizontal relationship between humanity and creation. The study concludes that Christianity is not an abstract concept but is concerned with the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God and with its embodiment through the church on earth, which implies the formation of a renewed socio-political reality. The church is thus the prototype of the Kingdom of God, with a mandate to display God’s justice as the divine redemptive plan that will culminate in the restoration of the communion of all humanity in God. In seeking a balance between this concept of the Kingdom and the church’s mission of evangelism and social justice, the study finds that there is a need to call the evangelical church to incarnate the Word of God in proclamation and action – an integrated mission of evangelism and social justice. / Thesis (PhD (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

Comment rendre intelligibles les injustices de genre dans toute leur extension ? Cette démarche de philosophie politique appliquée conduit à en tenter l’approche par les violences sexuelles comprises comme extrémisation de ces injustices. Dans une première partie, les limites de l’apport des théories de la justice sont mises en lumière à travers le féminisme libéral complexe de Susan Okin, qui centre sur les injustices de genre dans le travail et dans la famille. L’examen des évolutions de son questionnement y fait apparaître l’intuition de certaines exigences pour penser les violences sexuelles comme injustices, laissées par elle inexplorées. La deuxième partie, centrée sur des études contextuelles, est consacrée à des phénoménalisations de ces violences dans la société contemporaine. À partir de la théorisation du genre par Catherine MacKinnon comme domination sexualisée, et à l’aide des données fournies par des travaux d’anthropologie, se trouvent investiguées les violences hétérosexuelles entre adultes et les violences sexuelles intrafamiliales. De ce moment d’expérimentation la domination genrée ressort comme fonction dynamique des violences sexuelles. Une ultime étape explore des remédiations. Deux pratiques collectives de réparation et de prévention ouvrent sur une éthique féministe de la reconstruction dont la portée politique fait surgir les violences comme injustices structurelles. Des travaux d’Iris M. Young sont dégagées les exigences d’une prise en charge sociale de telles injustices. Le geste est amorcé enfin d’une reconstruction normative traçant les contours d’une justice non seulement distributive et réparatrice, mais aussi transformative. / How can one think of gender injustice in all its extension ? This research in applied political philosophy seeks to shed light on this problem by focusing on sexual violence as a social and structural phenomenon.In a first part, the limits of « theory of justice approach » are highlighted through an examination of one of its fullest attempts regarding gender, that is Susan Okin’s feminist liberalism. Evolutions in her works allow me to bring out some intuitions regarding the political implications of what would be an account of sexual violence taken as social injustice, yet such intuitions remained unexplored. Taking these limits seriously, the second part of this research sets to examine sexual violence as phenomenonalized in contemporary society. With MacKinnon’s theory of gender as sexualised domination as a critical background given by Okin herself for my investigation, I tackle heterosexual violence between adults as well as intrafamilial sexual violence. This experimental gesture leads me to elaborate gendered domination as a dynamic function of sexual violence. A last moment explores the remedies implied by such comprehension. Two forms of collective and feminist praxis as reparative and preventive, are analysed so as to bring out the normative foundations of what appears as a feminist ethics of reconstruction. Its political dimension leads to an apprehension of sexual violence as structural injustice. Iris Young’s work is discussed in the respect, so as to highlight the conditions of a full apprehension of sexual violence as injustice. A normative reconstruction that leads to envisage justice not only as distributive or reparative, but also as transformative.

In this thesis my aim is to bring attention to the problem of sexual exclusion as experienced by members of the disability community and argue that this is an issue of justice. I do this by first discussing the value of sex. I maintain that sex is an integral part of a flourishing human life. Once this is established, I examine theories of justice and demonstrate how the systematic sexual exclusion of persons with disabilities can be understood as an injustice that must be addressed. Finally, I give an overview of some of the proposed solutions to the problem of sexual exclusion and conclude that the transformation of social attitudes is necessary for sexual justice. / Graduate / 0422 / trw.deboer@gmail.com