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.