You are cordially invited to attend an online lecture, presented by Dr Claire-Anne Lester from Stellenbosch.
Topic: “Progressive Legalism in the Usindiso Fire Commission: Public Inquiries and the Politics of Struggle”.
Abstract:
The Usindiso Commission of inquiry was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding a fire that broke out in Johannesburg on 31 August 2023 in which 76 people died and leaving dozens homeless and injured. The ‘legalism’ of public inquiries is frequently criticised for obscuring systemic violence through discrete questions of ‘fact’ and individual responsibility, thereby legitimating a fundamentally unjust social order. However, the Usindiso Commission resisted this trend. I propose ‘progressive legalism’ as a novel analytical concept for examining the mobilisation of substantive, interpretive and institutional resources of law to render structural injustice and political responsibility legally cognisable. Progressive legalism captures a contingent mode of praxis that works through legal forms, mobilising substantive rights and positive state obligations, which reveals itself in the context of South Africa’s transformative constitution and trodden paths of human rights litigation and activism to affirm the human dignity of the Usindiso residents and socio-economic rights.
About speaker:
Dr Claire Lester is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University. Her research spans legal sociology, transitional justice, and political economy. Her recent publications include ‘The Marikana Commission of Inquiry: An Ambiguous Experiment with “Truth” and “Justice”’ (International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2025); ‘Legalism in the Marikana Commission of Inquiry Report: Veiling “Sociological Causes” of the Massacre’ (South African Review of Sociology, 2023) and ‘From “Dependency” to “Decoloniality"?: The enduring relevance of materialist political economy and the problems of a ‘decolonial’ alternative’ (Social Dynamics, co-authored with Nassen-Smith, 2025).
Her current research examines commissions of inquiry and state legitimacy.
Join meeting here
Meeting ID: 313 934 723 678 830
Passcode: Um2Mr3vQ
For more information, kindly contact Sifiso Vilakazi.