Ovwata Onojieruo

This research interrogates the epistemic antirealist presupposition on law, against the background of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgement on the Bakassi peninsula dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. The paper evaluates the implication of ICJ’s judgement on the lives and lived experiences of Bakassians, as against the wishes of either Nigeria and Cameroon, and by extension the epistemic model which predetermined the trajectory of ICJ’s judgement. In evaluating the judgement, this paper argues within the framework of three predetermining grounds, which are; (1) the question on the aim of law, (2) Antirealist rejection of traditional historical ties and emplacement of a constructivist interpretation of law, and (3) the question of individual agency and justice. The centrepiece of these interrogations underpins a singular basic idea that implicates epistemic antirealism as seeking to create an alternate reality for society through the concept of law, whether or not such reality actually conforms to what is obtainable within the epistemic framework of society’s existing social sphere. Thus this research argues that the antirealist model of thinking about law, creates not only a problem for individual subjects of law, and by extension a chaotic framework for social reality, but also creates a problem for the very concept of law in itself.

In this paper, inquiry will be made into the extent to which individual freedom and social responsibility conflates or conflicts on issues surrounding privacy and confidentiality as well as the reflection of these issues on the constituent element of knowledge construction and social formation in what could be termed as the ‘new social’, that is, the digital. The integral framework of this research would take off from the meta-modern standpoint in determining the question of privacy and confidentiality, and fitting same as being a conflict between grounds of social-politico organisation of society and individual rights and liberties. Similarly, the State’s duty to protect the social structure against the background of the burgeoning influence of big data companies, and the individual’s responsibility to protect the confidentiality of his ‘digital persona’ presents the reflex point which determines the intersection between the social, political and legal components of digital society. Thus, this research would interrogate the discourses which surround the meta-modern perspective of social formation and knowledge construction, by presenting arguments for a more regulative but not restrictive digital sphere, as it relates to the protection and use of individual data. The research would fundamentally argue that there exists certain level of direct connections between the meta-modern construction of knowledge and social formation with the realistic approach to the question of privacy and confidentiality in the digital sphere, by engaging with the three basic themes of: the constituent element of meta-modernism, the debate surrounding privacy and confidentiality in both the old and new social, and the intersection between both themes.

This paper interrogates the idea of metamodernism against the background of a claim for the demise of postmodernism, evaluating the extent to which postmodernist perspectives cause an implosion for its ideology, while at the same time setting the background for an elaboration of the metamodernist schema. In placing modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism on a holistic ideological scale, the paper argues for a re-conception of these terms on an ideological as opposed to a historical notation, which aids the perception of all three conceptions as being historically overlapping and existing in the same era. Thus metamodernism is treated as an offshoot of a postmodernist adoption of modernism. Furthermore, the arguments developed attempt to synergize both postmodern and metamodern ideological schemas as fundamentally grounded in an approach which sees philosophical engagements as being an integral aspect of the human culture; while at the same time pushing for a redefinition of knowledge within the subset of a virtual environment (Virtual Epistemology).

This paper interrogates the concept of sexuality within the purview of an African context by evaluating the position revolving around a conception of an African sexuality as opposed to a multivariated conceptualisation of sexualities within Africa. The paper raises critical questions as regards the concepts of an African sexuality ranging from; what constitutes the grounds for a conceptualisation of African sexuality? To what extent do the viability or non-viability of such ground answer the deep challenges as it relates to alternative sexualities? How does the question of sexuality play a role in determining the ideological framework upon which intra-socio-cultural interrogations are properly built? To this end, the baseline argument of this paper, seeks to create a point of synergy between the concept of African sexuality and the dynamics of sexualities in Africa, by presenting a moderate call for the decolonization of African minds, most especially as it pertains to issues of sexuality, through an analysis of the diverse patterns within which sexuality has been conceived within the African setting. Furthermore, in reclaiming the sanctity of an African perspective, this paper argues for cultural conservatism as both a historic African phenomenon, and a more pragmatic approach towards attaining a mentally decolonized post-colonial Africa.