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Episode 2: Citizen, Subject and Partial Legal Subjectivity

In this episode of Language for Living, I explore Mahmood Mamdani’s Citizen and Subject alongside Oliver Phillips’ concept of partial legal subjectivity.

We look at how colonial law did more than distribute rights unequally — it created different kinds of legal and political subjects. From the distinction between citizen and subject, to the gendered operation of customary law, I ask what it means to be recognised by law, but only partially.

I also connect these ideas to my own research on rural women, land, customary authority and constitutionalism in South Africa, and consider why formal equality does not necessarily produce substantive legal agency.

At the heart of the episode is a simple question:

What happens when you are formally included, but the institution still only recognises part of you?

In this episode

• Legal subjectivity and what it means to be recognised as a legal person
• Mahmood Mamdani’s distinction between the citizen and the subject
• Colonial indirect rule and customary authority
• Oliver Phillips and the concept of partial legal subjectivity
• Gender, customary law and unequal legal agency
• The gap between formal citizenship and substantive power
• Rural women, land and constitutionalism in South Africa

Further reading 📚

• John L. Comaroff, ‘The Discourse of Rights in Colonial South Africa: Subjectivity, Sovereignty, Modernity’ in Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns (eds), Identities, Politics, and Rights (University of Michigan Press 1995) 193–236.
• Oliver Phillips, ‘Constituting the Global Gay: Issues of Individual Subjectivity and Sexuality in Southern Africa’ in Carl Stychin and Didi Herman (eds), Sexuality in the Legal Arena (Athlone Press 2000) 17–34.
• Oliver Phillips, ‘(Dis)Continuities of Custom in Zimbabwe and South Africa: The Implications for Gendered and Sexual Rights’ (2004) 7(2) Health and Human Rights 82–113.
• Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton University Press 1996).

Language for Living with Dr Zoe Chitare gives language to the invisible rules, structures and ideas that shape our everyday lives.