This is an opportune moment to raise a more general question. The peculiar character of democratic sovereignty is that it derives from the ‘people’ – this is one of the basic problematiques of the democratic imaginary (Wagner: 2013).
Non-state transnational actors have always played a central role in Sahelian economic structures and geopolitical arrangements not least because of their capacity to constitute sources of authority and sustenance outside and across state structures.
I argue that the trial of Jacob Zuma for rape was a story-telling contest, one in which a narrative of traumatising father-daughter rape was pitted against another of “delicious” consensual sex, with the final judgement acting as the authoritative or master narrative.
