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‘Boys will be boys’: traditional Xhosa male circumcision, HIV and sexual socialisation in contemporary South Africa

  • Authors: Vincent, Louise
  • Date: 2008
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141500 , vital:37980 , DOI: 10.1080/13691050701861447
  • Description: Ritual male circumcision is among the most secretive and sacred of rites practiced by the Xhosa of South Africa. Recently, the alarming rate of death and injury among initiates has led to the spotlight of media attention and government regulation being focused on traditional circumcision. While many of the physical components of the ritual have been little altered by the centuries, its cultural and social meanings have not remained unchanged. This paper attempts to understand how some of these cultural and social meanings have shifted, particularly with respect to attitudes towards sex and the role that circumcision schools traditionally played in the sexual.
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  • Date Issued: 2008

Bycatch and discarding in the South African demersal trawl fishery

  • Authors: Walmsley, Sarah A , Leslie, Rob W , Sauer, Warwick H H
  • Date: 2007
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123944 , vital:35518 , https://doi.10.1016/j.fishres.2007.03.002
  • Description: Observers aboard commercial trawlers collected data on the total catch composition of 614 and 479 hauls made by vessels operating off the south and west coasts of South Africa, respectively. On the south coast, four fishing areas were identified on the basis of target species and fishing depth. On the west coast, hauls were separated into those targeting hake Merluccius spp. in four depth ranges (0–300, 301–400, 401–500, and >500 m) and those targeting monkfish Lophius vomerinus. For each area, the catch composition was calculated and the species assemblages were investigated using cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling. Finally, for each coast, the weight of fish discarded annually was estimated. On the south coast, although hake dominated, between 21% and 47% of the catch was not hake, depending on the fishing area. In comparison, hake dominated west coast catches, the proportion of hake increasing with depth. For each fishery investigated, approximately 90% of the catch was processed and landed. However, estimates of annual discards indicate that the south and west coast fisheries may annually discard 9000 or 10,000 t and 17,000 or 25,000 t, of undersized and unutilizable fish and offal, respectively, depending on the estimation method used. When developing strategies to limit or enhance utilization of bycatch, cognisance should be taken of the differences in catch composition between the south and west coasts and of the importance of bycatch revenue to south coast fishing companies.
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  • Date Issued: 2007

Conserving pattern and process in the Southern Ocean: designing a Marine Protected Area for the Prince Edward Islands

  • Authors: Lombard, A T , Reyers, B , Schonegevel, L Y
  • Date: 2007
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Article
  • Identifier: vital:7140 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011822
  • Description: South Africa is currently proclaiming a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of its sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands. The objectives of the MPA are to: 1) contribute to a national and global representative system of MPAs, 2) serve as a scientific reference point to inform future management, 3) contribute to the recovery of the Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), and 4) reduce the bird bycatch of the toothfish fishery, particularly of albatrosses and petrels. This study employs systematic conservation planning methods to delineate a MPA within the EEZ that will conserve biodiversity patterns and processes within sensible management boundaries, while minimizing conflict with the legal toothfish fishery. After collating all available distributional data on species, benthic habitats and ecosystem processes, we used C-Plan software to delineate a MPA with three management zones: four IUCN Category Ia reserves (13% of EEZ); two Conservation Zones (21% of EEZ); and three Category IV reserves (remainder of EEZ). Compromises between conservation target achievement and the area required by the MPA are apparent in the final reserve design. The proposed MPA boundaries are expected to change over time as new data become available and as impacts of climate change become more evident.
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  • Date Issued: 2007

Conserving pattern and process in the Southern Ocean: designing a Marine Protected Area for the Prince Edward Islands

  • Authors: Lombard, A T , Reyers, B , Schonegevel, L Y , Cooper, J , Smith-Adao, L B , Nel, D C , Froneman, P William , Ansorge, Isabelle J , Bester, M N , Tosh, C A , Strauss, T , Akkers, T , Gon, Ofer , Leslie, Rob W , Chown, S L
  • Date: 2007
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6881 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011637
  • Description: South Africa is currently proclaiming a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of its sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands. The objectives of the MPA are to: 1) contribute to a national and global representative system of MPAs, 2) serve as a scientific reference point to inform future management, 3) contribute to the recovery of the Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), and 4) reduce the bird bycatch of the toothfish fishery, particularly of albatrosses and petrels. This study employs systematic conservation planning methods to delineate a MPA within the EEZ that will conserve biodiversity patterns and processes within sensible management boundaries, while minimizing conflict with the legal toothfish fishery. After collating all available distributional data on species, benthic habitats and ecosystem processes, we used C-Plan software to delineate a MPA with three management zones: four IUCN Category Ia reserves (13% of EEZ); two Conservation Zones (21% of EEZ); and three Category IV reserves (remainder of EEZ). Compromises between conservation target achievement and the area required by the MPA are apparent in the final reserve design. The proposed MPA boundaries are expected to change over time as new data become available and as impacts of climate change become more evident.
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  • Date Issued: 2007

A generic database and spatial interface for the application of hydrological and water resource models

  • Authors: Hughes, Denis A , Forsyth, D A
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Article
  • Identifier: vital:7080 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012333
  • Description: The paper discusses a software package that has been designed to enhance the efficiency of applying a range of hydrological and water resource simulation models. The SPATSIM (SPatial and Time Series Information Modeling) system has been developed in Delphi using MapObjects and incorporates a spatial data interface for access to the different types of information commonly associated with water resource analyses. All of the information is stored within database tables (Paradox by default) with generic structures. The structure and components of the system are briefly described and some example applications provided. The discussion identifies some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the software, the approach of the developers to user support and some possible future developments. The conclusions suggest that the development can be considered successful in that it has substantially improved the efficiency of the Institute for Water Research to undertake one of its core functions of hydrological model development and application.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

Active learning for understanding land degradation : African Catchment Game and Riskmap

  • Authors: Rowntree, Kate M , Fox, Roddy C
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Conference paper
  • Identifier: vital:6669 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006793
  • Description: Land degradation is the result of the intersection of a complex set of biophysical and socio-economic factors. The capacity of an individual or community to address land degradation is likewise constrained. While it is quite possible for professionals and learners to grasp the main issues around land degradation from a theoretical perspective, internalizing the reality of what it means to be the resource degrader is more difficult. We have developed two active learning methods that aim to address this problem. The first is the African Catchment Game, a role-playing game based on Graham Chapman’s Green Revolution Game, adapted for the southern Africa context and incorporating a land degradation component. In this game participants play out the complex dynamics of rural-urban-global linkages against a background of environmental hazards. The second is based on Save the Children Fund’s RiskMap computer simulation that models risk in terms of rural livelihoods for different income groups. Ethiopia is used as the example. This paper evaluates the two active learning techniques as tools for exploring the relationships between land degradation and poverty through an evaluation of participants’ experiences.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

Biocultural diversity: moving beyond the realm of ‘indigenous’ and ‘local’ people

  • Authors: Cocks, Michelle L
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:7107 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010681
  • Description: During the past decade the relationship between biodiversity and human diversity has received increased attention, resulting in the identification of what the Declaration of Belém calls an ‘inextricable link’ between biological and cultural diversity. Although the term biocultural diversity, introduced to denote this link, is being used increasingly, there has been little critical reflection on what it precisely refers to. I argue that it is used with particular reference to ‘indigenous traditional’ people, but that there is scope for extending its application within biocultural discourse. I therefore review the concept of culture and discuss what constitutes cultural values of the natural environment. I conclude that the concept of culture must be understood as involving a dynamic process of transcultural exchange and constant re-articulations of tradition resulting in the persistence of certain cultural practices. This approach ultimately reveals that the concept of biocultural diversity is also applicable to non-indigenous traditional communities.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

LibQUAL+™ at Rhodes University Library: an overview of the first South African implementation

  • Authors: Moon, A E
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Text
  • Identifier: vital:6979 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012407
  • Description: When Rhodes University Library closed its LibQUAL+™ survey on 29 August 2005, it became the first of seven university libraries in South Africa to complete this Web-based survey, which measures library users’ perceptions of service quality and identifies gaps between desired, perceived, and minimum expectations of service. This paper focuses on the Rhodes Library’s implementation of the 2005 LibQUAL+™ survey. Results are looked at within the broader context of aggregate scores and score norms from the South African cohort. The library’s first efforts to address areas where perceptions of service quality differed from users’ expectations are described and plans for future efforts are indicated. The paper also details some lessons learnt by other LibQUAL+™ participants, as documented in published case studies.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

Near-real time foF2 predictions using neural networks

  • Authors: Oyeyemi, E O , McKinnell, Lee-Anne , Poole, Allon W V
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Article
  • Identifier: vital:6804 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004167
  • Description: This paper describes the use of the neural network (NN) technique for the development of a near-real time global foF2 (NRTNN) empirical model. The data used are hourly daily values of foF2 from 26 worldwide ionospheric stations (based on availability) during the period 1976–1986 for training the NN and between 1977 and 1989 for verifying the prediction accuracy. The training data set includes all periods of quiet and disturbed geomagnetic conditions. Two categories of input parameters were used as inputs to the NN. The first category consists of geophysical parameters that are temporally or spatially related to the training stations. The second category, which is related to the foF2 itself, consists of three recent past observations of foF2 (i.e. real-time foF2 (F0), 2 h (F−2) and 1 h (F−1) prior to F0) from four control stations (i.e. Boulder (40.0°N, 254.7°E), Grahamstown (33.3°S, 26.5°E), Dourbes (50.1°N, 4.6°E) and Port Stanley (51.7°S, 302.2°E). The performance of the NRTNN was verified under both geomagnetically quiet and disturbed conditions with observed data from a few verification stations. A comparison of the root mean square error (RMSE) differences between measured values and the NRTNN predictions with our earlier standard foF2 NN empirical model is also illustrated. The results reveal that NRTNN will predict foF2 in near-real time with about 1 MHz RMSE difference anywhere on the globe, provided real time data is available at the four control stations. From the results it is also evident that in addition to the geophysical information from any geographical location, recent past observations of foF2 from these control stations could be used as inputs to a NN for near-real time foF2 predictions. Results also reveal that there is a temporal correlation between measured foF2 values at different locations.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

Seeing the wood for the trees: the role of woody resources for the construction of gender specific household cultural artefacts in non-traditional communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

  • Authors: Cocks, Michelle L , Bangay, Lindsey , Wiersum, K Freerk , Dold, Anthony P
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6823 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003830
  • Description: There is a growing wealth of data capturing the direct-use values of the environment and recognition of forests and wild resources as representing ‘‘the poor man’s overcoat’’. This focus has however resulted in an emphasis on the utilitarian values of wild resources for rural livelihoods and has for the most part overlooked their cultural values. In tangent to these developments within the field of anthropology there has been increased attention directed towards the relationship between biodiversity and human diversity over the past decade. This has resulted in the recognition of what the Declaration of Belem calls an ‘inextricable link’ between biological and cultural diversity. The term bio-cultural diversity has been introduced as a concept denoting this link. Consequently there is a need for more elaborate assessments of the various ways in which different groups of people find value in biodiversity. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the cultural significance of wild harvested plant resources for the maintenance of two gender specific cultural artefacts for amaXhosa people in South Africa, to assess the persistence of these practices in rapidly modernizing communities. We demonstrate the endurance of these ancient cultural artefacts in present-day peri-urban communities and suggest that they point to the need for improved understanding of the significance of bio-cultural diversity. The findings of the study should not be interpreted as illustrating stagnation in the traditional past, but rather as pointing at the need for improved understanding of the significance of bio-cultural diversity in a dynamic sense.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

The effectiveness of schools-based National Arbor Week activities in greening of urban homesteads : a case study of Grahamstown, South Africa

  • Authors: Parkin, Fiona , Shackleton, Charlie M , Schudel, Ingrid J
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6645 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006885
  • Description: Arbor Day, or Week, is a well-established greening initiative worldwide, focusing on tree planting and the benefits thereof. Frequently most effort is targeted at institutions such as schools and community groups. Yet there has been limited assessment of the success of Arbor Day, or Week, activities both at the schools, or the wider dissemination in neighbouring communities and suburbs. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of school-based Arbor Week activities on learners’ home-based practices regarding tree planting and urban forestry. Learners from three schools in Grahamstown, South Africa, with good Arbor Week participation, were assessed on their tree planting knowledge. The learners’ parents were also interviewed to determine whether the information obtained by the learners at school was taken home. A control group consisting of people with no children or very young children was also assessed. This study found that Arbor Week activities were, for the most part, successfully taught in the case study schools, and most of the learners stated that their knowledge of trees and their benefits came from their school activities. However, many learners could not remember the activities in which their schools partook the previous year. Whilst most learners were aware of the importance of trees, few had encouraged tree planting at home. However, over one-fifth of adults claimed that their knowledge of the benefits of trees was as a consequence of Arbor Day activities when they were young. Numerous constraints to tree planting were provided by learners and both the adult groups, the two most frequent being limited space and falling leaves making their yards untidy. External organisations should become more actively involved and provide much needed support systems if greening initiatives are to reach the wider community.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

The management of risk: adolescent sexual and reproductive health in South Africa

  • Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
  • Date: 2006
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6302 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015958
  • Description: Scientific discourse allows for the calculation of negative outcomes attendant on conception and birth during adolescence, thereby producing a discourse of risk. The management of risk allows for the deployment of governmental apparatuses of security. Security, as outlined by Foucault, is a specific principle of political method and practice aimed at defending and securing a national population. In this paper I analyse how techniques of security are deployed in the interactions between health service providers and young women seeking contraceptive and reproductive assistance at a regional hospital in South Africa, and how racialised and gendered politics are strategically deployed within these techniques. Security combines with various governmental techniques to produce its effects. The techniques used in this instance include pastoral care, liberal humanism, the incitement to governmental self-formation, and, in the last instance, sovereign power.
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  • Date Issued: 2006

The relationship between Accounting 1 and Accounting 3 results

New Unity Movement Bulletin

Attaining a better society: critical reflections on what it means to be 'developed'

  • Authors: Matthews, Sally
  • Date: 2005
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142509 , vital:38086 , DOI: 10.3167/004058105780929228
  • Description: It is clear from these and other definitions that development, no matter how it is conceived, involves change. However, it is also clear that not all change constitutes development. A particular change could be part of a process of development, but could also be part of several other processes, such as those of alteration, modification, deformation, adaptation, regression, degradation and the like. Thus it is necessary to differentiate between changes that can be said to be part of a process of development, and those that cannot. In an attempt to make such a distinction and in line with the above-mentioned definitions of development one could say that changes that are part of development are changes that bring about increased likeness to some more advanced or better state of being. A six-year-old child who, after years of talking, becomes mute is regressing rather than developing; and a child whose behaviour changes such that she begins to act like a dog would be considered to be in some kind of disordered state. However, when a child’s behaviour undergoes changes that lead to increased similarity to some conception of adult behaviour, then that child can be said to be developing. When assessing whether changes in a child’s behaviour constitute development, or some other kind of process, one has to have in mind some conception of what the child ought to be becoming.
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  • Date Issued: 2005

Bastards and bodies in Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story:

  • Authors: Marais, Mike
  • Date: 2005
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144264 , vital:38326 , https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0021989405056969
  • Description: The Population Registration Act of 1950, in the apartheid period of South African history, defined a coloured person as “a person who is not a White person or a Black”. In differentiating coloured from white, coloured from black, and black from white, somatic appearance obviously played a crucial role. So, for instance, a white person was defined as “a person who (a) in appearance obviously is a White person, and who is not generally accepted as a Coloured person; or (b) is generally accepted as a White person and is not in appearance obviously not a White person”.1 It follows that the body of the individual was read as a signifier of racial identity, a hermeneutic practice still prevalent in present-day South Africa. My argument in this essay is that Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story2 shows how the trope of “pure blood” in the discourse of race not only reduces the body of the individual coloured person to a material sign of racial difference, but also inscribes a history of shame on that body.
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  • Date Issued: 2005

The environmental Kuznets curve: a literature survey

  • Authors: Nahman, Anton , Antrobus, Geoffrey G
  • Date: 2005
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143191 , vital:38209 , DOI: 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2005.00008.x
  • Description: Literature on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is examined, focussing on the possibility that the EKC may be explained by trade patterns. If significant, this trade effect would cast doubt on the oft‐stated conclusion that economic growth automatically leads to environmental improvement. Research has been insufficient, although a number of promising approaches have been developed. Although evidence on the pollution‐haven hypothesis is mixed, there is enough to suggest that the EKC development path may not be available to today's developing countries. Other problems cast doubt on whether the EKC exists in any relevant sense at all.
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  • Date Issued: 2005

Phenomenology in education : a case study in educational leadership

  • Authors: Van der Mescht, Hennie
  • Date: 2004
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6101 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008665
  • Description: [From the introduction]: Overheard during tea at an Education Faculty research design course: “Phenomenology produces interesting and surprising results, but it’s just too much work …” The speaker was a prospective Masters student who had decided against “phenomenological” research, presumably because “it’s just too much work”. Having been deeply involved in phenomenological research myself for some years, I could identify with his reservation. But his first statement is of course equally true: phenomenological research does indeed produce “interesting and surprising results”, as many of my students have found. I should at the outset describe what I mean by phenomenological research more carefully, since, as Schweitzer (2002) has recently pointed out, there is certainly more than one meaning out there. The kind of research I am referring to is not the kind frequently featured in this journal, which Schweitzer (2002) describes as “Husserlian”, but another kind, which he describes as “‘what’s it like for them’ type of studies”. In this paper I present a case for the latter, and consider its appropriateness to the field of education. I argue that this approach to phenomenological research (which Schweitzer refers to as empirical) is a potentially powerful way of making sense of education practitioners’ (and learners’) sense-making, and can lead to startling new insights into the uniquely complex processes of learning, teaching and educational managing and leading.
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  • Date Issued: 2004

Phylogeny, biogeography, and the evolution of life-history traits in Leucadendron (Proteaceae)

  • Authors: Barker, Nigel P , Vanderpoorten, Alain , Morton, Cynthia M , Rourke, John P
  • Date: 2004
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: vital:6496 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004491
  • Description: Leucadendron is a moderately large genus of Proteaceae almost entirely restricted to the Cape Floristic Region of southern Africa. The genus is unusual in being dioecious and sexually dimorphic. ITS sequence data were obtained from 62 of the 96 currently recognized taxa (85 species and 11 subspecies). Phylogenetic analyses were conducted under Maximum Likelihood and parsimony and resolved nine groups of species with varying degrees of bootstrap support, but relationships between these groups are largely unsupported. The phylogeny conflicts with the current taxonomic arrangement, which is based mainly on fruit morphology. The two sections of the genus, Alatosperma and Leucadendron, and several subsections within these sections, are resolved as non-monophyletic. This means that taxonomically important characters (such as fruit shape) have evolved multiple times, as the species with nutlike fruit (resolved into two of the nine groups) appear to have evolved independently from ancestors with winged fruit. Based on the topology obtained, the life history traits of anemophily, myrmechochory, and re-sprouting have also originated multiple times. Dispersal–Vicariance (DIVA) analysis suggests that the genus had an ancestral area in the Karoo Mountain and Southeastern phytogeographic centres of endemism in the southwestern Cape. , Elsevier
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  • Date Issued: 2004

Wearing your PIM: experiments with an audio enhanced PIM

  • Authors: Tsegaye, Melekam , Bangay, Shaun D , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2004
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432854 , vital:72904 , https://www.cs.ru.ac.za/research/g98t4414/static/papers/wpimfinal.pdf
  • Description: PIM systems help organise people’s lives by providing address book, schedule and task management facilities. Current PIM’s manage this information by collecting and storing it as textual data. With the advent of the wearable computer, using text only is no longer an efficient and convenient mechanism for managing personal information. A wearable computer should use data from various sensors (video, audio, location, environmental, user state) to organise personal information. In this paper we examine how audio can be used to enhance the facilities provided by text-only PIM’s and present an example implementation of an audio based wearable PIM (wPIM) that has the capability of storing and retrieving PIM information as audio recordings. The results of the user evaluation we conducted, which was carried out outside of the laboratory, suggests that users strongly accept audio as a way to manage their personal information and to augment their memory, supporting our hypothesis that audio enhances wearable personal information management.
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  • Date Issued: 2004
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