Urban foraging: a ubiquitous human practice overlooked by urban planners, policy, and research
- Shackleton, Charlie M, Hurley, Patrick T, Dahlberg, Annika C, Emery, Marla R, Nagendra, Harini
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Hurley, Patrick T , Dahlberg, Annika C , Emery, Marla R , Nagendra, Harini
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60876 , vital:27848 , https://doi.org/10.3390/su9101884
- Description: Although hardly noticed or formally recognised, urban foraging by humans probably occurs in all urban settings around the world. We draw from research in India, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States to demonstrate the ubiquity and varied nature of urban foraging in different contexts. Across these different contexts, we distil seven themes that characterise and thereby advance thinking about research and the understanding of urban foraging. We show that it is widespread and occurs across a variety of urban spaces and places. The species used and the local practices vary between contexts, and are in constant flux as urban ecological and social settings change. This requires that urban foragers are knowledgeable about diverse species, harvest locations, and rights of access, and that their practices are adaptable to changing contexts. Despite its ubiquity, most cities have some forms of regulations that prohibit or discourage urban foraging. We highlight a few important exceptions that can provide prototypes and lessons for other cities regarding supportive policy frameworks and initiatives. The formulation of dynamic policy, design, and management strategies in support of urban foraging will benefit from understanding the common characteristics of foraging in cities worldwide, but also will require comprehension of the specific and dynamic contexts in which they would be implemented.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Hurley, Patrick T , Dahlberg, Annika C , Emery, Marla R , Nagendra, Harini
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60876 , vital:27848 , https://doi.org/10.3390/su9101884
- Description: Although hardly noticed or formally recognised, urban foraging by humans probably occurs in all urban settings around the world. We draw from research in India, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States to demonstrate the ubiquity and varied nature of urban foraging in different contexts. Across these different contexts, we distil seven themes that characterise and thereby advance thinking about research and the understanding of urban foraging. We show that it is widespread and occurs across a variety of urban spaces and places. The species used and the local practices vary between contexts, and are in constant flux as urban ecological and social settings change. This requires that urban foragers are knowledgeable about diverse species, harvest locations, and rights of access, and that their practices are adaptable to changing contexts. Despite its ubiquity, most cities have some forms of regulations that prohibit or discourage urban foraging. We highlight a few important exceptions that can provide prototypes and lessons for other cities regarding supportive policy frameworks and initiatives. The formulation of dynamic policy, design, and management strategies in support of urban foraging will benefit from understanding the common characteristics of foraging in cities worldwide, but also will require comprehension of the specific and dynamic contexts in which they would be implemented.
- Full Text:
Video on demand in a high bandwidth world
- Authors: Machanick, Philip
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/439121 , vital:73546 , https://doi.org/10.1145/3129416.3129424
- Description: Video on Demand (VoD) is a challenging area requiring complex server and distributed systems architectures. In this paper I describe an alternative implementation of VoD that exploits the growing affordability of fibre bandwidth to remove the latency problems of scaling up VoD. I call the general principle Information Mass Transit (IMT). By analogy with regular mass transit, making all traffic move in bulk without individual service variation makes for a much more efficient system. The core idea is to broadcast the same movie repeatedly at short intervals. To explicate the design, I set this interval at 1 minute, implying a latency of up to a minute to start a movie. However, this latency can be disguised if a user has a catalogue of movies that includes the first minute of each. Provided the number of users is much higher than the number of movies, this approach is affordable in terms of bandwidth and totally removes any need for servers or network infrastructure, beyond new connections for new users, to scale with the number of users. I call this approach Scalable Architecture for Video on Demand or SAVoD.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Machanick, Philip
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/439121 , vital:73546 , https://doi.org/10.1145/3129416.3129424
- Description: Video on Demand (VoD) is a challenging area requiring complex server and distributed systems architectures. In this paper I describe an alternative implementation of VoD that exploits the growing affordability of fibre bandwidth to remove the latency problems of scaling up VoD. I call the general principle Information Mass Transit (IMT). By analogy with regular mass transit, making all traffic move in bulk without individual service variation makes for a much more efficient system. The core idea is to broadcast the same movie repeatedly at short intervals. To explicate the design, I set this interval at 1 minute, implying a latency of up to a minute to start a movie. However, this latency can be disguised if a user has a catalogue of movies that includes the first minute of each. Provided the number of users is much higher than the number of movies, this approach is affordable in terms of bandwidth and totally removes any need for servers or network infrastructure, beyond new connections for new users, to scale with the number of users. I call this approach Scalable Architecture for Video on Demand or SAVoD.
- Full Text:
Voices of the hungry: A qualitative measure of household food access and food insecurity in South Africa
- Chakona, Gamuchirai, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/398443 , vital:69412 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-017-0149-x"
- Description: South Africa is rated a food secure nation, but large numbers of households within the country have inadequate access to nutrient-rich diverse foods. The study sought to investigate households’ physical and economic access and availability of food, in relation to local context which influences households’ access to and ability to grow food which may affect the dietary quality. We sought to understand self-reported healthy diets, food insecurity from the perspective of people who experienced it, barriers to household food security and perceptions and feelings on food access as well as strategies households use to cope with food shortages and their perceptions on improving household food security.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/398443 , vital:69412 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-017-0149-x"
- Description: South Africa is rated a food secure nation, but large numbers of households within the country have inadequate access to nutrient-rich diverse foods. The study sought to investigate households’ physical and economic access and availability of food, in relation to local context which influences households’ access to and ability to grow food which may affect the dietary quality. We sought to understand self-reported healthy diets, food insecurity from the perspective of people who experienced it, barriers to household food security and perceptions and feelings on food access as well as strategies households use to cope with food shortages and their perceptions on improving household food security.
- Full Text:
Weems: An extensible HTTP honeypot
- Pearson, Deon, Irwin, Barry V W, Herbert, Alan
- Authors: Pearson, Deon , Irwin, Barry V W , Herbert, Alan
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428396 , vital:72508 , https://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/handle/10204/9691/Pearson_19652_2017.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=y
- Description: Malicious entities are constantly trying their luck at exploiting known vulnera-bilities in web services, in an attempt to gain access to resources unauthor-ized access to resources. For this reason security specialists deploy various network defenses with the goal preventing these threats; one such tool used are web based honeypots. Historically a honeypot will be deployed facing the Internet to masquerade as a live system with the intention of attracting at-tackers away from the valuable data. Researchers adapted these honeypots and turned them into a platform to allow for the studying and understanding of web attacks and threats on the Internet. Having the ability to develop a honeypot to replicate a specific service meant researchers can now study the behavior patterns of threats, thus giving a better understanding of how to de-fend against them. This paper discusses a high-level design and implemen-tation of Weems, a low-interaction web based modular HTTP honeypot sys-tem. It also presents results obtained from various deployments over a period of time and what can be interpreted from these results.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Pearson, Deon , Irwin, Barry V W , Herbert, Alan
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428396 , vital:72508 , https://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/handle/10204/9691/Pearson_19652_2017.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=y
- Description: Malicious entities are constantly trying their luck at exploiting known vulnera-bilities in web services, in an attempt to gain access to resources unauthor-ized access to resources. For this reason security specialists deploy various network defenses with the goal preventing these threats; one such tool used are web based honeypots. Historically a honeypot will be deployed facing the Internet to masquerade as a live system with the intention of attracting at-tackers away from the valuable data. Researchers adapted these honeypots and turned them into a platform to allow for the studying and understanding of web attacks and threats on the Internet. Having the ability to develop a honeypot to replicate a specific service meant researchers can now study the behavior patterns of threats, thus giving a better understanding of how to de-fend against them. This paper discusses a high-level design and implemen-tation of Weems, a low-interaction web based modular HTTP honeypot sys-tem. It also presents results obtained from various deployments over a period of time and what can be interpreted from these results.
- Full Text:
West African arthropods hold promise as biological control agents for an invasive tree in the Pacific Islands
- Paterson, Iain D, Paynter, Quentin, Neser, Stefan, Akpabey, FJ, Compton, Stephen G
- Authors: Paterson, Iain D , Paynter, Quentin , Neser, Stefan , Akpabey, FJ , Compton, Stephen G
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/407119 , vital:70338 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-639c91613"
- Description: African tulip tree, Spathodea campanulata Beauv. (Bignoniaceae), is a large tree of secondary forests, forest edges and savannas that is indigenous to Central and West Africa (Bidgood 1994). It has been widely utilised as an ornamental plant due to its beautiful flowers, fast growth and relative ease of cultivation, as a shade tree in parks and coffee plantations, and as a living fencepost (Francis 1990). Naturalisation has often followed cultivation of the plant, which is now established outside of the native range in Africa (Hedberg et al. 2006), the Caribbean (Francis 1990; Labrada and Medina 2009) and many Pacific islands (Meyer 2004), including Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga,Vanuatu and Tahiti (Lowe et al. 2000; Dovey et al. 2004; Labrada and Medina 2009). On some of these islands it has become a destructive weed, invading indigenous forests and having a severe impact on agricultural production (Labrada and Medina 2009; Larrue et al. 2014). This has resulted in African tulip tree being recognised as one of the 100 worst alien invasive species worldwide, along with only 30 other terrestrial plants (Lowe et al. 2000).
- Full Text:
- Authors: Paterson, Iain D , Paynter, Quentin , Neser, Stefan , Akpabey, FJ , Compton, Stephen G
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/407119 , vital:70338 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-639c91613"
- Description: African tulip tree, Spathodea campanulata Beauv. (Bignoniaceae), is a large tree of secondary forests, forest edges and savannas that is indigenous to Central and West Africa (Bidgood 1994). It has been widely utilised as an ornamental plant due to its beautiful flowers, fast growth and relative ease of cultivation, as a shade tree in parks and coffee plantations, and as a living fencepost (Francis 1990). Naturalisation has often followed cultivation of the plant, which is now established outside of the native range in Africa (Hedberg et al. 2006), the Caribbean (Francis 1990; Labrada and Medina 2009) and many Pacific islands (Meyer 2004), including Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga,Vanuatu and Tahiti (Lowe et al. 2000; Dovey et al. 2004; Labrada and Medina 2009). On some of these islands it has become a destructive weed, invading indigenous forests and having a severe impact on agricultural production (Labrada and Medina 2009; Larrue et al. 2014). This has resulted in African tulip tree being recognised as one of the 100 worst alien invasive species worldwide, along with only 30 other terrestrial plants (Lowe et al. 2000).
- Full Text:
We’re talking about semantics here: Axiological condensation in the South African parliament
- Siebörger, Ian, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385389 , vital:68015 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.2.03sie"
- Description: This article describes how procedural knowledge is produced in a meeting of the South African parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport, using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Members of this committee argue over whether or not to amend a draft committee report and in the process co-construct procedural norms for future committee meetings. Participants on both sides of the argument use axiological condensation, in which actions and ideas are associated with each other and charged with a particular moral or affective value ( Maton 2014 : 130) to portray their version of the procedure to be followed as morally superior to that of their opponents. They also use axiological rarefaction ( Maton 2014 : 130) to reinforce their positions by making apparent concessions to those on the other side of the argument. This is revealed through an analysis of the coupling of ideation and Appraisal ( Martin 2000 : 161) in the logogenetic unfolding of members’ talk, combined with elements of Interactional Sociolinguistics ( Gumperz 1982 ). The analysis suggests that axiological condensation and rarefaction in this meeting reflect competing visions of what it means to be ‘pro-democracy’ in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385389 , vital:68015 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.2.03sie"
- Description: This article describes how procedural knowledge is produced in a meeting of the South African parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport, using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Members of this committee argue over whether or not to amend a draft committee report and in the process co-construct procedural norms for future committee meetings. Participants on both sides of the argument use axiological condensation, in which actions and ideas are associated with each other and charged with a particular moral or affective value ( Maton 2014 : 130) to portray their version of the procedure to be followed as morally superior to that of their opponents. They also use axiological rarefaction ( Maton 2014 : 130) to reinforce their positions by making apparent concessions to those on the other side of the argument. This is revealed through an analysis of the coupling of ideation and Appraisal ( Martin 2000 : 161) in the logogenetic unfolding of members’ talk, combined with elements of Interactional Sociolinguistics ( Gumperz 1982 ). The analysis suggests that axiological condensation and rarefaction in this meeting reflect competing visions of what it means to be ‘pro-democracy’ in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
Wheelchair users, access and exclusion in South Africa higher education
- Chiwandire, D, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Chiwandire, D , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59984 , vital:27717 , doi: 10.4102/ajod.v6i0.353
- Description: Background: South Africa’s Constitution guarantees everyone, including persons with disabilities, the right to education. A variety of laws are in place obliging higher education institutions to provide appropriate physical access to education sites for all. In practice, however, many buildings remain inaccessible to people with physical disabilities. Objectives: To describe what measures South African universities are taking to make their built environments more accessible to students with diverse types of disabilities, and to assess the adequacy of such measures. Method: We conducted semi-structured in-depth face-to-face interviews with disability unit staff members (DUSMs) based at 10 different public universities in South Africa. Results: Challenges with promoting higher education accessibility for wheelchair users include the preservation and heritage justification for failing to modify older buildings, ad hoc approaches to creating accessible environments and failure to address access to toilets, libraries and transport facilities for wheelchair users. Conclusion: South African universities are still not places where all students are equally able to integrate socially. DUSMs know what ought to be done to make campuses more accessible and welcoming to students with disabilities and should be empowered to play a leading role in sensitising non-disabled members of universities, to create greater awareness of, and appreciation for, the multiple ways in which wheelchair user students continue to be excluded from full participation in university life. South African universities need to adopt a systemic approach to inclusion, which fosters an understanding of inclusion as a fundamental right rather than as a luxury.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chiwandire, D , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59984 , vital:27717 , doi: 10.4102/ajod.v6i0.353
- Description: Background: South Africa’s Constitution guarantees everyone, including persons with disabilities, the right to education. A variety of laws are in place obliging higher education institutions to provide appropriate physical access to education sites for all. In practice, however, many buildings remain inaccessible to people with physical disabilities. Objectives: To describe what measures South African universities are taking to make their built environments more accessible to students with diverse types of disabilities, and to assess the adequacy of such measures. Method: We conducted semi-structured in-depth face-to-face interviews with disability unit staff members (DUSMs) based at 10 different public universities in South Africa. Results: Challenges with promoting higher education accessibility for wheelchair users include the preservation and heritage justification for failing to modify older buildings, ad hoc approaches to creating accessible environments and failure to address access to toilets, libraries and transport facilities for wheelchair users. Conclusion: South African universities are still not places where all students are equally able to integrate socially. DUSMs know what ought to be done to make campuses more accessible and welcoming to students with disabilities and should be empowered to play a leading role in sensitising non-disabled members of universities, to create greater awareness of, and appreciation for, the multiple ways in which wheelchair user students continue to be excluded from full participation in university life. South African universities need to adopt a systemic approach to inclusion, which fosters an understanding of inclusion as a fundamental right rather than as a luxury.
- Full Text:
Women's and health workers’ Voices in open, inclusive communities and effective spaces (VOICES)
- Kuhlmann, Serbert, Gullo, Sara, Galavotti, Christine, Grant, Carolyn, Cavatore, Maria, Posnock, Samuel
- Authors: Kuhlmann, Serbert , Gullo, Sara , Galavotti, Christine , Grant, Carolyn , Cavatore, Maria , Posnock, Samuel
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/281190 , vital:55700 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12209"
- Description: Given the growing popularity of the social accountability approach to governance, we developed and tested measures of governance outcomes to evaluate maternal and reproductive health social accountability interventions. We articulate a theory of change for how CARE's Community Score Card©, a social accountability approach, 1) empowers women, 2) empowers health workers and 3) creates expanded, inclusive and effective spaces for the two to interact. Our measures worked well in surveys of women and health workers. For women, eight of 13 scales had alphas ≥.70. For health workers, five of 11 scales were ≥.70; four were .60–.69. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to develop comprehensive measures of governance outcomes to evaluate a social accountability approach for maternal and reproductive health.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kuhlmann, Serbert , Gullo, Sara , Galavotti, Christine , Grant, Carolyn , Cavatore, Maria , Posnock, Samuel
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/281190 , vital:55700 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12209"
- Description: Given the growing popularity of the social accountability approach to governance, we developed and tested measures of governance outcomes to evaluate maternal and reproductive health social accountability interventions. We articulate a theory of change for how CARE's Community Score Card©, a social accountability approach, 1) empowers women, 2) empowers health workers and 3) creates expanded, inclusive and effective spaces for the two to interact. Our measures worked well in surveys of women and health workers. For women, eight of 13 scales had alphas ≥.70. For health workers, five of 11 scales were ≥.70; four were .60–.69. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to develop comprehensive measures of governance outcomes to evaluate a social accountability approach for maternal and reproductive health.
- Full Text:
Woody plant species richness, composition and structure in urban sacred sites, Grahamstown, South Africa
- De Lacy, Peter J G, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Authors: De Lacy, Peter J G , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/180079 , vital:43307 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-017-0669-y"
- Description: Sacred sites are important not only for their traditional, spiritual or religious significance, but may also potentially be valuable for biodiversity conservation in human transformed landscapes. Yet, there has been little consideration of sacred sites in urban areas in this respect. Consequently, to better understand the ecosystem service and conservation value of urban sacred sites, inventories of their floral communities are needed. We examined the richness, composition and structure of the trees and shrubs in 35 urban churchyards and cemeteries in the City of Saints (Grahamstown). The combined area of urban sacred sites (38.7 ha) represented 2.2% of the city area and 13.6% of the public green space area. Species richness of woody plants was high, albeit dominated by non-native species. Levels of similarity among sites were low, indicating the effects of individual management regimens. There was no relationship between age of the site and measured attributes of the vegetation, nor were there any significant differences in vegetation among different religious denominations. However, the basal area and number of woody plants was significantly related to site size. These results indicate the significant heterogeneity of urban sacred sites as green spaces within the urban matrix. The significance of this heterogeneity in providing ecosystem services to users of sacred sites and the broader urban communities requires further investigation.
- Full Text:
- Authors: De Lacy, Peter J G , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/180079 , vital:43307 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-017-0669-y"
- Description: Sacred sites are important not only for their traditional, spiritual or religious significance, but may also potentially be valuable for biodiversity conservation in human transformed landscapes. Yet, there has been little consideration of sacred sites in urban areas in this respect. Consequently, to better understand the ecosystem service and conservation value of urban sacred sites, inventories of their floral communities are needed. We examined the richness, composition and structure of the trees and shrubs in 35 urban churchyards and cemeteries in the City of Saints (Grahamstown). The combined area of urban sacred sites (38.7 ha) represented 2.2% of the city area and 13.6% of the public green space area. Species richness of woody plants was high, albeit dominated by non-native species. Levels of similarity among sites were low, indicating the effects of individual management regimens. There was no relationship between age of the site and measured attributes of the vegetation, nor were there any significant differences in vegetation among different religious denominations. However, the basal area and number of woody plants was significantly related to site size. These results indicate the significant heterogeneity of urban sacred sites as green spaces within the urban matrix. The significance of this heterogeneity in providing ecosystem services to users of sacred sites and the broader urban communities requires further investigation.
- Full Text:
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’: challenges facing institutional transformation of historically white South African universities
- Booi, Masixole, Vincent, Louise, Liccardo, Sabrina
- Authors: Booi, Masixole , Vincent, Louise , Liccardo, Sabrina
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141878 , vital:38012 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/asr/article/view/163701/153175
- Description: Research on transformation of higher education institutions shows that the underrepresentation, recruitment and retention of blacks and women in senior posts is still the major challenge facing the project of transforming higher education, particularly in Historically White Universities (HWUs). Several South African universities have responded to this challenge by initiating programmes for the ‘accelerated development’ of black academic staff. In this project we were interested to examine the wider implications of such programmes for transforming/reproducing existing institutional cultures. Focusing on one particular HWU and the participants in its Accelerated Development Programme (ADP) we asked whether or not the programme could be thought to have contributed to the interruption or reproduction of the existing dominant institutional culture of the university. The paper is based on interviews with 18 black lecturers who entered the academic workforce through the university’s ADP. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of social and cultural reproduction, we discuss how difficult it is to interrupt the naturalised norms and values that form part of the existing institutional culture of a university.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Booi, Masixole , Vincent, Louise , Liccardo, Sabrina
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141878 , vital:38012 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/asr/article/view/163701/153175
- Description: Research on transformation of higher education institutions shows that the underrepresentation, recruitment and retention of blacks and women in senior posts is still the major challenge facing the project of transforming higher education, particularly in Historically White Universities (HWUs). Several South African universities have responded to this challenge by initiating programmes for the ‘accelerated development’ of black academic staff. In this project we were interested to examine the wider implications of such programmes for transforming/reproducing existing institutional cultures. Focusing on one particular HWU and the participants in its Accelerated Development Programme (ADP) we asked whether or not the programme could be thought to have contributed to the interruption or reproduction of the existing dominant institutional culture of the university. The paper is based on interviews with 18 black lecturers who entered the academic workforce through the university’s ADP. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework of social and cultural reproduction, we discuss how difficult it is to interrupt the naturalised norms and values that form part of the existing institutional culture of a university.
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‘If you choose to abort, you have acted as an instrument of Satan’: Zimbabwean health service Providers’ negative constructions of women presenting for post abortion care
- Chiweshe, Malvern T, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444200 , vital:74205 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9694-8"
- Description: Health service providers play a crucial role in providing post abortion care in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive and abortion is stigmatised. Research in countries where these factors apply has shown that health service providers can be barriers to women accessing post abortion services. Much of this research draws from attitude theory. In this paper, we utilise positioning theory to show how the ways in which Zimbabwean health service providers’ position women and themselves are rooted in cultural and social power relations. In light of recent efforts by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and foreign organisations to improve post abortion care, we explore the implications that these positionings have for post abortion care.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444200 , vital:74205 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9694-8"
- Description: Health service providers play a crucial role in providing post abortion care in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive and abortion is stigmatised. Research in countries where these factors apply has shown that health service providers can be barriers to women accessing post abortion services. Much of this research draws from attitude theory. In this paper, we utilise positioning theory to show how the ways in which Zimbabwean health service providers’ position women and themselves are rooted in cultural and social power relations. In light of recent efforts by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and foreign organisations to improve post abortion care, we explore the implications that these positionings have for post abortion care.
- Full Text:
‘It’s tough being gay’: gay, lesbian and bisexual students’ experiences of being ‘at home’in South African university residence life
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Munyuki, C
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141734 , vital:38000 , DOI: 10.20853/31-2-869
- Description: In the post-apartheid era, a variety of commentators invoked the idea of making university campuses a ‘home for all’ so as to depict a vision of what transformed, inclusive higher education institutional cultures, might look like. In this article, we discuss the experiences of students who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual of being ‘at home’ in university residence life on a largely residential South African campus. Drawing from many different disciplines, including anthropology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, architecture and sociology, we distil the essential features of ‘at-homeness’ as incorporating comfort, privacy, security, acceptance, companionship, recognition and community – all of which are central to human flourishing. We find that while some participants reported being afforded the advantages of feeling at home in university residence life, others are routinely denied many of the essential comforts associated with being ‘at home’ that heterosexual students have the privilege of taking for granted as a component of their experience of university residence life.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Munyuki, C
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141734 , vital:38000 , DOI: 10.20853/31-2-869
- Description: In the post-apartheid era, a variety of commentators invoked the idea of making university campuses a ‘home for all’ so as to depict a vision of what transformed, inclusive higher education institutional cultures, might look like. In this article, we discuss the experiences of students who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual of being ‘at home’ in university residence life on a largely residential South African campus. Drawing from many different disciplines, including anthropology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, architecture and sociology, we distil the essential features of ‘at-homeness’ as incorporating comfort, privacy, security, acceptance, companionship, recognition and community – all of which are central to human flourishing. We find that while some participants reported being afforded the advantages of feeling at home in university residence life, others are routinely denied many of the essential comforts associated with being ‘at home’ that heterosexual students have the privilege of taking for granted as a component of their experience of university residence life.
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“[A] ll just surface and veneer”: the challenge of seeing and reading in Ishtiyaq Shukri’s I See You
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142577 , vital:38092 , DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2017.1312749
- Description: This article considers challenges posed to reading practices and hermeneutics by Ishtiyaq Shukri’s I See You. The content of the novel is at times didactic, and surface reading might seem an appropriate means of analysis, yet the form is experimental: it includes radio reports, characters’ reflections and journalistic work. The connection between these “documents” is not readily apparent, thus one is obliged to study the gaps between them to make sense of the text. Symptomatic reading might seem apposite, but the protagonist’s photographic work reveals the limits of this form of reading, too. I argue that Shukri’s text demands a process that interweaves symptomatic and surface reading in complex ways that require the reader to assess the ideological position from which s/he reads. The novel therefore draws attention to the ways in which reading, like seeing, is a political act.
- Full Text:
“[A] ll just surface and veneer”: the challenge of seeing and reading in Ishtiyaq Shukri’s I See You
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142577 , vital:38092 , DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2017.1312749
- Description: This article considers challenges posed to reading practices and hermeneutics by Ishtiyaq Shukri’s I See You. The content of the novel is at times didactic, and surface reading might seem an appropriate means of analysis, yet the form is experimental: it includes radio reports, characters’ reflections and journalistic work. The connection between these “documents” is not readily apparent, thus one is obliged to study the gaps between them to make sense of the text. Symptomatic reading might seem apposite, but the protagonist’s photographic work reveals the limits of this form of reading, too. I argue that Shukri’s text demands a process that interweaves symptomatic and surface reading in complex ways that require the reader to assess the ideological position from which s/he reads. The novel therefore draws attention to the ways in which reading, like seeing, is a political act.
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“Not the story you wanted to hear": reading chick-lit in JM Coetzee’s Summertime
- Moonsamy, Nedine, Spencer, Lynda G
- Authors: Moonsamy, Nedine , Spencer, Lynda G
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/138915 , vital:37685 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2017.1390878
- Description: J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime has been widely explored – both for its controversy and merits – as engaging in “acts of genre” where the inscription of an autobiographical narrative simultaneously serves as a metatextual and ideological critique of its form. Similarly, this article is intrigued by generic instability, but our terrain lies further afield, exploring how the narrative lapses from the lofty ideals of romance to the baser “truth” of chick-lit. In Summertime, all the female characters besmirch Mr. Vincent, the biographer, for wanting to cast John Coetzee in the role of a romantic hero. Yet, their resistance results in a series of romantic failures which then situates Summertime in the generic ambit of chick-lit. In embodying a spirit that is as playful as it is critical, we suggest that Coetzee offers an opportunity to cast aside a literary critical tradition of suspicion and, in doing so, passes critical comment on how we approach a popular genre like chick-lit.
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- Authors: Moonsamy, Nedine , Spencer, Lynda G
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/138915 , vital:37685 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2017.1390878
- Description: J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime has been widely explored – both for its controversy and merits – as engaging in “acts of genre” where the inscription of an autobiographical narrative simultaneously serves as a metatextual and ideological critique of its form. Similarly, this article is intrigued by generic instability, but our terrain lies further afield, exploring how the narrative lapses from the lofty ideals of romance to the baser “truth” of chick-lit. In Summertime, all the female characters besmirch Mr. Vincent, the biographer, for wanting to cast John Coetzee in the role of a romantic hero. Yet, their resistance results in a series of romantic failures which then situates Summertime in the generic ambit of chick-lit. In embodying a spirit that is as playful as it is critical, we suggest that Coetzee offers an opportunity to cast aside a literary critical tradition of suspicion and, in doing so, passes critical comment on how we approach a popular genre like chick-lit.
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“Wishy-washy liberalism” and “the art of getting lost” in Ivan Vladislavić’s Double Negative:
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142633 , vital:38097 , DOI: 10.4314/eia.v44i3.1
- Description: The politics of the protagonist of Ivan Vladislavić’s Double Negative, Neville Lister, are broadly liberal during apartheid, but show signs of becoming more conservative during the post-apartheid era. In this article, I argue that this development is unsurprising because bourgeois white liberals and conservatives in South Africa continue to cling to the privileges afforded them as the propertied class. For this reason, acknowledgements of privilege and quests for discomfort, while not necessarily dishonest, do not in and of themselves constitute progressive politics. Rather, one can, as Neville does, become comfortable with discomfort so long as it allows one to enjoy a privileged lifestyle. I therefore draw a distinction between the unease argued for in much of what constitutes whiteness studies, and a sense of being lost that seems to demand the loss of the home and its attendant association with control. This sense of lostness emerges in two ways in the novel: in a description of a photograph that contains the spectral presence of a dead child, and in a game that Neville played when he was a young boy. Both of these sections of the text also deal with the limits of art – of writing and of photography in particular. I propose that these self-reflexive episodes suggest the novel’s own limits, and gesture beyond them in ways that are worth consideration by its middle-class readership.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Dass, Minesh
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142633 , vital:38097 , DOI: 10.4314/eia.v44i3.1
- Description: The politics of the protagonist of Ivan Vladislavić’s Double Negative, Neville Lister, are broadly liberal during apartheid, but show signs of becoming more conservative during the post-apartheid era. In this article, I argue that this development is unsurprising because bourgeois white liberals and conservatives in South Africa continue to cling to the privileges afforded them as the propertied class. For this reason, acknowledgements of privilege and quests for discomfort, while not necessarily dishonest, do not in and of themselves constitute progressive politics. Rather, one can, as Neville does, become comfortable with discomfort so long as it allows one to enjoy a privileged lifestyle. I therefore draw a distinction between the unease argued for in much of what constitutes whiteness studies, and a sense of being lost that seems to demand the loss of the home and its attendant association with control. This sense of lostness emerges in two ways in the novel: in a description of a photograph that contains the spectral presence of a dead child, and in a game that Neville played when he was a young boy. Both of these sections of the text also deal with the limits of art – of writing and of photography in particular. I propose that these self-reflexive episodes suggest the novel’s own limits, and gesture beyond them in ways that are worth consideration by its middle-class readership.
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