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Inspired by new feminist materialism, this paper seeks to reimagine existing knowledge of girls, sexuality and playgrounds by considering how the socio‐material reality may unlock girls' capacities for what is possible through play. Focusing on semi‐structured interviews of girls (aged 12–13), the paper draws attention to the playground as an 'assemblage' of human and non‐human matter that connect to illuminate other ways of being, feeling and doing. We argue that the assemblage not only creates spaces for girls to disrupt hetero‐patriarchal ideologies but simultaneously serves to reinforce them. Interventions require attention to the oppressive materialities that underpin play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although digital content marketing (DCM) research and industry-wide expenditure is growing very rapidly owing to the positive outcomes associated with this new pull marketing strategy, research has not completely mapped how DCM activities can be optimized in the social media brand community context. This paper seeks to understand how social media DCM activities can be optimized to achieve greater relational and monetary outcomes for different products. Design/methodology/approach: A structural equation modeling procedure was used to analyze 416 survey responses obtained from members of Facebook brand communities in South Africa. Findings: The results reveal that social media DCM consumption motives exert significant differential effects on both relational and monetary marketing outcomes in search and experience product contexts while also demonstrating the mechanism through which social media DCM consumption motives lead to contributing social media engagement behaviors. Practical implications: The study findings call for the need for firms to understand the motives that drive the consumption of DCM in social media brand communities. Specifically, marketers of search products should deploy more of hedonic contents such as images while simultaneously keeping highly textual DCM to a minimum in Facebook brand communities as this works better for experience products. Finally, more authentic SM-DCM activities that effectively address the authenticity SM-DCM consumption motive can result from the DCM activities of social media opinion leaders and genuine consumer–brand interactions in the context of Facebook brand communities. Originality/value: This paper broke new grounds in three unique directions in terms of: (1) the relative salience of SM-DCM consumption motives in enhancing WTP and different aspects of SMBE; (2) the contextual influence of product type on SM-DCM activities optimization and (3) the mechanisms that underlie the effects of SM-DCM consumption motives on contributing SMBE in the Facebook brand community context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African white supremacy has been shaped by over 400 years of settler colonialism and white minority apartheid rule to craft a pervasive and entrenched legacy of privilege and oppression in the post-apartheid context. This paper explores the constructions of white supremacy, specifically its role in shaping the perceptions of first-generation mixed-race identity in South Africa, through semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Through a critical race theory and an intersectional lens, this paper unpacks the personal, political, and social impact of white supremacist structures on the identity construction of first-generation mixed-race people in post-apartheid South Africa; specifically, societal- and self-perceptions of their identity within power structures with which they interact. Moreover, this paper aims to understand how first-generation mixed-race people understand their connections to white privilege. Ultimately this paper argues that although first-generation mixed-race people experience relative privilege, their access to white privilege and acceptance within structures of whiteness is always conditional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID‐19 necessitated emergency telepractice for student‐led speech‐language therapy clinical practicals in training institutions, with limited preparation and evidence‐based guidelines. Beyond the pandemic, practitioners and university training sites are likely to continue to offer telepractice necessitating thorough preparation for telepractice services underpinned by a comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved in online therapy. Aims: Adopting realist evaluation principles, our aim in this paper was to explore broadly what works and does not work in a set of student‐led telepractice sessions in a diverse, resource‐limited context. The broader goal of this project was to provide evidence‐based support to enhance the efficiency and success of telepractice sessions in student clinical training contexts. Methods & Procedures: We used qualitative observational methods with reflexive thematic analysis to analyse 28 video recordings and 61 observation notes of student‐led paediatric telepractice sessions from a South African university clinic as part of a pilot study. Outcomes & Results: We identified four overarching considerations for student‐led telepractice: (1) additional, specific preparation is required, (2) with greater management of technology and adaptation of tasks, especially during times of poor connectivity; (3) telepractice relies heavily on caregiver input and collaboration; and (4) promoting engagement online, holding a client's attention, building rapport and offering reinforcement are critical skills that are complicated by the lack of face‐to‐face contact. Conclusions & Implications: Our findings indicate that telepractice pedagogy needs to be explicitly taught and students require practical assistance as they learn how to use this service delivery approach effectively. There are some aspects peculiar to telepractice that require unique consideration and planning, especially in contexts where service providers and users may be unfamiliar with this form of service provision. The findings of this pilot study can be used by clinical educators and student clinicians to enhance clinical training opportunities involving telepractice. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Many speech‐language therapy (SLT) student clinicians had to transition quickly to telepractice service provision during COVID‐19 with limited existing guidelines and support, especially in contexts where teletherapy is typically non‐existent or difficult to access. Although there is some literature available on experiences of telepractice, there is very little evidence‐based research which explores the mechanics of such sessions in real‐time and which offers practical support to student clinicians and clinical educators engaging in this mode of service delivery. What this study adds: This pilot study examined video‐recorded, student‐led, paediatric, speech‐language teletherapy sessions to understand challenges and considerations involved in using telepractice as a clinical training tool. Findings show that additional preparation for telepractice sessions is required, particularly in contexts of poor digital literacy; students must learn to manage technology, especially when connectivity poses a challenge, and adapt therapy tasks for online work with clients; telepractice relies heavily on caregiver input and collaboration, more so than in in‐person consultations, and this relationship requires careful management; and promoting engagement online, holding a client's attention, building rapport and offering reinforcement are critical yet challenging skills in telepractice. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Our findings highlight a need to teach telepractice pedagogy explicitly and support students practically in learning how to provide therapy effectively via this mode of service delivery. Observational methods for studying practices in recorded telepractice sessions can be used as part of a reflective approach to clinical training. Using already available data allowed us to unpack the 'messy reality' of clinical training using telepractice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their high vulnerability, mountain communities are adversely affected by climate change and variability causing significant challenges to their livelihood strategies. The objective of this paper is to examine the perceptions of local households in the Eastern Free State Region of South Africa regarding how climate change impacts their livelihoods. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 400 respondents on whom a semi-structured household questionnaire survey was administered to gather information about the impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods. Sixty-seven percent of the agriculture-based mountain households reported declining water quality and quantity as the most significant impact, while 48%, 33%, 38% and 68% considered crop loss, reduced crop yields, animal diseases, and livestock mortality as the most significant impacts, respectively. Agriculture-based mountain households also cited climate-related socio-economic impacts- higher prices, farm and non-farm income loss, and increased labour as impacts of climate change. These findings reveal that the impacts of climate change effects on on-farm and off-farm activities can be contextualised according to households' primary livelihood activities. The paper concludes that understanding the mountain communities' perceptions about climate change impacts on their livelihoods could be useful for identifying context-specific adaptation strategies applicable to these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the ambitions of Africa's first independent nonprofit school of architecture—the School of Explorative Architecture—in light of the decoloniality ideas that were galvanized by the Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Cape Town in 2015. The paper describes the School's three modes of teaching and learning architecture, namely the thing (professional competencies of designing a building), the shadow of the thing (theorized and critical thinking around buildings and architecture), and the painted shadow of the thing (creative acts engaging architecture in ideas and critical thinking). The paper explains the nuances of teaching and learning architecture in the South African context and the importance of teaching professional competencies while surfacing 'other' conditions through the painted shadow. The paper ends by asking if a radical spatial alterity—the folding of the thing, the shadow, and the painted shadow into each other—is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials 'seem to get angry with honest people', shared a Congolese immigrant from the Kivu region who now resides in Cape Town. Some DHA officials get money through illicit transactions for 'papers' and they become visibly frustrated with immigrants who try to obtain documents by lawful means. While there has been much focus on xenophobia associated with immigration in South Africa, there has been little attention paid to the illicit market in immigrant papers such as asylum seeker permits (Section 22 permits), refugee status permits (Section 24 permits), and work permits. These immigrant documents assist individuals--namely those who otherwise lack status, or 'papers', or both--to obtain abilities to work, travel safely, register themselves or their children for school, access non-emergency healthcare, and gain banking privileges. In providing an account of the market in immigrant papers, the article focuses on how these documents relate to status and survival. By purchasing papers in Cape Town, immigrants (referring to asylum seekers, refugees, and cross border migrants) aim to secure their legal status and gain productive agency in their lives. This paper is based on an ethnographic research methodology and participant observation, and shows how immigration challenges South Africa's post-apartheid, constitutionally-mandated socio-economic rights and democratic aims and has fostered an illicit market in immigrant documents. This work furthers debates on immigration governance in the global south, corruption in state institutions, and the vulnerability of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current management of solid waste from pulp and paper activities represents an environmental and economic burden worldwide due to pollution emissions. This study investigates the potential of hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC) treatment as a sustainable alternative for producing cleaner and energy-dense solid fuel from paper mill sludge. The effect of process parameters (temperature, reaction time and solid load) on hydrochar fuel formation from paper sludge was evaluated and, for the first time, the paper sludge-derived hydrochar was optimised to maximise the mass yield and calorific value using response surface methodology (RSM). The physicochemical characteristics, thermal fuel behaviour, energy recycling efficiency and electricity generation potential were assessed by proximate and ultimate analysis, thermogravimetry, bomb calorimeter, scanning electron microscopy and process energy assessment. Results showed that hydrochar fuel formation and properties were mainly influenced by the process temperature and residence time, and governed by dehydration and decarboxylation reactions which reduced the atomic H/C and O/C ratios by 35.5% and 64%, respectively. The produced hydrochars presented low sulphur, nitrogen and ash content with a maximum calorific value (HHV) of 22.9 MJ/kg, equivalent to the HHV of coal for commercial utility in South Africa. The HHV of the hydrochar corresponded to a 49.80% increase over the HHV of the initial feedstock. The optimum operating conditions were 231 ± 1 °C and 1.99 h for a hydrochar yield of 74.4% and calorific value of 18.5 MJ/kg. The energy assessment showed that up to 58.34% of the energy produced by hydrochar fuel combustion may be recycled as heat or power, while the remaining 41.66% of the combustion energy could be utilised to sustain the HTC treatment of paper sludge. The substantial water demand was concluded to be a drawback. Thus, water recirculation and the potential to catalyse the HTC reactions to increase overall process efficiency will constitute a future study to make the process more environmentally friendly for industrial-scale application. [Display omitted] • Dehydration and decarboxylation were predominant. • Optimum energy yield of 18.5 MJ/kg and 74.4% hydrochar was achieved under 231 ± 1 °C and 1.99 h. • Higher HTC reaction severity enhanced the physicochemical properties of the hydrochar. • Hydrochars produced have low nitrogen and sulphur (<1%) content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulp and paper mill sludge is a waste stream derived from the pulp and paper making industry, comprised of organic and inorganic material in the form of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and ash. In South Africa, approximately fivefour hundred thousand wet tonnes are produced per annum and is currently disposed via landfilling or incineration. However, these disposal methods raise environmental and financial concerns. This waste stream is an attractive feedstock for fermentable sugars, mainly glucose, recovery and can be redirected for valorisation as a feedstock for microbial fermentation to produce value-added products. Sugar recovery by enzymatic hydrolysis, as opposed to acidic hydrolysis, is a promising approach but is hampered by the lignin and inorganic material found in pulp and paper mill sludge. Several treatment steps to reduce or remove these components prior to enzymatic hydrolysis are assessed in this review. Pretreatment improves hydrolysis of cellulosic fibres and ensures a substantial yield of sugars. • Pulp and paper mill sludge is a suitable source of fermentable sugar. • Pulping and paper making processes can influence pulp and paper mill sludge properties. • Cost efficient strategies are suggested to promote enzymatic hydrolysis. • Pretreatment can help overcome challenges encountered with enzymatic hydrolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the experience of a group of South African clinicians who have met monthly since 2011 to engage with race as it pertains to our clinical contexts, our identities as clinicians and, inevitably, our private selves. Written from a relational psychoanalytic perspective, the paper is contextualised within the prevailing sociopolitical climate and the local profession of psychoanalytic practice. With the aim of crafting a collaborative paper, individual group members were asked to reflect on their experience of the group in order to distil dominant themes and processes. What became evident through the collation of these reflections was a shared experience of various manifestations of a third position which, it is suggested, have facilitated reflective functioning, allowing the group to traverse multiple iterations of rupture and repair. The paper suggests that it is the repeated processes of misrecognition and rupture and subsequent repair and mutual recognition, that largely account for the group's longevity, continuity and challenging generativity. The paper highlights the potency of thirdness in facilitating thinking about race through dialogue. However, the limitations and fragility of the group and its process in the context of the restless and fractured socio-political landscape of contemporary South Africa are also acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the tensions and struggles over elder care that are happening in South Africa between family caregivers, care workers and the state. These struggles are experienced and expressed at the familial and community level but are best understood by examining how the state has de-funded facilities in favour of ‘ageing in place’ without any additional investment in community and home-based care support. The findings reveal that stresses on unpaid and paid carers are expressed in terms of individual failings and interpersonal conflict rather than through a socio-political contextual lens. These findings contribute to how a familialist care regime impacts the everyday personal relationships between paid and unpaid carers of older persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, food and nutritional state are marked by an acute prevalence of undernourishment, leading to malnutrition, starvation, and poverty. This state has remained vital for the past years, making attaining zero hunger for the anticipated period (2030) in Africa less possible. To alleviate this challenge, more sustainable food production systems, policy frameworks, mindset changes, and diversification of the food production systems must include some highly nutritious underutilized orphan crops. Acknowledging the potential of untapped, versatile, and climate resilience, Amaranthus significantly promotes sustainable and nutrient-rich food systems. Amaranth grain is a pseudocereal with 4 g of protein and 19 g of carbohydrates per 100 g of cooked amaranth. It is a nutrient powerhouse constituting valuable nutraceuticals, protein, and carbohydrates. Grain amaranth yield ranges from 1500 to 7200 kg/ha. Yield variableness of grain amaranth, lays openings for scientists and researchers to study crop improvement and access a rich pool of genetic materials. These attributes make Amaranthus (amaranth) the most suitable crop candidate in these climate change scenarios. The Amaranthus spp. are popularly known as weedy species and largely undomesticated crops with good adaptability to various geographical locations. Despite its good adaptability, it is less known, under-exploited, and less popular as human food, and its production is very scanty, especially in southern Africa. Efforts are needed to promote its adoption and commercialization. The authors searched pieces of literature in books, journals, and conference papers to establish the potential usage of Amaranthus, its nutritional composition, and its production practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is an energy-intensive developing country in Africa and ranked as the 1st and 14th emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG) in Africa and the world, respectively. The abundance and availability of coal in South Africa make it the mainstay primary source of energy contributing 56% of national total GHG emissions. This paper focused on the duo of energy generation and emission associated with coal processing and utilization in South Africa, and the urgent need to advance coal processing technologies marked by high carbon footprints in consonance with the sustainable development goals. Different gasification techniques and their performances have been compiled and discussed. The economic, environmental impact, energetic, and exergetic characteristics of existing hydrogen production technologies for renewable and non-renewable energy sources have been examined along with hydrogen production from plasma gasification of coal. Hydrogen production via coal or coal/biomass plasma gasification technology (nuclear-, wind-, PV solar-, and concentrated solar power-driven) in addition to carbon capture technology for transforming the captured CO 2 into value-added products appears to be the most viable option to considerably reduce emissions and meet the energy demand of South Africa. This proposed technology can be pivotal to achieving a low-carbon economy (medium-term) and transition to hydrogen economy (long-term) as championed by the global sustainable development agenda. Conclusively, hydrogen (stored in different forms e.g., liquid hydrogen, ammonia, and organic hydride) seems to find more applications (in the space industry, transport, energy storage, defense industry, etc.) than coal owing to its immediate use in distribution/demand centers and remote areas. • Coal is the primary energy source of South Africa and key driver of national CO 2 emissions. • Traditional coal gasification technologies are marked by high CO 2 emissions. • Coal plasma gasification technology is a viable option for low-carbon energy economy. • Hydrogen production via coal or coal/biomass plasma gasification technology leads to zero-carbon economy. • This immensely supports the drive towards attaining the sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive education is a fundamental right of all students. Despite international policy initiatives, educational exclusion is pervasive, especially in the Global South, and disproportionately affects disabled students. Barriers to inclusive education have been itemised in the literature, but in this conceptual paper that offers a novel perspective on the topic, we argue for a complexity approach to understand its evolution. Using a qualitative deductive content analysis of South African laws, policies, reports and scholarly literature, we explore three path dependencies from colonial/apartheid times that lock the country into historical patterns of categorisation and segregated schooling. These operate alongside the emergence of new and inclusive practices by actors at a system-wide and local level, made possible by inputs into the policy ecology. South Africa represents a complex, contradictory educational environment that confounds the expectation of linear progression towards greater inclusivity. Instead of identifying barriers to inclusive education, we argue for a nuanced understanding of the imbrications of historical investments and drivers of inequality, with policy possibilities and the impetus for transformation among system actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the onset of the apartheid era, Jewish women across South Africa began to publish community cookbooks to raise money for Jewish schools, synagogues, and other organizations. Through their combination of recipes, titles, advertisements, prefaces, and guidelines, community cookbooks narrated the economic, social, and cultural successes of the women who compiled them. In the postwar period, South African Jewish women sought a place for themselves in Jewish communal life, and in the white middle class of the country's new apartheid order. By producing and consuming community cookbooks, these women armed themselves with the organizational platform and the cultural capital that would help them claim that place. In order to be able to step into the public sphere while meeting their domestic obligations, they came to rely on the invisibilized labor of the black women who worked in their homes and kitchens. The paper uses cookbooks to think critically about the position of South African Jews in the apartheid system, analyzing how Jewish women benefited from the privileges of whiteness in the intimate arena of their homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks two main research questions. First, what is the relationship between firm-level innovation and export performance? Second, what is the direct effect of innovation on employment, while accounting for the indirect innovation-export link? I use a novel longitudinal administrative dataset of all firms registered to pay tax in South Africa, over 2010–2016. The first main result suggests a positive and significant relationship between innovation and export performance. Second, the fixed effects results show that direct innovation positively impacts employment growth in manufacturing firms, however, R&D-induced exports – the indirect channel – negatively impacts employment growth. This points to the notion that productivity enhancements necessary for South African manufacturing exporters to compete internationally might promote labor-saving innovations. Nonetheless, the overall innovation effect on firm employment growth is positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accumulation of waste in landfill is currently a challenge globally and in South Africa. The primary motivation of this research was to contribute to identifying and evaluating pathways for diverting plastic waste from landfill and advancing the plastics circular economy. This study assessed, for South Africa, key measures implemented by selected countries to promote recycling in order to divert waste from the landfill. The National Waste Management Strategy of 2020 for South Africa mandates successive waste reduction targets toward zero waste landfill by 2050. Material flow analysis (MFA) was extended from previous studies and used to map plastic flows over three successive intervals to assess progress made toward diversion of plastic waste from landfill. The percentage of plastic materials sent to landfill for South Africa were 74%, 78%, and 39% in 2017, 2019, and 2021, respectively. Potential pathways were identified as strategies for the South African to accelerate the reduction of plastic waste to landfill. These were modeled as single and as combined actions, through sensitivity analysis on the MFA‐derived Sankey diagram and used to assess their impact on waste to landfill reduction. The scenario analysis highlighted improved waste collection and waste sorting as key measures and enablers that should be developed and a priority for reduction of plastic waste to landfill before the 2050 target year. The paper presents a new generic approach that combines MFA, Sankey diagrams, and scenario analysis to explore and evaluate solution spaces for transition to a circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Community health worker programmes have the potential to contribute critically towards universal health coverage. However, CHWs globally have often continued to operate on the periphery of the health care system, viewed as a non-essential cadre. This results in a workforce that often remains disempowered and under-supported. This paper presents evidence from a study conducted in a rural part of South Africa, to better understand issues of CHW prioritisation, integration, and empowerment. Methods: We applied an analytical lens based on empowerment theory and conducted a secondary analysis of qualitative data emerging from a sub-study of a cRCT evaluating the effectiveness of supportive supervision for CHWs within a large-scale national CHW programme. The cRCT was conducted between 2017 and 2022, and 39 CHWs were included in the study. Results: We organised our findings across the four domains of structural empowerment; information, resources, support, and opportunity, and mapped these domains against the domains of psychological empowerment. Our findings show how CHWs are still working in the periphery of the healthcare system. Without sufficient prioritisation, high level-support from national and district governments, and sufficient investments in programmatic domains—such as training, equipment, and supportive supervision—it is likely that the CHW cadre will continue to be seen as informal health care workers. Conclusions: CHW empowerment could be a lever to potentially transform the current health system towards universal coverage; however, this process can only happen with sufficient high-level prioritization and investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores teenage girls' engagement with digital images on social media. Using new feminist materialism, we foreground digital images as an assemblage of materialities (human and more‐than‐human) filled with affective potentials that materialise in/capacities. Drawing from interviews and focus group discussions, we show how the production and sharing of selfies through posting and sexting unlocked new ‘becomings’ through expressions of heterosexual desirability and pleasure but also generated fear through sexual objectification, sexual double standards and harassment. A recognition of digital images as materially embodied through which unequal gender power relations materialise is vital to addressing online sexual risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How teachers respond to, and interact with, learners of diverse genders and sexualities is critical to ensuring their safe and inclusive schooling experiences. This paper examines the perspectives and responses towards learners of diverse genders and sexualities of a selected group of teachers in a primary school in South Africa. Twelve teachers were interviewed for this qualitative study, and the findings reveal that teachers had a limited understanding of diverse genders and sexualities and mostly held heteronormative and moralistic views. They also considered children as deficient and innocent and were awkward about acknowledging and responding to diverse genders and sexualities with primary school learners. To create a safe and supportive environment for children to understand and construct their genders and sexualities, teachers need to improve their understanding of gender and sexuality, critically reflect on their conservative socialisation and moral judgements, and address their discomfort concerning diverse genders and sexualities among children. Teacher education must prepare teachers in a manner that recognises the complex ways in which gender and sexuality infuse all aspects of learners’ lives. This education should prepare all teachers to adopt a non-judgemental approach to gender and sexuality inclusion in ways that challenge heteronormativity in the primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Apartheid South Africa shifted to a culture of consumption, originating with a transition to a neoliberal society [Sana, V. (2022). Bits of bytes and bites of bits: Instagram and the gendered performance of food production in the South African Indian community. Agenda, 36(1), 100–108), alongside access to a globalized world. During apartheid, consumption was strictly regulated, and racialized. This culture of consumption has been prevalent since the mid-1990s. As apartheid regulations lifted, the freedom of movement, choice and the ability to consume unreservedly, opened possibilities previously unimagined for much of the population. Consumption in South Africa is largely characterized by the unique contextual and symbolic processes that inform it. Consumption practices have impacted performances of identity and anxieties of belonging in turn [Sana, V. (2022). Bits of bytes and bites of bits: Instagram and the gendered performance of food production in the South African Indian community. Agenda, 36(1), 100–108]. This paper examines the visual representations of consumption practices on Instagram. Using critical consumption studies, an analysis of various Instagram influencers' consumption uncovers how South Africans affirm their place in the neoliberal global stage through acts of consumption. The article considers the consumption of products as a product itself to be consumed, and how this links to debates around conspicuous consumption in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional healing practices are prominent in recent studies. Particularly, there is focused attention on holistic healing in treatment interventions for various illnesses, including mental disorders. This paper quantitatively evaluates the perspectives of traditional health practitioners (THPs) regarding their knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment practices of mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. Special attention was paid to symptoms of schizophrenia as they seem to overlap with the symptoms of bewitchment and an ancestral calling. Self-developed questionnaires were administered to 100 THPs from Harry Gwala District, KwaZulu-Natal. Black, middle-aged female THPs classified as diviners were prevalent. They reflected knowledge of mental disorders and played a role in their diagnosis and treatment. Medicinal concoction was the commonly prescribed treatment option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Programme Science (PS) and community‐led monitoring (CLM) intersect in unexpected and promising ways. This commentary examines a CLM initiative in Malawi and South Africa to highlight the crucial role of CLM in bolstering the PS framework. By leveraging data sources often overlooked by conventional research and evaluation approaches, CLM emerges as a pivotal element in enhancing programme effectiveness. This paper delineates the fundamental principles of CLM, presents programme outcomes derived from CLM methodologies and contextualizes these findings within the broader framework of PS. Discussion: The Citizen Science Project implements CLM continuously at 33 health facilities: 14 in Malawi (eight in Kasungu District and six in Dedza District), and 19 in South Africa (all in the West Rand District), representing a total catchment area of 989,848 people. Monitoring indicators are developed in an iterative process with community groups. The indicators are unique to each country, but both focus on the uptake of health services (quantitative) and barriers to access (qualitative). Monthly clinic records surveys capture 34 indicators in Malawi and 20 in South Africa and are supplemented by qualitative interviews with care recipients and healthcare workers. Qualitative interviews provide additional granularity and help confirm and explain the more macro trends in service coverage as described in quantitative data. The resulting data analysis reveals key themes that help stakeholders and decision‐makers to solve problems collaboratively. Noteworthy outcomes include a substantial increase in multi‐month dispensing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) during COVID‐19 (from 6% to 31%) with a subsequent recovery surpassing of HIV service benchmarks in Malawi post‐pandemic. Conclusions: While quantifying direct impact remains challenging due to the project's design, CLM proves to be a robust methodology that generates credible data and produces impactful outcomes. Its potential extends beyond the health sector, empowering community leadership and fostering interventions aligned with community needs. As CLM continues to evolve, its integration into PS promises to improve relevance, quality and impact across diverse disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores how beneficiaries of South Africa's land reform programme attempt to navigate the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises. The Mphuzanyoni Communal Property Association in KwaZulu‐Natal province farms with commercial beef herds and the Mayime Cooperative in the Eastern Cape province is engaged in a joint venture dairy farming scheme in partnership with an agribusiness firm. Severe tensions are evident between the social reproduction of households and the requirements of simple or expanded reproduction of agricultural enterprises. Bernstein's concept of competing 'funds' is used to examine struggles over production and reproduction on the farms, in which members of socially differentiated households contest divergent visions for the collective enterprises. Conflicts centre on how labour and capital should be mobilised, how income and other benefits in kind should be distributed to households and whether or not income should be invested for purposes of simple or expanded reproduction of the enterprise. Challenges of governance are rooted in these conflicts rather than in group ownership as a form of property right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to discern the causes of the health and developmental problems of children, and thence develop preventative strategies, longitudinal cohort studies offer major advantages. They can monitor the consequences of exposure to physical and psychological events and thence identify antecedents of various disorders. We describe the historical background to the development in the UK of this study design, and the uptake of longitudinal birth cohorts in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), using the cohorts in Jamaica, South Africa and Brazil as exemplars. We describe the benefits of such studies and show how undertaking longitudinal cohort studies can have major health and financial benefits to the populations concerned. Additionally, the paper outlines the advantages of collaboration between studies and the pooling of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Municipalities, as the front lines of service delivery, use websites as one of the tools to communicate information to the public. While it is considered a record, many organisations, including municipalities, do not manage websites as such. This study aims to explore the archiving of websites as records in the municipalities of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province in South Africa by using the web archiving life cycle model. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a mixed-methods research with an explanatory design, with quantitative data collected first through content analysis of websites and qualitative data collected through interviews. Researchers used multilevel sampling, first quantitatively analysing all available websites of the municipalities (52) in KZN, and then qualitatively selecting only records managers, information managers, web administrators, communication managers and website managers or designers from municipalities because of their understanding and involvement with websites in some way. Findings: This study established that some records on municipal websites are often in paper format in record-keeping systems, whereas others are born digital and are not captured in the systems. Municipalities lack a dedicated web online harvesting tool as well as an archiving policy or strategy to guide website archiving. Furthermore, municipalities placed a high reliance on service providers to keep their websites operational. Research limitations/implications: It became clear during the interviews that most of the participants were unfamiliar with web archiving. As a result, only 12 of the 56 selected participants from the municipalities provided the required information in relation to the current study as others could not provide answers. Data for other participants were not analysed. Originality/value: Due to a lack of infrastructure for ingesting digital records into archival custody, a framework for harvesting web content of value is proposed both internally in municipalities and externally to an archive repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African students have since 2015 returned to the forefront of the country's social movement struggles. Central to this wave of contention was the #RhodesMustFall (#RMF) movement at the University of Cape Town (UCT), which coalesced with uprisings at universities across the country under the banner of #FeesMustFall, focusing demands on abolishing tuition fees, decolonizing education and society, and ending campus worker exploitation. In the process, students imagined how education and society could be different. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between social movements, occupations, and imagination, by examining a crucial event in the #RMF movement: the student occupation of an administrative building at UCT. Because social movement theory has an underdeveloped conception of the imagination, we draw on Sartre's and Fanon's understanding of the imagination and apply it to students' activism. Based on original qualitative research we demonstrate how imagined futures guide movement activity, while their prefigurative practices in the occupation enacted these in the present. The #RMF occupation was seen as a break from reality that catalysed students' imaginations, honing their critiques of society and shaping two central imaginaries of alternative futures, decolonization and intersectionality. The #RMF movement's imaginaries and enactments were influential in reshaping the South African higher education landscape and even inspired movements internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community health workers (CHWs) are central to the global health response to crises like the AIDS epidemic. Yet community health work remains undervalued and undercompensated worldwide owing in large part to the gendered and racialized contexts of care work. This paper investigates the possibility of occupational security for CHWs by comparing two cases from South Africa's response to AIDS. The first draws on ethnographic research (2007–2009) in rural KwaZulu‐Natal province and documents the fraught formation of a union representing CHWs. The second examines legal action in the Free State province for a group of CHWs known as the Bophelo House 94, who were arrested and criminally charged in June 2014 after protesting their sudden dismissal by the government. This case comparison finds that collective action has thus far had limited effects on CHWs' position as a nascent occupation. The South African Ministry of Health has obstructed CHW professionalization, and non‐state actors' involvement has been a mixture of benefit and impediment: some social justice agencies have facilitated CHW advocacy, while many AIDS service organizations have cooperated with the state and exacerbated the precarity of CHWs' working conditions. However, the consolidation of CHW work roles—owing to advances in AIDS prevention and treatment—holds promise for future CHW collective organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of preparing young people for independent adulthood is widely acknowledged in care-leaving literature. Within the residential care setting, child and youth care workers play a crucial role in preparing young people for life after care, by affording them managed opportunities for independence. However, preparation generally receives limited attention in residential care, due to institutional factors that hinder preparation. Research that focuses on the experiences of child and youth care workers who work with children in residential care is also limited, despite their contribution to preparing young people for independent functioning. This paper aims to describe institutional barriers experienced by child and youth care workers in their efforts to afford young people in care, managed opportunities for independence. A qualitative, grounded theory methodology was employed to collect and analyze data. Nine child and youth care workers were purposively sampled from several Child and Youth Care Centres in South Africa. Findings indicate that lack of professional credibility, inadequate mandate, possible negative consequences for child and youth care workers, and funding constraints are barriers to the practice of managed opportunities for independence in residential care. Implications for residential care program and child and youth care practice are set out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity, driving environmentally sustainable fashion design through innovation, has become increasingly more important. From an educational perspective, enhancing students' creative design thinking processes, presents several challenges, especially in blended learning. This article addresses this concern and reports on the implementation of a blended learning teaching framework, applied to support students' positive emotions and creativity during an environmentally sustainable fashion design project that required innovative design solutions. The qualitative inquiry adopted a case study research design, involving undergraduate fashion design students at a tertiary institution in South Africa. Two key findings have emerged from the research. Firstly, the significant level of creativity required by the undertaken design project requires re-thinking of support for creative and innovative thinking. Secondly, a clearer understanding of the anxiousness caused when participants are faced with innovative design practices is needed to find suitable solutions. Based on the findings, this paper concludes with improvements presented in an amended framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is essential for crucial development in Africa. The current electricity shortages and load shedding in South Africa show that the country faces significant challenges in reaching positive economic growth. For industries to operate sustainably, an innovative mechanism must be tailored to solve the negative impacts of industrial energy use, particularly climate change. This study aims to show how renewable energy technologies can provide new economic opportunities, contribute to higher standards of living, and reduce the impacts of society on ecosystems, among other things. This paper presents a feasibility analysis and optimization of new energy technologies by designing and simulating a grid-connected PV system for sustainable development. PV Syst software (PV Syst 6.8.8) was used to simulate and optimize the PV system. The software was employed to design and model the PV systems, calculating energy production, economic performance, and environmental impact. Using simulation data, the researchers compared PV system performance across three scenarios and identified the optimal system. Scenario A was chosen as the best system, with an energy production of 1720 MWh/year. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that grid-connected PV systems are a feasible and sustainable option for meeting South Africa's energy needs. By implementing the results and recommendations, the government, investors, and community can work together to develop and deploy a successful PV system that will benefit all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars examining racial stereotyping and prejudice in racially organised social systems have largely focused on how non-White ethnic and racial groups experience racial stereotyping in White-majority national contexts such as the US, Australia and European countries. There is only scant scholarship on experiences of ethno-racial communities in Black-majority countries such as South Africa, a country where Whites are a minority. Even though there is ample scholarly work on racial stereotyping of racial groups in South Africa such as Coloured people, much of it is focused on their experiences during colonial and Apartheid eras. Little is understood about how Coloured people experience racial stigmatisation in post-Apartheid South Africa. This paper addresses this gap. Based on interviews with fourteen Coloured participants from Westbury, Johannesburg, this study found that many interviewees claimed that Coloured South Africans were negatively racially stereotyped as people who use drugs, as aggressive and violent people, as alcoholics and as criminals. Many participants also resisted and countered the negative stereotypes by talking about Coloured people in positive ways, which shows their agency. The negative stereotyping of Coloured people which prevailed during colonial and Apartheid times is still deployed by society to describe Coloured people in post-Apartheid South Africa. To capture the continuity of negative stereotyping in South Africa about Coloured people, I developed the analytical term of 'perpetual racial stereotyping'. Many decades after the end of the Apartheid system, negative racial stereotyping of Coloured South Africans still continues in everyday life, and Coloured people are still associated with racist prejudices, narratives, discourses and stereotypes that were invented many decades ago by settler colonialism and Apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is undergoing a rapid decline in social and political cohesion at various scales. This paper explores Cape Town's experience of socio-territorial messages and identities deployed by the City administration and the leading party, the Democratic Alliance. I focus on relational constructions of the subjectivity of the 'ratepayer' and the deserving Capetownian as constructed in the City and the DA's discourse and policy measures in juxtaposition to 'street people' and other supposedly deviant urban subjects and how, as such, the wilful ignorance of the first remains both unchallenged and in service of an exclusionary and unjust spatial order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sub-Saharan cities are growing and changing due to immigration and modernization. One of the consequences of the current urbanization is that an increasing number of families residing in peri-urban areas of small rural towns lack access to basic municipal and ecosystem services. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the impacts of peri-urban expansion on municipal services provided by the governments and on ecosystems services through a case study of a small rural town called Makhado Biaba in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Makhado Biaba has been experiencing incessant rapid physical expansion over the years. Such spatial expansion into the peri-urban zone impacts the provision of municipal services such as water, electricity, sewerage, and refuse collection. In 2020, an exploratory mixed-methods study of some anthropocentric and ecosystem changes in Makhado Biaba Local Municipality in northeast South Africa was executed. Land use was mapped for the time period of 1990–2020, data were gathered through a household questionnaire in six villages, and interviews were held with municipal officials. Among others, the study showed that several municipal services are available in the peri-urban villages of Makhado Biaba Town despite the distant locations outside the urban core. However, services are not uniformly distributed due to that new peri-urban developments that are leapfrogging into vacant land without supporting infrastructure. The pace of the municipality in providing the necessary municipal services such as water and energy supply, as well as sanitation and refuse removal, is lagging behind the development of new and unplanned housing areas. The findings bring about information about the suburban livelihoods and how the administration of the peri-urban areas can respond to the needs of the inhabitants as well as to future challenges. For instance, to facilitate local development, recurrent and well-structured citizen dialogs with local groups to identify delivery failures are strongly recommended. In addition, the impact on ecosystem services by the city development and land use change stresses the need for guided urban development and expansion and also settlement upgrading programs in peri-urban zones to limit the bad effect on ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and experimental development (R&D) is an important driver of economic growth and productivity. Gross expenditure on domestic R&D (GERD) is a country's total expenditure on R&D performed by all sectors of the economy. South Africa's GERD as a percentage of its GDP (GERD/GDP) remains below government targets and has stagnated over the past decade, largely due to declining business sector R&D. This paper aims to identify the drivers of firm-level R&D intensity, defined as the firm's R&D expenditure as a percentage of turnover. It is the first South African study to examine both micro- and macro-economic drivers of firm R&D, with a paucity of literature on this topic for middle-income countries. Using the South African National R&D Survey data, the study utilized the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model and found that public financial support for firms, smaller firm-size, firm-level collaboration, political stability, foreign direct investment, and public R&D investment are positively associated with firm R&D intensity. The results highlight the importance of public financial support for smaller firms and investments in higher education and research institutions in promoting firm-level R&D, thereby providing useful policy insights for boosting business sector and economy-wide R&D expenditure and reaching national GERD/GDP targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the asymmetric link between carbon pricing and the comparative advantage in environmental goods exports in South Africa from 1995 to 2021. The non‐linear autoregressive distributed lag model is utilized to investigate the effects of both minor and major positive and negative fluctuations in carbon taxes, technological innovation, and energy transition on comparative advantage. The results reveal that carbon taxes have an asymmetric effect on comparative advantage in both the short and long runs, with positive shocks exerting a greater beneficial influence than negative shocks. Specifically, it is found that a 1% reduction in carbon taxes corresponds to a 1.24% decline in the response variable, whereas a 1% increase in carbon taxes is associated with a 2.72% increase in comparative advantage in environmental goods exports, which is twice as large. The study also uncovers evidence of an asymmetric relationship between low‐carbon technological innovation and comparative advantage in environmental goods exports. However, strong evidence of a long‐run asymmetric linkage between the energy transition and comparative advantage is not established. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that a positive shift in energy transition is linked with a 0.32% rise in comparative advantage in environmental goods exports, whereas a negative shift in energy transition corresponds to a 0.11% decrease. The practical policy implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for qualitative researchers since many countries had to implement lockdown policies to control the spread of the virus. Within the South African context, research on sexual minority identities and experiences is automatically sensitive and risky given the extent of intolerance and high regard for heteronormative ideologies and beliefs that continually exclude sexual minorities from the "normal." The sensitivity is intensified during a national lockdown since there is an excessive reliance on digital public spaces to recruit participants and conduct interviews. Based on the experience of Ph.D. fieldwork, this paper pays attention to a sexuality researcher's experience of conducting research on gay men's experiences in the South African military and police services during a national lockdown. Particular attention is given to the dilemmas posed by the government's restriction on physical movement and reliance on digital spaces, particularly social media to identify gay men who work in the two organizations and form virtual relationships of mutual trust. Ultimately, this paper holds that reflexivity is critical to feminist research on vulnerable sexual minorities when the relationships between the researcher and the researched are established and maintained through digital platforms. While digital spaces offer opportunities to reach vulnerable populations, they present some challenges that may compromise the credibility of the study if not identified by the researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, despite the increasing poverty and inequalities, policies should be designed to deal with population heterogeneity and environmental changes. Bottom-up designs, such as the Agent-Based Model (ABM), can model these features, dealing with such complexity. HIV/AIDS has a complex dynamic of structural factors, risk behaviors, biomedical characteristics and interventions. All embedded in unequal, stigmatized and heterogeneous social structure. To understand how ABMs can model this complexity, we performed a scoping review of HIV applications, highlighting their potentialities. Methods: We searched on PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus repositories following the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. Our inclusion criteria were HIV/AIDS studies with an ABM application. We identified the main articles using a local co-citation analysis and categorized the overall literature aims, (sub)populations, regions, and if the papers declared the use of ODD protocol and limitations. Results: We found 154 articles. We identified eleven main papers, and discussed them using the overall category results. Most studies model Transmission Dynamics (37/154), about Men who have sex with Men (MSM) (41/154), or individuals living in the US or South Africa (84/154). Recent studies applied ABM to model PrEP interventions (17/154) and Racial Disparities (12/154). Only six papers declared the use of ODD Protocol (6/154), and 34/154 didn't mention the study limitations. Conclusions: While ABM is among the most sophisticated techniques available to model HIV/AIDS complexity. Their applications are still restricted to some realities. However, researchers are challenged to think about social structure due model characteristics, the inclusion of these features is still restricted to case-specific. Data and computational power availability can enhance this feature providing insightful results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a study on blindness discourses found in South African non-profit organisations that provide rehabilitation services to visually impaired adults. The paper investigates what the public relations materials of these organisations communicate about blindness. It also considers the ideological assumptions that blindness discourses reinforce and embed in rehabilitation practice. The primary focus is a discourse analytic review conducted on a sample of organisation public facing material. The findings comprise three clusters of assumptions, with concomitant enactments in practice. These are i) third-person alliances around the blind subject and a resulting objectification of service users ii) 'journey discourse' which prohibits the expression of complex disability experiences and iii) polarised blindness fantasies which promote othering and prescribe acceptable ways of being for blind subjects. This paper questions what might be imparted to blind persons at a symbolic level through rehabilitative practices. This article explores the ways that blindness and blind persons are represented on the websites of organisations that provide visual impairment rehabilitation services in South Africa. These representations affect the way that society views visually impaired people, and the way that visually impaired people feel about themselves. Organisation websites describe visually impaired people in ways that make it seem as though they play little active role in the rehabilitation process. The idea that rehabilitation is a journey from dependence and depression to independence and self-acceptance might make it difficult for rehabilitation service users to express ongoing feelings of grief and loss. There is a need for more focus on interdependence in rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation organisations must think carefully about what their public relations materials communicate to society about blindness and blind persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African Basic Education System does little to provide skills, needed to survive outside the schooling system, for those who do not wish to pursue post-secondary school education. The education system produces secondary school graduates who are poised, as content carriers and an un-employable labour force. A research question grappled with in this paper is whether this secondary school curriculum design inherited from the colonial formal education system is beneficial for South African learners? The paper argues that the continuation of the provision of this curriculum is tantamount to contributing very little to the national educational strategic goals of creating a skilled workforce needed to run the South African economy. Additionally, this also contributes to the exacerbation of the unemployment in South Africa. From a decolonial point of view, the paper provides a comprehensive overview of the basic education curriculum from the colonial period until the contemporary period and shows how it has contributed to huge numbers of jobseekers visa-versa employees and subservient of the curriculum design and schooling system. Methodologically, this paper is informed by a qualitative research approach in the form of document review. The research revealed four major important elements in decolonization of the school curriculum namely; history lesson, social justice and self-determination, formulation and execution of the protection of indigenous knowledge systems and promoting the significance of indigenous languages and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how Sesotho translators have translated Biblical Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 Sesotho translation of the Bible. Because this 1989 translation is undergoing revision by the Bible Society of South Africa, it is important to determine the success of the translation. The orality of proverbs relates to their origin as orally transmitted sapiential sayings. In evaluating how some of the Biblical Hebrew proverbs are translated in Sesotho, the literal translation of 1909/61 will be compared to the 1989 dynamic equivalent translation. Using complexity thinking as a theoretical framework, the paper argues that the Hebrew proverbs are better translated in the 1989 version than they are in the 1909/61 version of the Bible in Sesotho in terms of numerous features of orality. In the 1989 version and its revision, proverbs are translated in a poetic format. This means that the translated proverbs in this version of the Bible, informed by the principles of orality, exhibit Sesotho poetic features or structures. The article is divided into the following components: proverbs in Hebrew and Sesotho, theoretical frameworks, how the theoretical frameworks are used to translate certain Hebrew proverbs in the 1989 version, and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubuntu has been defined as a moral quality of human beings, as a philosophy or an ethic, as African humanism, and as a worldview. This paper explores these definitions as conceptual tools for understanding the cultural, educational, and philosophical landscape of post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this understanding is the Althusserian concept of state apparatus. Louis Althusser divides the state apparatus into two forces: the repressive state apparatus (RSA); and the ideological state apparatus (ISA). RSAs curtail the working classes, predominately through direct violence or the threat of violence, whereas ISAs function primarily by ideology, including forms of organised religion, the education system, family units, legal systems, trade unions, political parties, and media. This paper discusses the link between increasing inequality in post-apartheid South Africa and education, with specific reference to Althusser's ISAs and the abuse of Ubuntu as a subterfuge for socio-economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in the context of limited resources will require prioritising the most vulnerable and ensuring health policies and services are responsive to their needs. One way of addressing this is through the engagement of marginalised voices in the priority setting process. Public engagement approaches that enable group level deliberation as well as individual level preference capturing might be valuable in this regard, but there are limited examples of their practical application, and gaps in understanding their outcomes, especially with rural populations. Objective: To address this gap, we implemented a modified priority setting tool (Choosing All Together—CHAT) that enables individuals and groups to make trade‐offs to demonstrate the type of health services packages that may be acceptable to a rural population. The paper presents the findings from the individual choices as compared to the group choices, as well as the differences among the individual choices using this tool. Methods: Participants worked in groups and as individuals to allocate stickers representing the available budget to different health topics and interventions using the CHAT tool. The allocations were recorded at each stage of the study. We calculated the median and interquartile range across study participants for the topic totals. To examine differences in individual choices, we performed Wilcoxon rank sum tests. Results: The results show that individual interests were mostly aligned with societal ones, and there were no statistically significant differences between the individual and group choices. However, there were some statistically significant differences between individual priorities based on demographic characteristics like age. Discussion: The study demonstrates that giving individuals greater control and agency in designing health services packages can increase their participation in the priority setting process, align individual and community priorities, and potentially enhance the legitimacy and acceptability of priority setting. Methods that enable group level deliberation and individual level priority setting may be necessary to reconcile plurality. The paper also highlights the importance of capturing the details of public engagement processes and transparently reporting on these details to ensure valuable outcomes. Public Contribution: The facilitator of the CHAT groups was a member from the community and underwent training from the research team. The fieldworkers were also from the community and were trained and paid to capture the data. The participants were all members of the rural community‐ the study represents their priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analysis the leadership and ethical challenges facing South African public sector including municipalities. Generally, the South African public sector is grappling with service delivery challenges. On top of the public service crisis discourse there is a huge complain about the ethical challenges facing leadership in all the three spheres of government. The South African government sector has turned into a haven for bad management. This has resulted to unmet service delivery to residents of South Africa. This paper is conceptual in approach, and it contends that despite numerous factors affecting service delivery, one major cause that has been overlooked is the failure of the public sector officials to uphold moral principles when performing public duties in their offices. The paper conclude that the current South African sector requires ethically grounded leaders in order to achieve a stable service delivery system compatible with the South African citizenry and their satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a culmination of an empirical study which sought to investigate the ethical dilemmas and Clientelism in the allocation of low-cost houses. Section 26 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 eloquently states that ‘everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing’. Low-cost houses commonly known as ‘RDP houses’ are government’s approach in responding and respecting the constitutional right to adequate housing for all deserving South Africans. This paper argues that the low-cost housing system in South Africa is concocted by ethical dilemmas and conflict of interest such as corruption, nepotism, administrative discretion, and policy dilemmas amongst others. The paper adopts a combination of mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative research approaches) and content analysis. The paper followed a case study approach whereby 10 selected villages within the jurisdiction of the Greater Giyani Local Municipality, Limpopo Province were randomly sampled for data collection. Therefore, questionnaires were administered and collected, interviews conducted and documents relating to the discourse of this study were analysed in context of the general objectives of the study. This was done with a view of proposing recommendations that can be used to minimise and curb unethical conduct and the use of public goods for the benefit of political parties, particularly those running the machinery of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) is a globally recognised publication outlet for the field of Computer Science, including in South Africa. In this study, spanning from 1973 to 2022, we investigated the research participation of South African based authors in LNCS. The publication output and citation impact of these authors were compared to the global Computer Science and LNCS output. The authorship patterns and collaborative behaviour of South African LNCS papers were explored, and a keyword or topic analysis also conducted. Of the total of 518 662 LNCS papers published globally between 1973 and 2022, South African based researchers contributed 1150 papers (0.22%). The LNCS papers from South Africa exhibit a strong collaborative publication culture, with 1043 (91%) co-authored and 107 (9%) singleauthored works. Local LNCS researchers prefer institutional collaboration (43%), followed by international (37%) and national collaboration (11%). Europe emerged as the most significant collaboration partner for LNCS researchers in South Africa. Of the 1150 papers, 836 (73%) had received citations, while 314 (27%) had not. On average, papers published by South African based authors received 6.05 citations, compared to the global LNCS average of 9.49 citations per paper. A keyword analysis revealed that the majority of papers by South African authors focus on artificial intelligence. The results indicate that, although LNCS serves as a reputable dissemination platform for Computer Science research output both globally and locally, South African authors should consider publishing more journal articles to build and improve their researcher profiles. Significance: * The study shows that LNCS is the most frequent publication outlet for Computer Science researchers, globally and in South Africa. * The study offers insight into the publication output, authorship patterns, collaborative behaviour and citation impact of South African based Computer Science researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: South African public archives have not been able to transform into active documenters of society. As a result, they cannot carry out their mandate of collecting non-public records of lasting value and national significance and recording aspects of the country's experience that have previously been ignored by archives repositories. This paper aims to discuss efforts by the Gauteng Provincial Archives to transform the archival landscape in South Africa by collecting sports memories. This is because, in democratic South Africa, the archival landscape was expected to change and reflect the nation's diversity, despite the fact that it still largely reflected the Western-dominated global mainstream. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the authors' personal experiences with the development and operation of the Gauteng Provincial Archives. The authors are also involved in the Gauteng Provincial Archives' oral history project, which aims to build an inclusive archive by recording oral histories of sports memories across the province. Findings: The construction of the Gauteng Archives Repository has ushered in a chance to decolonise South African archives by collecting sports memories. These are windows of opportunity through which ordinary people can include their own experiences, filling in the gaps left by colonial and apartheid archives. Originality/value: This paper offers practical experience in transforming and decolonising archives through collecting sports memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's Just Energy Transition (JET) from coal to renewable energy in response to climate change mitigation policies comes packaged with social costs that these mitigation policies tend to overlook, considering their focus on carbon emission reduction. The paper argues that Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), a component of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) focused on social impact mitigation, can be a long-term approach to closing the social cost gap. Against this backdrop, the paper's arguments were informed by a literature analysis on SIAs and the Just Energy Transition, semi-structured interviews, and surveys with 230 participants, including experts, from Kriel and Carolina in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The findings point to skills development barriers such as poor school attendance, a lack of alignment between existing curriculum design and labour markets, and students' low aptitude for STEM subjects. It also identifies community sustainability issues linked to poor public participation, gender inequalities in land reform and economic participation, and culturally disruptive displacements that will intensify as the energy shift unfolds. The paper submits that SIAs, if incorporated into mainstream energy transition planning, might be a long-term approach to mitigating societal costs and can support socially responsible policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]