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This paper critically explores the use of satire and humour by fast-foods outlets in South Africa and Zimbabwe to advertise and market their menu through digital media platforms, Facebook and Twitter. Using Nando's South Africa and Mambo's Chicken, in Zimbabwe, as case studies, we examine how satire and humour are used as advertising strategies, and as a reflection of these countries' economic and political environments. Consumers are overwhelmed with information coming from different sources such as Television, radio, newspapers and Internet. The paper's theoretical approach is gleaned from advertising and satire. We argue that through their encounter with food, consumers tend to understand the reason behind their 'empty stomach', and mediate on prevailing socio-political and economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful conservation in Africa hinges on the perceptions of communities bordering protected areas. It is therefore vital for protected area stakeholders to know the perceptions of neighbouring communities in order to determine the factors that generate or undermine community support for conservation, so that appropriate management interventions can be implemented. Numerous studies consider benefits, but less relate to perceptions regarding both losses/costs and intangible benefits. This paper demonstrates a methodology with which to determine these factors, focusing on Kekana Gardens community, bordering Dinokeng Game Reserve, in Gauteng Province, South Africa. This qualitative study with 13 residents utilised focus group interviews and adapted nominal grouping technique. Six themes emerged, four of which comprise intangible benefits. This methodology can be applied to any community bordering a conservation area, assisting in crafting solutions that benefit both people and parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic had left heart-wrenching impacts on all facets of life in general and the availability, accessibility, and affordability of medicines and vaccines in particular. Rather, the world has been divided into two groups regarding access to medicine and vaccines as haves and have-nots. The rich countries had pre-ordered the vaccines of COVID-19 along with the holding of the same. The pandemic situation was further worsened, given the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in practice and restrictions on sharing technology of vaccines, medicines, and life-saving equipment. In this context, India and South Africa have proposed the joint proposal and garnered support for waiving off TRIPS to ensure equity, accessibility, and affordability of vaccines and the same as public goods. In this review, we emphasize that global justice is one of the important elements of normative international theories, which focus on all the moral obligations from the world's rich to the world's poor. The paper also questions and argues that if the rich countries fail to go by the principles of global justice, can the Indian and South African (SA) patent diplomacy play a catalyst role in global justice? The review concludes with an emphasis on global solidarity, and the acceptance of joint India–South Africa's "patent diplomacy" for TRIPS waiver would result in mass production and fair distribution, making the COVID-19 medicines and technologies available to everyone regardless of their poor–rich status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the extent to which land ownership through restoration results in non-sustainability in the Nonoti community in South Africa. During the apartheid era, Black communities were evicted from their ancestral land to make way for tourism development, though those lands were later repossessed by their original owners. This study aims at exploring the challenges of post-settlement after land restoration to new landowners in the Nonoti Beach resort. This paper is anchored on the sustainable livelihoods theoretical framework to measure the extent to which land can enhance socio-economic development. This study adopted a qualitative research design using in-depth interviews and focus groups. The sample of this study was drawn from the Nonoti local community members and representatives of the government agencies in charge of land restoration. The study concludes that landowners should be capacitated through training and skills development to live sustainably on the land they have acquired through the land claims process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration has continued to increase over the years. As people relocate to seek opportunities, their hopes and aspirations for a better life become a driving force. The extent to which their expectations are achieved is not documented in South Africa. This paper examines the expectations versus experiences of international immigrants in South Africa using Cameroonian and Democratic Republic of Congo immigrants residing in Cape Town. A qualitative approach with snowball sampling selected key informants from Cameroonian and Congolese nationalities in Cape Town. Results suggest that most immigrants did not meet their expectations for migrating, due to migration policy limitations of the host country exempting them from opportunities. The results align with both the Capability Approach theory and Lee's model of migration. Most of the immigrants showed despondency but do not prefer the option of returning to their home country. This is because they have not attained their goals for migration. The paper recommends that policy discussion between the South African government and stakeholders has become imperative to obtain an informed perspective on the dynamics of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 25 years, South Africa's regional and global stature has been in flux. Although there is continuity in its foreign policy objectives, there have been changes in emphasis and application. These changes, together with shifts in the domestic political and economic landscape, have impacted negatively on South Africa's international relations. President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, boldly proclaimed a 'new dawn' for South Africa. A key aspect of the intended new dawn is the repositioning of South Africa regionally and globally. This paper examines the shifts and the continuity in South Africa's foreign policy, and the reasons for its waning global and regional stature. The paper argues that South Africa is once again in a position to be a norm- and agenda-setter, especially in relation to peace and security, but that this will be a lost opportunity if there is a lack of the necessary reflection, visioning and redress needed for transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gated developments are a defining feature of the post-apartheid residential landscape. The fortification practices witnessed in gated developments are part of a wider securitisation of the South African urban- and ruralscapes. This research resides in the ambit of the theory of crime and violence as a precursor to the growth in gated developments. Research on gated developments has tended to focus on their proliferation in larger urban settlements, with scant attention being paid to gated developments in smaller settlements and in rural areas. However, non-metropolitan gated developments are a reality, and they display similar security features as those found in metropolitan areas. This paper compares the security levels of gated developments in a suburb of Cape Town with those in small towns in the Western Cape province. Security features are quantified to determine whether differences in securitisation levels exist between the locales. The gated developments in the city display higher levels of security than those in small towns. However, a closer analysis of small-town gated developments reveals high security levels in towns where tourism is the mainstay of the local economy. As the technology of security migrates from military applications to residential applications, a securified small-town future is a real possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, community members have the constitutional right to partake in local governance and the local municipal council has the constitutional mandate to facilitate community participation. Qualitative research was used to assess the impact of power relations on community participation in the Mahikeng Local Municipality. The study findings indicate that power differentials contributed to the abandonment of the legislative provisions in the Mahikeng Local Municipality in the North-West Province of South Africa. Among other things, this paper recommends finalisation of the draft public participation framework. The framework should clearly identify and define the roles of the community, elected councillors and traditional authorities. The paper recommends the development of a strategy that includes clear and comprehensive public participation guidelines, protocols and processes to facilitate implementation of the framework. In consultation with the community, a detailed community participation schedule must be developed, implemented and continuously monitored and evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of homo sacer originates from ancient Roman law under which an individual who committed a certain kind of crime was excluded from society and all his/her rights as a citizen were revoked. This paper uses a few selected cases reported in the media of Botswana and South Africa to demonstrate why undocumented migrants in the two countries fit Agamben's description of homo sacer. While migrants in general, whether documented or undocumented, are targets of violence, exploitation and discrimination in these countries, undocumented migrants are particularly vulnerable because of their 'illegal' status. Although violence against undocumented migrants is not formally endorsed by the state, their description as a problem or a threat to society places them in a state of exception which is virtually outside the protection of the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-racialism is a deep-rooted ideal in the history of resistance in South Africa. It is not only the basis of the post-apartheid legal order, but also crucial to the form of capitalism. This paper reinterprets non-racialism and inequality in post-1994 South Africa by revisiting conventional understandings of the nature of the state and the rule of law. It shows that racial inequality is inscribed in the non-racial form of the state. The non-racial democratic shell correlates with the commodity form. Scholars have neglected the shift in the form of the state after 1994, partly because they focus on policy and see the state as an external structure in a racial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is endowed with vast ocean resources and wealth which have the potential to provide enormous socio-economic goods and services to the people and create massive economic growth and wealth if vigorously explored and tapped. This assertion is made against the backdrop of the recent government strategical initiative, under the auspices of 'Operation Phakisa', to unlock and explore the full potential of the ocean's wealth to drive economic growth, create jobs and alleviate poverty. This paper seeks to accentuate that the Operation Phakisa initiative has the potential to strategically unlock underexplored ocean resources for purposes of creating sustainable economic growth, development, and alleviation of hunger and poverty. It concludes that effective and sustainable use of the ocean's wealth depends on good, efficient governance policies, practices and management. Methodically, a qualitative non-empirical research approach was adopted and utilized in this study by sourcing, drawing upon and using information and insights from contemporary literature to address identified problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores debates and politics over the place of regulatory democracy in contemporary South African constitutionalism. Twenty-five years after the formal legal transition from apartheid, regulatory institutions – by and large not the focus of negotiations in the early 1990s – have increasingly assumed prominence within the South African state. Such organisations and their functions do not fit easily within one 'branch' of the classic legal theory of the separation of powers into three parts, namely the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. A typology of regulatory institutions in the South African polity includes at least four distinct types. The work of these regulatory organisations in formulating and implementing law in post-apartheid South Africa has become significant in politics, especially over the past decade. While the existence and operation of regulatory institutions does not itself comprise the whole of regulatory politics, such organisations do constitute a crucial component of and locus for such politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Municipal indigents’ are a category of poor citizens who qualify to receive certain municipal services for free in South Africa. Having registered as municipal indigents, the poor not only gain access to free basic services but also embark upon a voyage into a bureaucratic underworld where policies are changed and eligibility criteria and sanctions are unevenly applied. Various preconditions and limits on services, as well as social surveillance of indigent households, has turned indigency programmes into a ‘regime’. The policy has swung from hard cost recovery (mass disconnections) during the period 1994–2000 to ‘free’ basic services and, more recently, to social-shaming and criminalisation. This paper provides a thematic account of recent municipal indigent processes in order to explore the ‘moving boundary’ between benevolence and control regarding this crucial citizen–state interface. Based on recent interviews with government officials, a review of relevant government documents, and describing the administrative complexities, the paper reveals aspects of what the poor confront in day-to-day experiences of the state. It is argued that there are lessons for all municipalities seeking a more sustainable and democratic path to citizenship rather than an ongoing low-level war with poor citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses two distinct political mobilisations of October 2015 in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Student protests against racial, class-based, and gender-based oppression coincided with xenophobic violence in the city. These events demonstrated both challenges to and continuity with the long history of politics in Grahamstown, a history marked by the contestation and control of space, race, and citizenship. The paper argues for the continued relevance of these themes to thinking about contemporary South African politics. By considering together the two events of October 2015, we can interrogate aspects of colonial political continuities in post-1994 South Africa which variously influence mass protest action for democratic opening, anti-democratic violence, and state responses to both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of early childhood development (ECD) programmes are strongly supported by evidence of reduced school dropout and repetition rates. However, the literature on ECD is primarily grounded in research based in the United States (US); in the light of this gap in the literature, this paper provides a comparative overview of ECD policy and practice from outside of the US, namely in South Africa and Turkey. As a theoretical framework the paper has followed the World Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER)-ECD Analytical Framework. Findings indicate that both countries have established an enabling policy environment for ECD but implementation and the setting of and compliance to standards for quality is still emerging, in spite of massive strides made in this field during the past fifteen years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South African universities, a particular epistemic hierarchy exists within which African knowledge and resources are under-valued. This paper examines humanities courses that include content that deliberately aims to interrupt the existing knowledge hierarchies, through a qualitative analysis of spaces where African knowledge is granted importance. The paper provides a snapshot of the potentials for change in South African higher education today, and of the ways in which theories of Africa, for Africa, and about Africa, are being generated and taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a progressive moment under apartheid referred to retrospectively as ‘the Durban moment’ by activists. By exploring the friendship of assassinated activists Stephen Bantu Biko and Richard Turner, the paper calls for a nuanced assessment of the rich context of the emergence of Black Consciousness under apartheid, and shows how the rigid racial and ethnic categories imposed by the state could be challenged by creative and resourceful intellectuals. The paper draws on interviews, writings produced at the time, court transcripts and the secondary literature to argue that Black Consciousness was intimately linked on many levels to this progressive ‘moment’ in South Africa under apartheid, which has resonances for activists still today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the challenges confronting community-based geotourism as a tool for Local Economic Development in a poor rural community based in the Free State province of South Africa. Data were collected through interviews that were held with participants of the Witsie Cave project, local community leaders and municipal officials, as well as through the content analysis of the project’s documents. The results indicate the need to address a conundrum of intertwined endogenous and exogenous conditions as a strategy for enhancing the viability of community-based geotourism projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa and India are viewed as incipient economic powerhouses of the developing world – South Africa is the biggest economy on the African continent and India a rising star in the global economy. Both countries have adopted neoliberal policies. The forms in which neoliberalism has unfolded, however, have been contingent upon the countries’ and utility sector’s historical-geographical context. In this paper we attempt to provide a comparative perspective demonstrating similar processes of neoliberalism in South Africa and India. We examine the contradictory nature of neoliberalism with respect to particular sections of the population – the poor in particular. A broadly political-economy approach is adopted. The paper reveals that there is particular state-market logic driving the delivery of basic services such as water and energy. It is this logic which has undermined the states’ attempts at providing basic services to the poor in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper revisits participation and decentralization in relation to local clientelism, arguing that they share the personalization of links between residents and the state and the local possibility to adapt state policies. The line between decentralization-participation on the one hand, and clientelism on the other, is therefore easily blurred. The paper then argues that clientelism is not per se anti-democratic, some forms allow for local and immediate accountability of politicians. However, in most cases, it contributes to fragment or sedate local organizations or social movements and it prevents contestation of existing policies and dominant power structures. The paper thus challenges the idea that the promotion of decentralization and participatory institutions intrinsically leads to more democratic forms of government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we reflect on a contested land occupation in Cape Town, the informal settlement of Zille Raine Heights in the city’s southern suburbs, to explore the settlement’s struggle to gain a legal right to land and the state’s attempts to remove it. In occupying land and defending their right to a decent place in the city, Zille Raine Heights and other settlements like it challenge the state in precise ways. This paper explores the provisional and unstable ways in which land occupiers and the state access and defend resources such as land, and in the process, engage in a politics of occupation together. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper unpacks the tension between social movement claims to basic services and local authority efforts to deliver within a progressive legislative context. It does this by exploring the challenges of public accountability in urban water service delivery through drawing on the lessons learnt from the implementation of the ‘Raising Citizens’ Voice in the Regulation of Water Services’ methodology in two South African cities over a four-year period. This paper argues that citizens’ ability to access the state is restricted by internal fragmentation across spheres of government and between politicians and officials. Compounded by a lack of recourse in the service delivery landscape, fragmentation significantly restrains the ability of citizens to access the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Evidence from a recent study suggests that perceptions of corruption within the South African housing programme are widespread. This paper explores the pervasiveness of such perceptions and argues that they may reflect a range of factors, including the opacity, clumsiness and arbitrariness of the housing programme. Offering both positive and negative accounts, the paper considers the ways in which perceptions of corruption shape the manner in which residents access and respond to the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the ability of civil society leaders in Durban, South Africa to champion environmental justice in an industrial risk society. It presents viewpoints from key social actors at the Durban city level, including three local case sites, to examine civil society leadership capacity to achieve environmental justice by addressing grassroots concerns. It explores how leaders engage with other civil society actors and subsequent responses towards government and industry. The paper compares the urban regional and case studies analyses and highlights that although post-apartheid civil society leadership is not built from the anti-apartheid leadership, changed civil society leadership during the transition has influenced contemporary leadership in Durban, addressing industrial risks. New opportunities and challenges have resulted in the emergence of limited leaders championing industrial risks such as individualized leaders hindering wider collective actions against risks, including engagement in formal technical processes as opposed to mobilizing people. Not only is new and collective interest in civil society leaders required to mediate between classes, communities and the state and capital, but leaders also need to strategically combine the social and industrial pollution issues for solidarity in order to achieve environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a reply to Rebecca Pointer's response to our paper, "But We Were Thou- sands": Dispossession, Resistance, Repossession and Repression in Mandela Park'. It begins by making some remarks on the terrain in which academic interventions in elite publics are made in contemporary South Africa. In particular, it notes the general tacit support for a highly repressive response (discursive and material) to subaltern dissent The article then goes on to argue for a politics of commitment to the act, but immediately proceeds to note, with reference to Fanon, two dangers inherent in the politics of the act It then makes a distinction between militancy and scrupulousness as modes of resistance and argues that the latter often follows but must come to dominate the former The article then turns to a more direct engagement with Pointer's paper It begins by defending a register in our writing described as `romantic' by Pointer and then moves on to mount a sustained attack on her autonomism, which we accuse of among other things, objectifying the poor. Finally, the article offers qualified support for Pointer's feminist critique of the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign and our representation of the Campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the changing spatial landscape of the mines in the post-apartheid era. It is here that the link between worker and community struggles becomes apparent, given the changing nature of space and community on the mines. It becomes more difficult to deny women’s roles and contributions to political life on the mines in South Africa when we are confronted with the Marikana massacre. For the first time, women on the mines made a public statement about living and working and being on the mines, a realm of experience previously ignored or silenced in most labour historiography. After the 1980s, mine compounds were ethnically desegregated and post-1994, mine companies began to offer a living out allowance (LOA) to mineworkers who preferred not to stay in the hostels. As a result, there was an immediate growth of shack settlements around the platinum belt. With the development of shack settlements has been the introduction of family life on the mines, which has brought with it a new form of community politics that have not been adequately addressed in the public sphere or in new labour literature. This shows how independently organised worker struggles are linked to, and reinforced by, the struggles of women and the community. More specifically the paper presents research undertaken in Marikana in November 2012 and it is an attempt to write a living history of people who currently occupy the shack settlement where most of the mineworkers involved in the 2012 strike live; it is called Nkaneng. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is two-fold; firstly, it is to explore the causal effect of perceived negativity towards Further Education and Training (FET) college education among South African youth. Secondly, it is to determine the impact of apprenticeship on the development of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills among FET college students. The FET sector serves a particular function, which is the imparting of hands-on vocational training, intended to inculcate and promote a culture of self-employment, considered a necessity for employment creation. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 112 randomly selected students from three Motheo FET colleges. The findings reveal very contrasting results, a direct correlation between apprenticeship and entrepreneurship; however, 53% of the respondents did not feel sufficiently equipped, ready and confident enough to start their own businesses after graduation. About 48% feel the need to further their studies at university in order to stand a better chance of landing a good job. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For much of the winter of 2012, communities in shack settlements across Cape Town took to the streets in some of the most active civil disobedience protests since 1994. Knowing that the mainstream political terrain often seeks to obfuscate and mislead the public about the true nature of these protests, this paper investigates claims by politicians from the Democratic Alliance (DA) that these protests were being coordinated by the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANCYL). These big political players moralize the debate, shifting the focus from the perfectly legitimate issues of service delivery and demands for meaningful engagement. Speaking directly to community members of Sweet Home Farm, an informal settlement of 15,000 people in the Philippi area, revealed a yawning chasm between what official players are saying about Sweet Home and the actual realities on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Inspired by recent scholarship that calls for a more critical engagement with archives and knowledge production, this article plots the biography of an archive in Cape Town. Unravelling the layers of paperwork, it locates the origins of the archive in a repressive state project of excluding Indian immigrants and controlling those within the borders of the Cape Colony. The paper trail reveals documents of identity and the state’s attempts to verify identity. In seeking to answer the question as to how the historian should approach such an archive of control and surveillance, it concludes that a social history and gendered approach to migration is possible and the real treasures are those documents that enter the archive beyond the limits of state intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]