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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]

In 1935 the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) accepted its federal mission policy which had racial segregation enshrined in it as a core and divinely sanctioned principle. As the foremost missiologist within South African church circles during the middle half of the 20th Century, Gustav Bernhard Augustus Gerdener was the chief formulator and disseminator of this policy. Convinced that the future fate of South Africa's multi-racial society rested squarely on evangelisation, white guardianship, and mission work, Gerdener lobbied for secular racial theory to be based on the formula of the DRC mission church. By 1946 this racial theory espoused by Gerdener, as well as the majority DRC, was internationally questioned by the post-World War Two onset of general human rights and rapid decolonialisation spearheaded by the newly constituted United Nations Organisation. This paper sets out to track the influence Gerdener had on the formulation of the DRC mission policy. It will make the case that as advocate of this policy and through his position as chairman of the DRC Federal Mission Council Gerdener played a critical role during the incubation years of the apartheid ideology leading up to the nationalist's political victory in 1948. Finally, it will aim to elucidate the justification for apartheid which Gerdener's racial theory afforded to a religious nation. A justification which formed the moral bedrock of South Africa's opposition to the broader international context of decolonialisation and advocation of a domestic social system guised as one geared toward equal, albeit separate, development but which ultimately proved to be a new strain of colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bantustans were created during the apartheid period of South Africa's history and represented one of the key pillars of planning for 'grand apartheid'. A major challenge was the promotion of economic development in these territories in order to give them a facade of economic legitimacy. Four of the ten Bantustan ethno-states eventually acceded to the grant of 'independence' which created a changed environment for territorial economic development. The article explores a transition in economic development planning by the apartheid state from Bantustan industrialization to a focus on tourism and casino resort developments as a potential driver of Bantustan economic progress. In terms of methods and sources the paper applies an historical approach that blends secondary sources with primary documentary material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territorial administrative restructuring and the redrawing of municipal boundaries was undertaken in South Africa to address the apartheid legacy of major social, economic and spatial inequalities. A significant consequence of territorial administrative restructuring was that the boundaries of certain South African metropolitan areas were expanded such that they incorporate vast rural geographies. These spaces pose particular challenges for metropolitan planning. The aim in this paper is to examine the resultant planning challenges which confront South Africa's extended metropolitan spaces. Among several consequences was the imperative for metropolitan authorities to build new competences in order to plan and manage these added rural spaces as well as the peri-urban spaces. The analysis is contextualised within an international literature on planning in extended metropolitan spaces and of peri-urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years after the conclusion of World War II, the Department of Native Affairs of the National Party government of South Africa sponsored research into the selection of African civil servants. The study was conducted by Rae Sherwood, under the auspices of the National Social Research Council, and the National Institute for Personnel Research. In 1960, Sherwood submitted the work to the University of tine Witwatersrand to obtain a PhD degree. Two government departments objected to the award of the degree. In this paper I recount the history of the research, explaining that the acceleration of the apartheid project between 1948 and 1961 played a significant role in the controversy that developed. The paper furthermore illustrates the difficulties faced by social scientific research under repressive political conditions, and the need for a more nuanced view of the psychological research of the National Institute for Personnel Research in South Africa at the time. Significance: * The history of South Africa's research organisations has been of interest for a long time. This study recalls the history of an unknown chapter in the history of the National Institute for Personnel Research, based on a PhD submission kept under embargo in the archives of the University of the Witwatersrand. The study was methodologically sophisticated. rich in data; but controversial in its findings, at least as it reflected on the policies pursued by the apartheid government after World War II. It adds another contextual element to the type ot work conducted by the Institute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of reconciliation as a political-psychological concept came into being at the beginning of the nineties of the last century. It took a lot of time for the experts, who were engaged in peacebuilding in the post-conflict period, to understand that political, economic and other social processes were not sufficient for the reconciliation process, but that psychological aspects of reconciliation should also be included. In such a way, the process of reconciliation, in which subjects of reconciliation are race, people, nations, was lowered from the collective to the individual level. An example of such an attempt relates to the events after the apartheid in the South African Republic and the establishment of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation. In this regard, this paper aims to identify the basic ideas and principles of the reconciliation process in the South African Republic and try to place it in the context of reconciliation between formerly warring parties in the former Yugoslavia. In the analysis of the concept of reconciliation that has been relatively successfully applied in the South African Republic, three key ideas have been identified. The first idea suggests that the process of reconciliation from the level of "political elites" should be lowered to the level of "ordinary people". The second, it is necessary to have a so-called Third party for the reconciliation process that will manage the whole process. And the third, that the truth is an unavoidable factor in the process of reconciliation. In this paper, a proposal for a possible model of reconciliation among the countries and nations of the former Yugoslavia is given on the basis of analysis of the post-conflict processes in the South African Republic and current events in the post-Yugoslav space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apartheid left in its wake a South Africa characterized by social inequalities that are embedded and reflected in all spheres of social life, including the higher education system. While the post-apartheid government has made efforts to transform the higher education system it inherited, the pace has been slow and has fallen significantly short of what many regard as modest expectations. This paper interrogates why transformation has remained elusive in the higher education sector in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regards to the institutional culture at historically white universities (HWUs). Focusing on the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Luister, a documentary film at the University of Stellenbosch, it employs critical race theory (CRT) as a conceptual framework and analytical tool. Using CRT identifies the centrality of racism in shaping the slow pace of transformation in general and concerning the institutional culture at HWUs in particular. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of this lack of transformation, particularly in a time where poverty is endemic and unemployment rampant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the South African government and mining corporations have appropriated anti-apartheid and anti-colonial discourses to legitimise Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as a radically transformative policy without being transformative in conception, discourse, or action. There is a presumption in academic circles that BEE is a panacea for radically transforming historical, structural, and unequal power relations in South Africa. This article rejects this presumption by demonstrating how the conception and discourse of BEE have ignored these power relations and their underlying political economic structures of apartheid capitalism even before the policy was implemented or enforced by the government. Using [Young, Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press] critique of the distributive paradigm of justice, and employing [Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press] three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this article argues that the government and mining corporations present BEE as a new measure of radical transformation while simultaneously reducing this transformation to the micro concept of economic participation, focusing on numbers, representation, and targets rather than on historical, structural, and unequal power relations. As a result, the government and these corporations have reinforced and maintained these power relations while employing the discourse of BEE to masquerade as advancing their transformation. The crux is that BEE encourages Black people to operate within economically and institutionally oppressive structures which amplify the conditions they purport to be challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy decision-making has stagnated. For more than a quarter century analysts have generally drawn on secondary material from other scholars, newspaper reporting, and the speeches of government officials to elucidate how South Africa crafts and carries out its foreign policy. The accessibility of previously classified archival documents and the availability of policy makers for research interviews holds the potential to advance scholarship on South African foreign policy along two fronts. First, these primary sources offer insight into foreign policy decision-making processes. And second, they encourage a critical re-evaluation of many of the traditional understandings and tropes that have dominated the study of South African foreign policy. This paper outlines the state of foreign policy studies in South Africa and then demonstrates the power of primary research to alter key ideas about the conduct and content of South African foreign policy through three case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-apartheid South Africa, one of the central analytical questions is to do with the continuity of protests, in particular student movement protests that are highly driven by social, economic and political conditions in the present. In a social and political context of student protests, student movement is considered a threat to the state and a target for state violence. In this paper, we assert that student movement in contemporary South Africa is a social and political space in which we can begin to engage with and understand issues of dispossession and repossession as re-emerging struggles in South Africa. We also assert that student protests should be understood as real or perceived emancipatory terrain of transformation within and beyond the university campus, but also as the engine that engages with the unfinished struggle for decolonisation and transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. We draw on and engage with decolonial thought as our analytical lens through which to unpack and understand student protests in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of apartheids, integration into SADC region and reconnection to global economic world resulted in the increase of migration to South Africa. The aim was to identify the qualifications and economic profile of the migrants in relation to entrepreneurial skills that enhance the quality of life and sustainable livelihood of the migrants. The study was qualitative in nature and employed descriptive research design. These methods helped the researchers to understand the experiences and perceptions of migrants on sustainable livelihood and quality of life. The study used a snowball sampling technique, and individual interviews were used to gather information from study participants. Interviewing technique (face-to-face individual interviews) was used within the context of descriptive design. The paper revealed that migrants' entrepreneurial skills play vital role and contributed immensely to the country's economy and improved the quality of life and sustainable livelihoods of migrants. The study revealed that some migrants' small businesses were established through the support and network with their fellow countrymen. It was further found that these businesses generate income and uplift their livelihood through the flow of remittances to their home countries, they are experiencing robberies and other related crimes. Lastly, it also revealed that there is no link between the qualification and kind of business operated by the migrants. Findings from this study will form part of the policy briefs to relevant stakeholders and the funders (National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences - NIHSS. Southern Africa and South Africa is experiencing high volumes of migrants for various reasons. The study contributes into the body of knowledge by closing a gap on the link between the educational qualifications and economic profile that enhance sustainable livelihood of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of housing in South Africa is a highly contested social issue which has filtered into the new democracy posing major challenges for policy makers. The colonial and apartheid spatial planning solidified racial and socio-economic segregation in the non-white settlements throughout South Africa. Such unfavourable spatial inequalities are still felt today. Measures of rectification put in place under the new democracy took cognisance of the human rights and social needs they are entitled to as citizens in the restoration of human dignity to the previously disadvantaged while also advocating for equality. Therefore, this article presents an overview of the role of local government in the provision of low-cost housing. Desktop analysis was used to analyse the role of local government in the provision of low cost housing in South Africa. The results of this paper shows that approximately more than 49.2% of the adult population are living below the upper hand-bound poverty line in South Africa as many people depend on government for almost every need including housing. It is therefore becoming a continuous struggle for government to provide adequate housing to the indigent due to inadequate amount of resources, while the rapid growth in population exacerbates challenges concerning service delivery. This article concludes by indicating that in order to set feasible, reasonable and viable targets, municipalities need to have a good overview of the housing demand. This does not only include the number of houses that are needed, but also the types of houses, their locations, access to basic services and so forth, hence the essential social needs evaluation to be conducted to promote the enhancement of quality of standard of living and the constitutional rights of all the residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The obsession with empirical work in South African criminology has led to a neglect of 'context' in the form of skimming over structural oppressions, such as racism, inequality, poverty and unemployment, as if they were not potently criminogenic societal factors. With regard to analysing so-called conventional crime, the aforementioned 'context' is an extremely important consideration in a country teeming with these structural oppressions. Contributions from both Critical Theory and Marxist-inspired criminology could correct this imbalance. Following the backdrop of such a discussion, this paper will examine the phenomenon of the prisonindustrial complex, both in the US and, more particularly, in the local setting. The argument will then conclude with a three-pronged assessment, namely 1) an evaluation of the debt which Marxist-inspired criminologists (Jeffery Reiman, Angela Davis and Richard Quinney) owe to the Frankfurt School, 2) an overview of the relevant ideas from Critical Theory, and, 3) the application of conflict criminology supplemented by scholarly work in the tradition of the Frankfurt School (represented by Habermas and Žižek) to South African conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an approach to museum re-definition dilemma by looking at why museums emerge today, to which end, by which means, and how they engage with their stakeholders. I present a case study based on District Six Museum and neighborhood from Cape Town, South Africa. The museum was developed and maintained as a community museum in the post-apartheid era, by a community that has been forcibly removed and no longer exists as such. My study presents the Museum as it is today and relevant background information, together with an overview of traces of recent histories in the surrounding neighborhood. Together with literature findings on the role of this Museum in South Africa, these constitute the base of final reflections on how knowledge is produced and re-produced under overt and covert oppression regimes, i.e. before and post-colonial and post-apartheid, and how museums can and should rise from community engagement in order to mediate and interpret negative history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims at interrogating the transformation of education in Buffalo City following integration of East London with its black townships. This paper is largely framed from a quantitative paradigm that draws from statistical data in linking population changes with educational patterns in the study area. Census data was used to trace population changes in post-apartheid South Africa, while performance in education was informed by matriculation results. Quantitative data were complemented with key informants' qualitative opinions. The results indicate that the quality of education in former "white" schools is better than that of "township" schools. There are several pull factors that attract township learners to former white schools, albeit with integration challenges. The study concludes that if these challenges are masked to education planners and policy makers, they militate against the envisioned liberalisation of the democratic education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After liberation from apartheid in 1996, South Africa’s new, progressive Constitution proclaimed: “Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water.” In this paper, I analyze South Africa’s revolutionary legal vision for marrying social equity to ecology in fulfilling the right to water. South Africa’s successes and obstacles as a developing nation with few natural water sources and great water needs demonstrates the translation of aspirational ideas into functional law. This is significant not just to South Africa’s own citizens, but extends to the entire world. South Africa’s approach contains essential lessons for how to use the law to support the billion plus people around the world whose right to water remains unfulfilled, and to the million plus people who die each year from dehydration or diseases related to unclean or inadequate water supplies. South Africa’s past and future approaches to implementing the right to water will continue to shape the legal meanings of “progressive realization” within “available resources” for all economic, social and cultural human rights worldwide. I first examine South Africa’s initial, visionary laws and policies which sought to implement the human right to water. South Africa’s legal blueprint resurrected its Public Trust Doctrine, requiring the government to protect the ecological “Reserve” that nourishes the right to water. After promising beginnings, South Africa applied legally questionable policies vis-à-vis the right to water. For example, it considered the equivalent of two toilet flushes per person per day as an adequate supply of water. Furthermore, it allowed government water service providers to install prepaid water meters for the poorest of the poor, which shut off water supply without notice when water use exceeded the predetermined “adequate” supply. These policies were upheld by the globally influential South African Constitutional Court in Mazibuko v. City of Johannesburg, which this Paper argues undermined the human right to water. The Court failed to respect constitutional prescriptions to advance equity. It also failed to consider public trust responsibilities to steward the legally mandated ecological Reserve, the ultimate source of water. The Court also misconstrued the Constitution’s command to “take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of” the right to water. Judges and bureaucrats alike—in South Africa and in too many other locales—fail to see that “available resources” must include ecological resources. Failure to root the human right to water in its ecological milieu is a failure to make progress in fulfilling the human right to water. After leading the world in getting the right to water right and then wrong, South Africa has again formulated groundbreaking legal plans to realize the right to water. The nation seeks to reallocate water towards those in greatest need, and has established ambitious plans to steward the ecological Reserve that underlies the human right to water. If South Africa succeeds in implementing its new legal strategies based on the “indivisibility of water,” it will offer a blueprint for how to make the human right to water more than an empty promise through a reconfigured, visionary understanding of the Public Trust Doctrine that marries equity to ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore two examples of African contemporary dance, including the 2014 Uhambo 1 production in Athlone Cape Town and Four Seasons, choreographed by Gregory Maqoma and performed by the Vuyani Dance Theatre at Artscape Theatre Cape Town in 2014. Hence, it also argues that one critical way of supporting audiences to resist past and present forms of oppression is for the creation of meaning (value) through interdisciplinary choreography and post-performance discussions with audience members which will allow Black South Africans to begin to reclaim their ability to reflect on the meaning of contemporary African dance forms, and in turn, to reflect and act upon confidently, through their own identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White supremacy shaped both the formation of the South African racial state and the formation of racial groups, including the creation of the Coloured category as mixed and liminal between White and Black. There are, however, debates about the continuing legacy of white supremacy in post-apartheid, contemporary South Africa. This paper joins others in the important task of delineating racial hierarchies within contemporary South African society to help reveal the form of oppression, and the accompanying underlying assumptions and ideologies, such as white supremacy, that allows racial difference and deprivation to remain. In this paper, I analyze semi-structured interview data from 50 "Coloured" adults in order to explore their understanding of white supremacy, the racial hierarchy, and contemporary racism. I find that white supremacy negatively impacts Coloureds' lived experiences through shaping their experiences of structural and interpersonal discrimination from White South Africans. In addition, Coloured South Africans understand the legacy of white supremacy in shaping contemporary racial hierarchies such that White South Africans "still come out on top." However, I argue that, at the same time, white supremacy also "colours" or hinders some Coloured respondents' perceptions of their remaining relative privilege in post-apartheid South Africa. This project contributes by revealing a more complete story about the pervasiveness of contemporary hegemonic, global white supremacy that impacts all aspects of the racial hierarchy, including those mixed or in the middle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's historically disadvantaged university libraries are, like others, challenged to meet patrons' demands through the provision of relevant infrastructure, services and information-related skills to enable users to function in the digital information age. Their historic disadvantage is compounded by two levels of the digital divide: their situation within a developing nation (the 'global divide'), and contending with a relative paucity in skills and resources within this context (the 'local divide', as a legacy of apartheid). This paper reports on a master's study undertaken to explore whether the electronic services initiated in post-apartheid South Africa by University of the Western Cape (UWC) Library are perceived by primary stakeholders (users and library staff) as effective in bridging the digital divide. The study employed a phenomenological qualitative design, supported by critical theory. Purposive sampling was used to select two sets of samples for data collection: postgraduate students and UWC librarians. Data was collected from forty students through an online questionnaire, and interviews were held with six UWC librarians. Findings suggest that the UWC Library has emerged as a competent agent of democracy: most of the users perceive the e-services being offered as useful and meeting their needs, and the library currently provides ICT infrastructure, internet access and information-related skills programmes to support the university community. However, challenges encountered include slow internet connection, security concerns, shortcomings in information literacy, problems of access and accessibility (including language), and reluctance to engage with unfamiliar technology. While the institution does make an effort to bridge the digital divide, recommended further research, such as evaluating the impact of slow internet speed on research and learning or enhanced interventions in information literacy, could further support more equitable access to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to put the limelight on the growth dynamics of public and private investment in South Africa from the apartheid period through to 2012. With the adopted inward-looking growth policy during the apartheid, massive economic infrastructure public investment stimulated private investment. Growth buoyancy of private investment continued with the implementation of the market system in 1994, complemented by the core infrastructure growth. While the South African investment climate is considered to be competitive, at least in comparison to other African economies, there are areas that still need further improvement to unlock higher investment growth potential that includes non-all-inclusive infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Apartheid, the mining industry operated without restraint and compromised the ecology, the health of mining workers, and local communities. The lines between the mining industry and government was often unclear with the former influencing government decisions to favour uncontrolled operations. Although new post-Apartheid regulations were designed to control negative mining impacts, the mining industry and the state still have a close relationship. Limited academic research has empirically examined how mining corporations influence democracy in South Africa. Through empirical investigation focusing on Dullstroom, Mpumalanga and St. Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal, this paper examines how mining corporations, directly and indirectly, influence democratic processes at the macro state and micro community levels. At the macro level, this includes examining mining companies influencing government decision-making and enforcement to hold mines accountable for non-compliance. At the micro level, the paper examines mining companies influencing democratic processes at the local community level to get mining developments approved. Findings reveal that political connections between the mining industry and government, including collusion between mining corporations and local community leadership, have influenced mining approval and development, whilst excluding local communities from decision-making processes. Industrial manipulation has also influenced government in holding corporations accountable. This has contributed towards not fully addressing citizen concerns over mining development. Democracy in post-Apartheid South Africa, especially for mining development is, therefore, understood in the narrow sense and exposures the realities of the ruling party embracing capitalism. Despite challenges, civil society may provide the avenue for upholding democratic values to counter mining domination and for an enabling political settlement environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]