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Adolescents and men are two populations that perform poorly within the HIV cascade of care, having worse AIDS-related health outcomes, and experiencing higher levels of HIV-related stigma. This paper explores institutional health system discrimination as experienced by adolescent boys with perinatally-acquired HIV, situating them within the social and gendered contexts of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Life history narratives (n = 36) and in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 32) with adolescent boys living with HIV aged 13–22 were conducted in 2017-2018. In-depth semi-structured interviews with biomedical and traditional health practitioners (n = 14), analysis of health facility files (n = 41) and clinic observations were also conducted. Together, triangulated sources point to an incongruence between the complex needs of adoelscent boys and young men living with HIV and their experiences within the health system. Two institutional discrimination-related deterrents to retention in care were identified: (1) lack of confidentiality due to health facility layouts and practices that visibilised people living with HIV; and (2) mistreatment in the form of shouting. This article contributes to the limited literature on the experiences of young men within the HIV continuum of care, focusing on how stigma influences how young men experience and engage with the health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of children in mainstream (no fee, poorly resourced, African language dominant) public schools in South Africa fall significantly behind curricular norms in mathematics by Grade 3; the early learning gap grows across time. The provision of quality instructional materials is a well-recognised component of effective strategies to improve early grade mathematics in low- and middle-income contexts. However, there has been little explication of what constitutes quality instructional materials, nor long-term design work to contribute theory to this instructional design challenge. Across 15 years, the author has been working in an education design hub with teacher educators and teachers in the rural Eastern Cape, with the goal of improving early grade mathematics. The gains in mathematics performance have been among the most significant reported in research literature. This paper presents the design principles emerging from the work. Engaging the theoretical layers discussed by diSessa and Cobb, the paper contributes to design theory by emphasising the relationship between explicit instructional assumptions and design principles, integrating four ontological categories (motive, pedagogy, language use and mathematical meaning-making). Since 2011, the Department of Basic Education has provided learner workbooks to support teaching and learning in foundation phase mathematics at system scale. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to the ongoing development of this vital national resource. The paper makes explicit instructional assumptions and design principles (available for critique, adaptation, and refinement), and provides a more nuanced framework through which to assess and improve materials across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an evaluative study of an agroecology movement that has been running in South Africa for over 20 years. The study applied a Value Creation Framework to gather value creation stories from key movement members, farmers, trainers, and the involved organizations. Data was generated through storytelling interviews, document analysis and participant observations. The findings show that the functions of the movement are enabled by support from tertiary institutions, government departments, NGOs, international networks and the private sector. In the initial stages, the movement's growth as measured by the uptake of agroecology faced resistance because the associated labor intensity, especially in the early stages and farmers considered it to be very slow compared to conventional methods. However, the movement's mobilization through open dialogs, co-creation and farmer-centered learning approaches has seen a gradual and wide adoption of agroecology practices by over 2700 new and existing farmers in the Eastern Cape alone, thereby widening the learning and seed-sharing network. In the communities it has reached, the movement has registered transformational gains in biodiversity preservation, social cohesion, market power, gender equality and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of three contemporary South African photographers whose adaptations of landscape photography support inquiry into themes such as agency, identity, and belonging. None of these artists self-identifies as a landscape photographer, but each has taken up the genre to address topics of social concern such as: colonialism, under-documented histories, and the geographical imagination. Jean Brundrit adapts high-resolution survey technology to chart waves; Cedric Nunn creates extended captions to reorient views of the modern Eastern Cape landscape in relation to Xhosa history; and Francki Burger layers negatives in the darkroom to construct ethereal environments that examine emotive connections to land. These artists draw upon photographic techniques that may be considered 'alternative' in relation to traditional modes of landscape photography. In doing so, they challenge, reinterpret, and expand the definition of what constitutes a landscape image and landscape photography. Further, their respective works offer insight into the evolution of the genre from its nineteenth and early twentieth century applications in South Africa, as well as its utility for socially-concerned artists in the post-apartheid era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public participation is an integral part of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, as it provides opportunities for interested and affected parties (I&APs) to participate in the decision making process. This process is part of the legislative regime in South Africa and recognized as the main instrument to ensure that the proposed development is sustainable from a triple-helix perspective (i.e., ecological, socially, and economically sustainable). Therefore, the paper describes a case of public engagement in Xolobeni, located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, as well as the environmental politics that evolved from arguments that favoured development over environmental conservation. The proposed mining project was known as the Xolobeni mining development project. The Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources announced in 2005 that an Australian company, Transworld Energy and Minerals (TEM), would establish a mining development project in Xolobeni to mine red sand dunes contained within five blocks, each named after the river that runs through it on its southern border. The Department of Minerals and Energy is the exclusive custodian of mining licences and thus the only Department that issues them, according to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act (Act 28 of 2002). When seeking mining rights, it also requires corporations to consult with local populations. The Amadiba Crisis Committee filed a mining licence appeal based on a lack of consultation. One of the complications was also brought about by the divided community. TEM's solicitors sent a redacted copy of the mining right application to the community on 3 February 2016. The community was informed that drilling would begin on February 22nd, and that force would be employed if access was not granted. Following the receipt of the mining rights copy, an objection was lodged under section 10 of the MPRDA. The people resisted because they did not want their land, to be taken away. The community also opposed the proposed mining because they were concerned about the negative social, economic, and environmental effects. The land in Xolobeni was also used by the community for agriculture, or tourism and they did not want to lose that. The community also resists the migration of foreigners who wish to dwell in their village, fearing that they will overrun their way of life and impose a social lifestyle commonly connected with mining activity. The preceding study highlights the potential for conflict when communities reject the establishment of mining enterprises. As a result, the goal of this study is to see if incorporating community agreement into South Africa's legal requirements for granting a mining licence could help to reduce community unrest. The High Court ruled in favour of Xolobeni residents in this mining rights case [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how HIV-positive abakhwetha (young male initiates) undergoing ulwaluko (traditional Xhosa initiation and circumcision) engage with HIV-related biomedical care and treatment. Health-focused life history narratives (n = 36), semi-structured interviews (n = 32) and analysis of health facility files (n = 41) with adolescent boys and young men (ages 13–24) living with HIV, and semi-structured interviews with traditional and biomedical health practitioners (n = 14) were conducted in 2017 and 2018. This research was part of the Mzantsi Wakho study, a longitudinal, mixed methods study of adolescents living with HIV (n = 1060). Findings demonstrate that ulwaluko rules of not engaging with biomedical care and treatment pose a challenge for initiates who are taking chronic medicine. Fears of inadvertent disclosure of their HIV-positive status collide with the pressure to successfully complete ulwaluko in order to be legitimised as men. In response to this dilemma, they engage a variety of strategies – including taking medicine in secret by hiding them, having a trusted person deliver them discretely, and stopping medicine-taking altogether. The three months following ulwaluko also pose a challenge in accessing biomedical treatment and care. In this time of high surveillance, amakrwala (new men) do not present at health facilities for fear of being thought to have had a botched circumcision or to have contravened 'manhood rules' and left ulwaluko before having healed properly. To get around this, those who continued taking medicine engaged caregiver pick-ups. Beyond suggesting that ulwaluko is a high-risk time for disengagement from biomedical treatment and care, this paper builds on a robust scholarship on the importance of locality and context in gender and health research. It documents the creativity, agency and resilience of initiates and their families as they subvert and re-signify health-related masculine norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which globalisation has affected the post-apartheid state's ability to fulfil the right to adequate houses enshrined in the South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996). Underpinned by the rights-based approach to development (RBAD) which provides a mechanism to promote, protect, and fulfil various rights, the study employed a quantitative methodology. A survey was the preferred data collection method and a questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument. The probability sampling technique of random cluster sample was used in the study and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse questionnaires focusing primarily on descriptive statistics. The sample size consisted of 500 survey respondents selected from two towns in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province. We used an alpha level of.05 for all statistical tests. The study was premised on the following null hypothesis (H0): the right to housing is equally distributed among the population. The findings indicate that the right to houses is not equally distributed among the population, X2 (2, N = 500) = 56.37, p <.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected. We can conclude, therefore, that there is a statistically significant difference amongst the groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy processes in contemporary South Africa draw attention to a phenomenon that is both common in policymaking and under-theorised in the anthropology of policy: the tendency for policy to be made both through legislative and administrative fora, and through litigation and the threat of litigation, often concurrently. Given South Africa's robust legal frameworks mandating public participation in policymaking, there is an unexpectedly productive dialectical relationship between administrative and legal processes, where failures of participation create openings for court challenges that may limit the scope for top-down policymaking. These legal actions likewise reflect responses to the country's apartheid history: they rely upon legal oppositional strategies developed to challenge the apartheid state, often by the same actors and organisations, and they rely upon legal institutions that have been deliberately structured to prevent past injustices from being repeated. This paper illustrates these points with two cases from South Africa: first, a local policy implementation process concerned with the issuing of permits for subsistence fishing in the Dwesa-Cwebe Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Eastern Cape and, second, a national process concerned with the re-opening of claims under South Africa's land restitution programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-date Landsat images were used to ascertain the nature, causes and extent of degradation in the savannahs of Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa by comparing changes in land-use and land-cover in one commercial farm and two communal areas over a period of 30 years between 1984 and 2014. Results revealed a persistent increase in bush encroachment, persistent decrease in grassland in all areas, and abandonment of arable farming in communal areas. The paper concludes by providing strategies to change the adverse effects of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the mediating effect of workplace social support on the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviour and employee mental health amongst public service employees in South Africa. A survey approach was utilized amongst a sample of 289 conveniently selected public service employees in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The results confirm that a direct relationship exists between organizational citizenship behaviour and employee mental health. Further, the association is made significant only through the mediation effect of workplace social support. The study focuses on the importance of intra-organizational behaviours such as organizational citizenship in promoting employee mental health aspects. Such a focus becomes essential, especially when the South African public service is noted to be in a state of flux and often affects employee work behaviours, including their health. The findings heighten focus on the importance of developing behaviours such as those that promote organizational citizenship coupled with efforts related to workplace social support. In essence, by serving others within the workplace and the entire organization, employees contribute to their mental health. The findings are a valuable precursor to interventions that assist not only the organization but also employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]