scholarly journals Seeking God's shalom in South African cities through a new glocal togetherness

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira

The objective of this article is to clearly reflect the reality of our modern world experiencing the convergence of two mighty movements meeting and flowing into each other. The first stream is the tidal wave of people migrating to the urban centres of our globalising world. The second stream is the result of a massive shift in the centre of Christianity away from its traditional rootedness in Western Christendom. The biggest challenge of our time is for this Christian Church, still stuck in the prevailing Christendom paradigm, to wake up to and actively engage this new post-Christendom context. This article would like to draw specific attention to the South African context where the traditional Western and now developing Southern Christianity find a common Developing World intersection. As ‘pilgrims or exiles’ that is facing a strange and confronting new world, the Western Church should accept the new missiological challenge that globalisation and urbanisation presents. The Western Church must heed a very urgent call to stay relevant and be actively involved in God’s global missio Dei currently unfolding in our world. The only way for the Christian Church to be local instruments of God’s Kingdom in a new urban world, is to actively seek a new glocal togetherness.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The Western theological academy needs to urgently engage the social sciences in order to cooperate and collaborate in all areas of urban and social development, urban planning, community development and even urban advocacy for the needs of the urban poor and marginalised. The Christian Church, as God’s ‘missionary people’, is Biblically mandated and spiritually equipped to be actively involved in the urban challenges that globalisation and urbanisation present.

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
P. Conrad Kotze ◽  
Jan K. Coetzee

Transformation has come to be a defining characteristic of contemporary societies, while it has rarely been studied in a way that gives acknowledgement to both its societal effects and the experience thereof by the individual. This article discusses a recent study that attempts to do just that. The everyday life of a South African is explored within the context of changes that can be linked, more or less directly, to those that have characterized South Africa as a state since the end of apartheid in 1994. The study strives to avoid the pitfalls associated with either an empirical or solely constructivist appreciation of this phenomenon, but rather represents an integral onto-epistemological framework for the practice of sociological research. The illustrated framework is argued to facilitate an analysis of social reality that encompasses all aspects thereof, from the objectively given to the intersubjectively constructed and subjectively constituted. While not requiring extensive development on the theoretical or methodological level, the possibility of carrying out such an integral study is highlighted as being comfortably within the capabilities of sociology as a discipline. While the article sheds light on the experience of transformation, it is also intended to contribute to the contemporary debate surrounding the current “ontological turn” within the social sciences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermanus S. GEYER

Informal businesses used to be something that was only tolerated in the former black townships during the years of apartheid. Since then the informal business sector has become an integral part of the central business setup of cities in South Africa. It not only serves to widen the security net of the urban poor in cities, it also represents the outcome of the democratization process in the country over the past fifteen years. Yet, there has been a tendency amongst local authorities to take steps to reduce the footprint of this sector in the urban environment in recent years. This trend ties in with the new approach of government to transform South African cities to become ’world class’ centres - a step that is aimed at making the cities more visually acceptable to visitors from abroad. In this paper an attempt is made to demonstrate the importance of the informal sector within the urban business makeup and to show what role it played in the spatial-structural evolution of the urban economies during the 1990s. The paper analyzes the structure of the urban business sector as a whole and structurally links the formal and informal sectors, demonstrating the importance of both sectors in the economic makeup of the cities. It analyses the structure of the informal sector and shows how different layers of the sector potentially relates to the formal urban sector.


Author(s):  
Velisiwe Gasa

This chapter opens with a broad statement that coins the social justice and inclusion as prominent concepts. The foundation is laid by giving a clear background using a South African context where there is a gap between the policy and implementation of social justice and inclusion of children in mainstream schools. This explanation goes further when the social justice, inclusion, and related concepts are conceptualised and the relationship brought forth. The main issues that temper social justice and inclusion in the mainstream schools are debated. Furthermore, there is an engagement regarding practices that hamper social justice and inclusivity of children with diverse needs. Finally, the solutions and recommendations that can be considered in dealing with the issues, controversies, or problems presented in this chapter are highlighted.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-114
Author(s):  
I.S. Duisenova ◽  

The study of social anxieties requires careful research due to the development of modern society. Modern Kazakh society is unique in its own way,and besides, it is not without causes of social anxiety. Moreover, a comprehensive study of social anxieties provides a person with broad opportunities for knowledge and creativity. On the other hand, the coronavirus pandemic has made its own adjustments to the modern world, which is unstable in its development, it remains uncertain and unpredictable, which does not allow a person to feel completely protected, and this all creates anxiety.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iqra Khan, Maryam Bibi, Muhammad Amin

The term education has been the living phenomena among the social and cultural lives of the human body that derives the crucial needs and necessities of the modern world. This could be considered as the realistic approach to say- as education provided the positive barrier between the old and new learnings to help bring out the development in the logical and literal minds. The fundamental requirements of education result the possibility when its acquirements are made reachable to the deserving hands. Education is hence freed from all the discrimination and racial comments- welcomes the technological and scientific learnings to those who seeks for it. As, for men, education has been the revolving agenda to succeed in the rushing world and as it’s similar for the women of every religion and culture. With the rising inventions and prominent technological factors, the demanding scope for the educational promotions established the future needs. This need in an outcome prevailed the exceeding desires of women to work side by side with men and to meet the necessities of the coming age. The patterned structures that the society follows, advances the efforts of men rather than women and if it belongs to any religion, Muslim women are the first to face the discriminative attitudes in the work places and learning institutes. But to count their efforts in an extensive manner, there are many of the Muslim women who took charge in the advancement of the technological and the social sciences. This article aims at the perpetual challenges and contributions of Muslim women in their respective work areas. The problems and hurdles they experienced at the social and cultural surroundings. The main objective of this paper is to highlight the difficulties and hardships of Muslim women all around the world and the challenging atmospheres they worked in while giving their utmost for the betterment of society  


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermanus S. GEYER

Informal businesses used to be something that was only tolerated in the former black townships during the years of apartheid. Since then the informal business sector has become an integral part of the central business setup of cities in South Africa. It not only serves to widen the security net of the urban poor in cities, it also represents the outcome of the democratization process in the country over the past fifteen years. Yet, there has been a tendency amongst local authorities to take steps to reduce the footprint of this sector in the urban environment in recent years. This trend ties in with the new approach of government to transform South African cities to become ’world class’ centres - a step that is aimed at making the cities more visually acceptable to visitors from abroad. In this paper an attempt is made to demonstrate the importance of the informal sector within the urban business makeup and to show what role it played in the spatial-structural evolution of the urban economies during the 1990s. The paper analyzes the structure of the urban business sector as a whole and structurally links the formal and informal sectors, demonstrating the importance of both sectors in the economic makeup of the cities. It analyses the structure of the informal sector and shows how different layers of the sector potentially relates to the formal urban sector.


Author(s):  
C. J.A. Vos

As a consequence of the bipolar tension between theory and practice, experience (considered in the South African context) influences the church's reflection on Practical Theology. Insight into the economic system of the Mediterranean world helps us to understand the complexities involved in positioning poverty, as well as the role of the New Testament faith community in its interaction with the poor. The social system in the ancient world, within which poverty was encountered, cautions us against taking a simplistic view of the poor. We cannot duplicate social systems and impose them on current situations. The New Testament, which is set against a particular system, speaks of the Kingdom of God as a place where the poor must be cared for. The New Testament (especially the Gospel of John) lets us understand that a church, which has a family orientation as its basis, should provide a home for the poor.


Author(s):  
Sam Lubbe ◽  
Shawren Singh

This chapter explores the issues of the interface between Information Systems (IS) and society. We investigate IS and users of these systems at a local parastatal educational institution in South Africa. Local governments have had many IS developed and implemented for the use of customers. The problem is that the impact of IS on social communities have not been taken into account, especially in e-governance in the South African context, when systems are being designed or implemented; as a result may lead to IS failures. Details regarding certain social aspects of IS are discussed. This chapter finally proposes a set of guidelines to help ensure that the social aspects of local government IS are taken into account in the design and implementation of these systems, thereby increasing the chance of success of those systems.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1012-1030
Author(s):  
Ewa Karwowski

Financialization has become a popular concept across the social sciences, usually defined as the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors, and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies. Financialization researchers highlight the detrimental consequences of an excessively large and powerful financial sector on economy and society. In South Africa, financialization has been shaped by its colonial and apartheid past, especially the strong links of South African corporations and banks to the international financial centre of London. Low growth and investment, an outcome of the finance-led accumulation regime, have also resulted in the continuity of extreme inequality and high levels of unemployment. In the Global South, financialization mainly affects emerging economies since they possess relatively developed financial markets in comparison to poorer countries. South Africa is the only African economy for which there is a substantial financialization literature. In comparison to other emerging economies, South Africa is relatively strongly financialized as stock market capitalization is extremely high, making Johannesburg one of the top financial centres in the Global South. Furthermore, financial inflows into the country are comparatively large, JSE-listed companies are well integrated into global value chains and household debt is high.


Author(s):  
Robert Wokler ◽  
Christopher Brooke

This chapter's overriding objective is to explain how both the invention of our modern understanding of the social sciences, on the one hand, and the post-Enlightenment establishment of the modern nation-state, on the other, encapsulated doctrines which severed modernity from the Enlightenment philosophy which is presumed to have inspired it. It offers illustrations not so much of the unity of political theory and practice in the modern world as of their disengagement. In providing here some brief remarks on how post-Enlightenment justifications of modernity came to part company from their Enlightenment prefigurations, it hopes to sketch an account of certain links between principles and institutions which bears some relation to both Enlightenment and Hegelian conceptual history.


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