Changes in the Social Relations of Precolonial Hunter–Gatherers after Agropastoralist Contact: An Example from the Magaliesberg, South Africa

This chapter explores the main achievements and remaining challenges in the governance of the South African science, technology, and innovation (STI) system. While reflecting on the inherited features from the apartheid period, it focuses on the period between the two White Papers in 1996 and 2019. The chapter discusses the main shifts in policy emphasis (intents) of these two policy/institutional developments and connects them to the STI system performance and its measurement. It shows that the drastic shift in policy orientation towards addressing social imperatives and the quantitative improvements in the STI outputs since 1994, have not materialized in a radical transformation of the economy or the social relations inherited from apartheid. The chapter argues that the assessment of the STI system needs to be expanded through an evolutionary lens in order to activate the needed systemic transformations.

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Sachs, Chavafambira, Maggie: Prurience or the Pathology of Social Relations?

South African Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1177/008124630203200206 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 43-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Grahame Hayes

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Social Relations ◽

Traditional Healer ◽

The Other ◽

Research Subject ◽

The South ◽

The Social ◽

Southern Rhodesia ◽

And Gender ◽

The Mind

Black Hamlet (1937; reprinted 1996) tells the story of Sachs's association with John Chavafambira, a Manyika nganga (traditional healer and diviner), who had come to Johannesburg from his home in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Sachs's fascination with Chavafambira was initially as a “research subject” of a psychoanalytic investigation into the mind of a sane “native”. Over a period of years Sachs became inextricably drawn into the suffering and de-humanization experienced by Chavafambira as a poor, black man in the urban ghettoes that were the South Africa of the 1930s and 1940s. It is easy these days to want to dismiss Sachs's “project” as the prurient gaze of a white, liberal psychiatrist. This would not only be an ahistorical reading of Black Hamlet, but it would also diminish the possibilities offered by what Said (1994) calls, a contrapuntal reading. I shall present a reading of Black Hamlet, focusing on the three main characters - Sachs, Chavafambira, and Maggie (Chavafambira's wife) - as emblematic of the social relations of the other, racial(ised) bodies, and gender.

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Khoisan – the Best Hunters in the World

Investigationes Linguisticae ◽

10.14746/il.2013.28.9 ◽

1970 ◽

pp. 93-100

Author(s):

Sandra Wawrzyniak

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Harsh Environment ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Special Regard ◽

The Social ◽

The World

Khoisan or Bushmen, are one of the last hunter-gatherers living on our planet that follow the traditional way of life. They inhabit the remote, harsh environment of the Kalahari and Namib deserts, and are often described as the best hunters in the world. This article presents the outline of their thousands of years old hunting techniques, strategies as well as weapons and traps applied while hunting. It also demonstrates how hunting affects the social and economical structure of their communities. The article also deals with the trends in tourist hunting in South Africa with special regard to the ‘hunting with the Bushmens’ offers.

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The Colonial Situation in Southern Africa

The Journal of Modern African Studies ◽

10.1017/s0022278x00003979 ◽

1964 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 149-164 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Hilda Kuper

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Cultural Differences ◽

Social Relations ◽

Southern Africa ◽

The Other ◽

The Social ◽

The Republic ◽

Southern Rhodesia ◽

The One ◽

Racial Ethnic

This article indicates the complexity of the social relations of whites and Africans in Southern Africa and the myths by which they rationalise their behaviour.1 The situation is not identical throughout Southern Africa, but there are, as I will show, certain fundamental similarities which validate an over-all analysis in terms of a ‘colonial situation’.2Each of the countries of Southern Africa (the Republic of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, the three British High Commission territories of Swaziland, Bechuanaland, and Basutoland, and the Portuguese provinces of Mozambique and Angola) represents a distinct political unit, expressing in its constitution the limits of control and participation permitted to groups which are distinguished according to so-called ‘racial’, ‘ethnic’, or ‘cultural’ differences. There has been a major distinction, explicit in some countries, disguised in others, between a dominant white minority and a subordinate African majority, a division corresponding to the ‘colonisers’ or ‘colonials’ on the one hand, and the ‘colonised’ on the other. But now Nyasaland has become independent Zambia, and Northern Rhodesia will achieve independence in October 1964.

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The lived experiences of the African middle classes Introduction

Africa ◽

10.1017/s0001972020000017 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 90 (3) ◽

pp. 429-438 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Claire Mercer ◽

Charlotte Lemanski

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Middle Class ◽

Social Relations ◽

Social Group ◽

Social Life ◽

Lived Experiences ◽

Special Issue ◽

Middle Classes ◽

The Social ◽

The Individual

What are the experiences of the African middle classes, and what do their experiences tell us about social change on the continent? While there have been ample attempts to demarcate the parameters of this social group, the necessary work of tracing the social life and social relations of the middle classes is just beginning. The articles in this special issue provide compelling accounts of the ways in which the middle classes are as much made through their social relations and social practices as they are (if indeed they are) identifiable through aggregate snapshots of income, consumption habits and voting behaviours. Rachel Spronk (2018: 316) has argued that ‘the middle class is not a clear object in the sense of an existing group that can be clearly delineated; rather, it is a classification-in-the-making’. We agree, and our aim in bringing these contributions together in this special issue is to develop our understanding of how this process is emerging in different contexts across Africa. In her opening contribution, Carola Lentz suggests that we need more research on ‘the social dynamics of “doing being middle-class”’, or what we term here ‘middle-classness’, which attends to this ‘classification-in-the-making’ through urban–rural changes over intergenerational life courses, multi-class households, kinship and social relations. Such an agenda has recently been opened up by two edited volumes on the African middle classes (Melber 2016; Kroeker et al. 2018). We further develop this agenda here through a series of empirically rich articles by scholars in African studies, anthropology, literature and sociology that explicitly address the question of the lived experiences of the middle classes. Echoing Spronk's unease with taking ‘the middle class’ as an already constituted social group, what emerges across the articles is rather the unstable, tenuous and context-specific nature of middle-class prosperity in contemporary Africa. Social positions shift – or are questioned – as one moves from the suburb to the township (Ndlovu on South Africa) or into state-subsidized high-rise apartments (Gastrow on Angola). Stability gives way over time to precarity (Southall on Zimbabwe). Wealth is not tied to the individual but circulates more widely through social relations. Should one invest in the nuclear or the extended family (Hull on South Africa; Spronk on Ghana)? In a house or a car (Durham on Botswana)? And why does it matter – for the individual, the household, the family, the city, the nation and the continent? To grasp what it means to be middle-class in Africa today necessarily requires an understanding of the historical, social and spatial embeddedness of lived experiences at multiple scales.

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Greening Nyanga: Developing a Community Park in a Complex Urban Environment in Cape Town, South Africa

Acta Horticulturae et Regiotecturae ◽

10.2478/ahr-2020-0019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 96-100

Author(s):

Megan Lukas-Sithole

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Social Relations ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Landscape ◽

Cape Town ◽

Community Members ◽

Planning Decisions ◽

The Social

AbstractGreen, recreational spaces are lacking in most low-income urban areas of Cape Town, South Africa. Public open spaces that do exist are often considered nuisance plots, as they attract anti-social behaviour. Thus, there is a dire need to create green, recreational spaces in such areas to provide the benefits of parks to the community members who live there. Nuisance plots are unsafe and should be developed into safe, convivial, and beautiful spaces for local communities to utilise. Using the development of a community park in the Cape Town township of Nyanga as a case study, this paper demonstrates the communality and contestations involved in the planning and implementation of green infrastructure in an urban landscape marred by socioeconomic inequalities. Sourcing data from nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper aims to i) show the importance of inclusive planning and decision-making through participation of all stakeholders in urban design and spatial planning projects; ii) to highlight the complexities and social contestations of such projects, and the need to consider the social relations of an area during the planning and implementation phases; and iii) to emphasise the importance of incorporating sense of place and belonging in design and planning decisions.

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The SRM Approach to Family Assessment

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759.21.4.216 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 216-225 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

William L. Cook

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Risk Behaviors ◽

Social Relations ◽

Family Relationships ◽

Family Dynamics ◽

Family Assessment ◽

High Risk Behaviors ◽

Analysis Group ◽

The Social ◽

Direction Of Effects

Abstract. In family systems, it is possible for one to put oneself at risk by eliciting aversive, high-risk behaviors from others ( Cook, Kenny, & Goldstein, 1991 ). Consequently, it is desirable that family assessments should clarify the direction of effects when evaluating family dynamics. In this paper a new method of family assessment will be presented that identifies bidirectional influence processes in family relationships. Based on the Social Relations Model (SRM: Kenny & La Voie, 1984 ), the SRM Family Assessment provides information about the give and take of family dynamics at three levels of analysis: group, individual, and dyad. The method will be briefly illustrated by the assessment of a family from the PIER Program, a randomized clinical trial of an intervention to prevent the onset of psychosis in high-risk young people.

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