scholarly journals A bibliometric analysis to illustrate the role of an embedded research capability in South African National Parks

2016 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian W. van Wilgen ◽  
Nelius Boshoff ◽  
Izak P. J. Smit ◽  
Sofia Solano-Fernandez ◽  
Luanita van der Walt
Author(s):  
Mark Sanders

When this book's author began studying Zulu, he was often questioned why he was learning it. This book places the author's endeavors within a wider context to uncover how, in the past 150 years of South African history, Zulu became a battleground for issues of property, possession, and deprivation. The book combines elements of analysis and memoir to explore a complex cultural history. Perceiving that colonial learners of Zulu saw themselves as repairing harm done to Africans by Europeans, the book reveals deeper motives at work in the development of Zulu-language learning—from the emergence of the pidgin Fanagalo among missionaries and traders in the nineteenth century to widespread efforts, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to teach a correct form of Zulu. The book looks at the white appropriation of Zulu language, music, and dance in South African culture, and at the association of Zulu with a martial masculinity. In exploring how Zulu has come to represent what is most properly and powerfully African, the book examines differences in English- and Zulu-language press coverage of an important trial, as well as the role of linguistic purism in xenophobic violence in South Africa. Through one person's efforts to learn the Zulu language, the book explores how a language's history and politics influence all individuals in a multilingual society.


Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinashe Mugwisi

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the Internet have to a large extent influenced the way information is made available, published and accessed. More information is being produced too frequently and information users now require certain skills to sift through this multitude in order to identify what is appropriate for their purposes. Computer and information skills have become a necessity for all academic programmes. As libraries subscribe to databases and other peer-reviewed content (print and electronic), it is important that users are also made aware of such sources and their importance. The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching of information literacy (IL) in universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the role played by librarians in creating information literate graduates. This was done by examining whether such IL programmes were prioritised, their content and how frequently they were reviewed. An electronic questionnaire was distributed to 12 university libraries in Zimbabwe and 21 in South Africa. A total of 25 questionnaires were returned. The findings revealed that IL was being taught in universities library and non-library staff, was compulsory and contributed to the term mark in some institutions. The study also revealed that 44 per cent of the total respondents indicated that the libraries were collaborating with departments and faculty in implementing IL programmes in universities. The study recommends that IL should be an integral part of the university programmes in order to promote the use of databases and to guide students on ethical issues of information use.


Author(s):  
Michele Micheletti ◽  
Didem Oral

Typically, political consumerism is portrayed in straightforward, unproblematic ways. This chapter discusses how and why political consumerism—and particularly boycotts—can be confusing and problematic. Theoretically it focuses on moral dilemmas within political consumerism and the key role of overriding moral claims in the motivations for and actions of political consumer causes. An ideal type model, constructed for analyzing unproblematic and problematic political consumerism, is applied to cases of more unproblematic political consumerism (e.g., the Nestlé, Nike, and South African boycotts) and more problematic political consumerism (e.g., the Disney boycott and the movement against Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine territories). The chapter also addresses why other forms of political consumerism (buycotts and discursive actions) seem less vulnerable to moral dilemmas as well as the research challenges in studying more problematic cases of political consumerism.


2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P.G.J. Meiring

The author who served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), focuses on the Hindu experience in South Africa during the apartheid years. At a special TRC Hearing for Faith Communities (East London, 17-19 November 1997) two submissions by local Hindu leaders were tabled. Taking his cues from those submissions, the author discusses four issues: the way the Hindu community suffered during these years, the way in which some members of the Hindu community supported the system of apartheid, the role of Hindus in the struggle against apartheid, and finally the contribution of the Hindu community towards reconciliation in South Africa. In conclusion some notes on how Hindus and Christians may work together in th


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Western ◽  
Victor N. Mose ◽  
David Maitumo ◽  
Caroline Mburu

Abstract Background Studies of the African savannas have used national parks to test ecological theories of natural ecosystems, including equilibrium, non-equilibrium, complex adaptive systems, and the role of top-down and bottom-up physical and biotic forces. Most such studies have excluded the impact of pastoralists in shaping grassland ecosystems and, over the last half century, the growing human impact on the world’s rangelands. The mounting human impact calls for selecting indicators and integrated monitoring methods able to track ecosystem changes and the role of natural and human agencies. Our study draws on five decades of monitoring the Amboseli landscape in southern Kenya to document the declining role of natural agencies in shaping plant ecology with rising human impact. Results We show that plant diversity and productivity have declined, biomass turnover has increased in response to a downsizing of mean plant size, and that ecological resilience has declined with the rising probability of extreme shortfalls in pasture production. The signature of rainfall and physical agencies in driving ecosystem properties has decreased sharply with growing human impact. We compare the Amboseli findings to the long-term studies of Kruger and Serengeti national parks to show that the human influence, whether by design or default, is increasingly shaping the ecology of savanna ecosystems. We look at the findings in the larger perspective of human impact on African grasslands and the world rangelands, in general, and discuss the implications for ecosystem theory and conservation policy and management. Conclusions The Amboseli study shows the value of using long-term integrated ecological monitoring to track the spatial and temporal changes in the species composition, structure, and function of rangeland ecosystems and the role of natural and human agencies in the process of change. The study echoes the widespread changes underway across African savannas and world’s rangelands, concluding that some level of ecosystem management is needed to prevent land degradation and the erosion of ecological function, services, and resilience. Despite the weak application of ecological theory to conservation management, a plant trait-based approach is shown to be useful in explaining the macroecological changes underway.


Author(s):  
Lv Xie ◽  
Bingwei Lu ◽  
Yezhi Ma ◽  
Jiemin Yin ◽  
Xiaozhu Zhai ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1704601
Author(s):  
Bongolethu Diko ◽  
Sogo Angel Olofinbiyi ◽  
Jean Steyn

1979 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Lever

There is some controversy concerning the role of ethnicity in South African electoral behaviour. Since the society is segmented on ethnic lines it is to be expected that ethnicity would play a crucial role in affecting political choices. Some writers have gone so far as to suggest that ethnicity is the only significant factor affecting voting preferences. The controversy arose at a time when Goodman's method of log-linear analysis for hierarchical models had not yet been developed. This method provides the most powerful tool available for the multivariate analysis of categorical data. A re-analysis of previously published research using Goodman's method shows that ethnicity is not the only significant factor having a bearing on voting preferences. The first four-way table of voting preferences in South Africa is presented. The order of importance of the variables affecting party choice is: (1) ethnicity (2) socio-economic status (3) age of the voter. The recursive model suggested by the analysis explains approximately 98 per cent of the data.


2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
CASPER SYLVEST

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake’s (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.


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