Maintaining the Status Quo through Repressed Silences: The Case of Paid Domestic Labour in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003803852094310
Author(s):  
Amy Jo Murray ◽  
Kevin Durrheim
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black Worker ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Interview Study ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Status ◽  
Domestic Labour ◽  
Paid Domestic Labour

As competent social actors, we individually and collectively leave things unsaid that might threaten to disrupt the status quo. In this article, we outline an understanding of the unsaid and extend its implications to include what we call ‘repressed silences’ or silences about which we do not speak. Drawing on a diary-interview study involving five domestic labour dyads comprised of a white employer and a black worker, we examine silences topicalised by participants, how the unsaid stands in contrast to what could/should have been said and finally how these silences constitute a form of repressed silences. We demonstrate how the topic of paid domestic labour and its labour-related roles, rights and responsibilities are silenced – and the silence itself is not spoken of – among participants, thereby (re)producing the status quo of South Africa’s (racialised) inequalities and hierarchies.

scholarly journals Think Piece: Learning, Living and Leading into Transgression – A reflection on decolonial praxis in a neoliberal world

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Injairu Kulundu ◽  
Dylan Kenneth McGarry ◽  
Heila Lotz-Sisitka
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sustainability Education ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
To Come ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
Embodied Practice

Three scholar activists from South Africa reflect on what it means to transgress the limits of a neoliberal world and its crisis times, particularly considering transgressions in the service of a decolonial future. The authors explore three questions: i) What kind of learning can help us transgress the status quo? ii) How do we extend this learning into a commitment to actively living in transgressive ways? iii) What does it mean to lead in ways that re-generate a transgressive ethic in a neoliberal world? In a dialogical conversation format, the authors outline nine different but interconnected perspectives on learning, living and leading into transgression, with the aim of concurrently revealing the multiple layers of work that a decolonial future depends on, while demonstrating the ambitions of a pluriversal decolonial future through their writing. The intertwined narrative is not conclusive, as the processes marked out in brief are experiences that still need to be fully practised in new relations in times to come within academia-in-society-and-the-world with human and more-than-human actors. However, they do offer a generative set of questions, concepts and metaphors to give courage to boundary-dwelling scholar activists attempting transgressive research. These reflections seek to regenerate the transgressive ‘decolonial gestures’ (decolonialfutures.net) that we can undertake in a neo-liberal world, as an important part of environment and sustainability education practices. It draws out what an embodied practice of transgressive learning can entail when we become discerning of hegemonic discourses that reproduce the status quo. We pay homage to those decolonial scholars in the field of environment and sustainability education as we traverse this terrain, recognising their imagination and the transgressive movement that has come before us, but importantly we seek to also open pathways for those yet to come.

Time to agree on a conservation benchmark for Australia.

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt W Hayward
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Conservation Management ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Inadequate Knowledge ◽  
Sydney Harbour ◽  
The Status

WELL defined goals are critical to successfully achieve outcomes and monitor the success of achieving them, yet conservation agencies rarely explicitly state the goals of their management activities with appropriate metrics. Here I use case studies on the conflicting conservation management focus of the Sydney Harbour National Park at North Head, the legislative impediments of bridled nailtail wallaby conservation management, the planning for broadscale habitat connectivity programmes such as Habitat 141, fire management for the conservation of the quokka and the broader Kimberley landscape, and mesopredator suppression using dingoes to highlight the problems with inappropriate conservation benchmarks. I compare these issues with activities from South Africa, India, New Zealand and Poland to illustrate the benchmarks other nations have. I conclude that Australia urgently needs an explicit conservation benchmark upon which to aim our conservation efforts and excuses of inadequate knowledge can no longer be accepted for maintaining the status quo.

South Africa in 1998: Trends and Developments During the Next Twenty-Five Years

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
A. M. Keppel-Jones
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Insurance Policy ◽  
The Status

Prophecy is one of the simplest ways for an historian to destroy his credit and reputation. Having been persuaded to take this risk, I shall partly cover it with one small insurance policy: I shall set forth what seem to me to be the relevant facts, but not be too dogmatic about the conclusions to be drawn from them.Where will South Africa stand twenty-five years from now? What will have happened during those years? In theory there are, I think, only four possibilities: (i) that the status quo will remain essentially unchanged; (ii) that radical changes, involving or at least leading to the abolition of all racial discrimination, will come about peacefully, by constitutional means; (iii) that the regime will be overthrown by invading foreign forces; and (iv) that it will be overthrown by revolution within the country, with or without foreign support. As there are strong reasons for believing that none of these alternatives is really possible, some factor seems to have been overlooked. Perhaps it will appear as the four alternatives are examined.

scholarly journals Fledgling South African Anglicanism and the Roots of Ritualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew-John Bethke
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Early Generation ◽  
The Status ◽  
High Church

The early years of Anglican ministry in South Africa were primarily among English settlers. Their worship patterns, for the most part, reflected the general trends of English Anglicanism at the time, which itself was influenced theologically and materially by a moderate form of Calvinism. This article examines the ethos of the early generation of Anglicans, and highlights some of the possible reasons why a moderate Calvinistic stance seemed to suit the ordinary settler classes. However, the status quo was challenged by the arrival of Bishop Robert Gray in 1848. Thus, the article continues by exploring some of the reasons why Gray aroused such strong feelings in certain congregations. Among the most important reasons for the opposition against Gray were his Tractarian sympathies. While many historians have agreed that Gray was a high church cleric, most stop short of labelling him a Tractarian. This article critically examines Gray’s sympathies and posits that while he started out firmly within the high church party of Anglicanism, he slowly moved closer and closer to Tractarianism. Finally, the article considers aspects of Gray’s leadership which encouraged a gradual move from moderate Calvinism towards a more definite Tractarian and ritualist stance as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

scholarly journals EDITORS’ NOTE

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Allison
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Law Students ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Ninth Edition ◽  
Sense Of Satisfaction

Words fail to describe what an honour it has been to have been part of the ninth edition of the Pretoria Student Law Review. The sense of satisfaction is overwhelming in this being the third edition I have had the privilege to be a part of. Having spent three years as part of this publication I cannot begin to describe and expand upon all that I have learnt in this time, but one thing which I guarantee is the bright and prosperous future of the legal profession of South Africa. With each successive edition I see a thirst and hunger for knowledge from law students, each year those yearnings becoming more intense and providing us with the most thought provoking and well-founded articles. The desire to challenge the status quo, to reject the notions of complacency and outright refusal of facile thought is truly something all these writers should be proud of and us along with them. To read and to write is the essence of not only thought, but of life itself.

scholarly journals “The message to the people of South Africa” in contemporary context

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Braverman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Church Renewal ◽  
Church History ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Global Context ◽  
The People ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The Status ◽  
Contemporary Context

In September 2018 John de Gruchy presented a paper at the Volmoed Colloquium entitled “Revisiting the Message to the people of South Africa,” in which he asks, “what is the significance of the document for our time?” In this expanded version of the author’s response to de Gruchy, two further questions are pursued: First: how can the churches today meet the challenge of today’s global system of economically and politically-driven inequality driven by a constellation of individuals, corporations, and governments? Second: in his review of church history, de Gruchy focused on the issue of church theology described in the 1985 Kairos South Africa document, in which churches use words that purport to support justice but actually serve to shore up the status quo of discrimination, inequality and racism. How does church theology manifest in the contemporary global context, and what is the remedy? The author proposes that ecumenism can serve as a mobilizing and organizing model for church action, and that active engagement in the issue of Palestine is an entry point for church renewal and for a necessary and fruitful exploration of critical issues in theology and ecclesiology.

Traditional-bank customers' digital-only bank resistance: evidence from South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Nel ◽  
Christo Boshoff
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Mediation Model ◽  
Essential Factor ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Status ◽  
African Context ◽  
New Research

PurposeDigital-only banks are emerging as challenger banks to the traditional-bank business model in South Africa. However, traditional-bank customers could resist the use of digital-only banks, theoretically due to their satisfaction with the status quo. Consequently, inertia arising from bias to traditional banks based on status quo satisfaction could engender their resistance to become customers of digital-only banks. The objective of the study, therefore, is to investigate how traditional-bank customers' inertia influences digital-only bank resistance.Design/methodology/approachBased on a literature review, digital-only bank adoption barriers and cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs were identified as mediators of the influence of inertia on digital-only bank resistance. To test the mediation model empirically, data was collected from 610 traditional-bank-only customers.FindingsThe five adoption barriers fully mediate the influence of inertia on cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs. The five barriers in serial with cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs partially mediate the influence of traditional-bank customers' inertia on digital-only bank resistance. Cognitive-based initial distrusting belief is an essential factor in the mechanism underlying the influence of traditional-bank customers' inertia on digital-only bank resistance.Originality/valueDigital-only banks are relatively new. Research is therefore lacking in consumer behavior explaining the use of digital-only banks by traditional-bank customers in the South African context. A further novelty of the study is the empirical assessment of mechanisms that explain the influence of inertia on cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs, and the influence of inertia on resistance behavior.

Open and Closed

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colette Gordon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Cultural Authority ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
The Status

The force of ‘Shakespeare’ as a source of cultural authority in South Africa has been extensively discussed. This chapter looks at a phenomenon that is less often acknowledged: the persistence of directorial power in post-apartheid Shakespearean performance. Renewed ties with British theatre after apartheid brought actors and directors trained in a more actor-centred approach into dialogue with local theatre practitioners, but this did little to shift South African Shakespeare away from dependence on spectacle and on directors as inheritors of institutional power. Focusing on South African performances in 2011 and 2012 across the different institutional spaces in which Shakespeare is made to work (theatres, schools, and prisons), in productions that promise to create democratic, liberating, ‘open’ Shakespeare, one finds both defiance and a striking restatement of the status quo. While connections with British theatre give authority and legitimacy to post-apartheid performances, the potential for ‘open Shakespeare’ has been squelched.

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