Reconciling with others, within oneself, and the circle(s) of time

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seija Ulkuniemi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Personal Loss ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Ancient Rock

This visual essay depicts my personal experiences with the San peoples of South Africa. Almost twenty years ago, I learned of a personal loss while examining their ancient rock carvings and used the San people’s beliefs about the reconciliation of death and nature to heal. In 2019, I ran a workshop for young Khoe-Sans peoples, offering them a chance to connect and find harmony within themselves. They shared their personal stories and visual creations with each other, reviving the disappearing storytelling tradition. As Indigenous peoples have often been treated as objects without respect, following the ethical rules of research was part of reconciliation. My approach throughout the workshop was to embody connectedness and care; according to the feedback, our interaction succeeded despite our cultural differences.

scholarly journals The Underlying Motives of University Student Volunteers Participating in Community Service Activities in Custodial Settings in South Africa: A Philosophical Perspective

Phronimon ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 44-58
Author(s):  
Johannes H Prinsloo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Student Volunteers ◽  
The University ◽  
Security Science

Socrates pronounced that “An unexamined life is not worth living” and maintained the belief that the purpose of human life was personal and spiritual growth. This article explores, against this background, the motives and experiences of 12 student volunteers who assisted with the assessment of sentenced offenders in custodial settings in South Africa, as part of the “third mission” of the Department of Criminology and Security Science at the University of South Africa (Unisa). A case study approach was followed to explore the underlying social context and thereby gain an understanding of the students’ experience in terms of their exposure to the correctional milieu. The article relates the student volunteers’ experiences regarding their expectations and motives at the outset, their personal experiences and the benefits that involvement in this project holds for them.

Sometimes It’s Necessary to Break a Few Rules

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Michelle Téllez ◽  
Maribel Alvarez ◽  
Brianna P. Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Domestic Worker ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
The University ◽  
Sacred Lands

In October of 2020, the University of Arizona’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences hosted a lecture series called Womanpower. The final lecture was an interview between Michelle Téllez and Yalitza Aparicio—an Indigenous woman, actress, and activist. This interview transcript (originally conducted in Spanish) discusses Aparicio’s childhood, her experiences with discrimination, her role in the groundbreaking film Roma, and her activism on behalf of domestic workers and Indigenous peoples. In this interview, Téllez highlights issues of Indigenous rights, recognizing how Aparicio’s platform can bring visibility to the O’odham land defenders fighting for their sacred lands today, but also to Indigenous peoples fighting for their territories in Mexico, as alluded to in Roma. Téllez wanted to recognize the power that is ever-present in the bodies and minds of women workers who create possibilities despite their circumstances, and who maneuver between space and place, languages and cultures as they center homes, both their own and others. She points us to Aparicio’s role as a domestic worker to remind us of the silent but ever-present power of women. Téllez connects the interview with her own research and personal experiences growing up along the U.S./Mexico border in the cities of San Diego/Tijuana – where she was witness to the racial, gendered, and classed dynamics of power and exclusion.

Virginia Woolf in Greece: “Curious contrasts!”: Hellenism and Englishness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanette McVicker
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Common People ◽  
Personal Loss ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Lytton Strachey ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Times ◽  
With Memory

A young Virginia Stephen describes the rustic beauty of Salisbury plain and its surroundings (including Stonehenge) in an early voicing of Englishness in the 1903 journal. Three years later, Virginia visits Greece and Turkey, where she begins to contrast that developing sense of Englishness with other nationalisms (German, Greek and Turkish), both resisting and appropriating the language of the tourist. In addition to helping her formulate a sense of national identity, as a woman and a writer, these trips share another aspect: they are suffused by personal experiences of loss (Leslie Stephen’s declining health and death, and Thoby’s sudden death from typhoid). A similar weaving of personal loss with issues of national identity can be detected in her diary during her second journey to Greece in the company of Leonard, Roger and Margery Fry in 1932, prompted by the deaths of Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, and her return to the English countryside. This paper explores the relation that these specific journeys, 30 years apart, have to Woolf’s developing sense of tradition, history, and western civilization, and her own place as a writer. The interweaving of the rustic – peasants, common people, villages and natural places – with the history of ideas allows Woolf to reimagine the legacy of heritage for her dramatically changing times. That heritage, intimately bound up with death – whether neutralized as an ancestral past or bearing the sting of the lived present – shapes the way Woolf engages with memory, beauty, and the contemporary role of the English writer.

Van der Post, Laurens (1906-1996)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Ullyatt
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Black People ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Boer War ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
German Origin ◽  
The Village

Laurens van der Post was born on December 13, 1906 in the village of Phillipolis, in what was then the Orange River Colony. He was the thirteenth of the family’s fifteen children and the fifth son. His father, Christiaan, who came from Dutch stock, was a lawyer and politician who had fought against the British during the Second Anglo-Boer War. Van der Post’s mother, Lammie, was of German origin. Growing up on the farm, van der Post came into contact with the black people and the wilderness, two major influences on his life and his writing. Van der Post went to school in Grey College in Bloemfontein, where he was exposed to a line of political thinking embodying a racial philosophy entirely contrary to his own experiences of the indigenous peoples who were to play such a significant role in his adult life. In 1925, he became a junior reporter for the Natal Advertiser newspaper in Durban. In 1926, with William Plomer and Roy Campbell, he founded Voorslag, a journal lasting only three volumes. It was forced to close through lack of support for its radical opinions and its promotion of a more integrated South Africa.

scholarly journals Crinane Alkaloids of the Amaryllidaceae with Cytotoxic Effects in Human Cervical Adenocarcinoma (HeLa) Cells

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1934578X1400900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerald J. Nair ◽  
Lucie Rárová ◽  
Miroslav Strnad ◽  
Jaume Bastida ◽  
Lee Cheesman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Hela Cells ◽  
Cervical Adenocarcinoma ◽  
Cytotoxic Activities ◽  
Adenocarcinoma Cell Line ◽  
Cytotoxic Effects ◽  
Adenocarcinoma Cell ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of

The family Amaryllidaceae has a long history of usage in the traditional medicinal practices of the indigenous peoples of South Africa, with three of its species known to be used for cancer treatment. Furthermore, the Amaryllidaceae is widely recognized for its unique alkaloid constituents, several of which exhibit potent and selective cytotoxic activities. In this study, several crinane alkaloids derived from local Amaryllidaceae species were examined for cytotoxic effects against the human cervical adenocarcinoma cell line, of which distichamine was the most potent (IC50 2.2 μM).

scholarly journals On fitting paradigms to people

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Moerdyk ◽  
David A.L. Coldwell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Work Place ◽  
Value Structures ◽  
The Individual

In a previous article (Coldwell and Moerdyk, 1981) it was argued that many blacks in South Africa are at a disadvantage in the 'White man's world' of business and industry as a result of a number of cultural factors, some of which were described. In this paper, the suggestion is made that it is probably easier and more cost-effective to find ways in which both tasks and organizations can be restructured along socio-technical design lines, than it is to try to change the personality and value structures of the labour force to fit them to the demands of the work place. A number of cultural differences are outlined and suggestions put forward about possible ways in which jobs and organizations can be modified to make them more compatible with the characteristics of the work force. A closer 'match' between the individual and his work environment is seen as the key to enhanced productivity, reduced stress, and consequent improvements in both job satisfaction and company profitability.

scholarly journals Exploring resilience capacities with food innovators: a narrative approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Lindow ◽  
Rika Preiser ◽  
Reinette Biggs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Sustainability Challenges

Non-technical summary We interviewed grassroots food innovators in South Africa to explore the diverse ways in which their narratives expressed different capacities for resilience, such as dealing with surprise and shaping desirable change. We drew on key resilience themes of rootedness, resourcefulness and resistance (the 3Rs) as lenses through which to view their personal stories and efforts to build resilience and reshape the future. We used narrative and interpretative methods to connect the personal and context-specific experiences of food innovators to the 3Rs, exploring a new approach to uncovering resilience capacities. We suggest that this approach could be usefully employed to understand potential resilience capacities that could help address diverse sustainability challenges around the world.

Prisoner Experiences

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Moore
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Women Prisoners ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Personal Experiences

The variables impacting how one experiences imprisonment are far ranging. George Jackson (1994), a pivotal character in American penal history, wrote that, “[b]lackmen born in the [United States] and fortunate enough to live past the age of eighteen are conditioned to accept the inevitability of prison” (p. 4). Ruth Wyner (2002), incarcerated 40 years after Jackson under vastly different circumstances, describes a very different sort of bleakness associated with her incarceration: One evening, just before I settled down to try to sleep, I allowed myself to remember my daughter in a way that I usually suppressed: remembering and feeling all the love that I had for her, every bit. A huge chasm grew inside me, dark and raw, and my throat constricted as I felt enveloped by the sadness. This was what was inside of me when I allowed myself to touch it. (p. 156) Such personal experiences of incarceration offer a window into how prisons function, or often more correctly, fail to function, from the point of view of the prisoner. These perspectives are vitally important to a fulsome understanding of incarceration because prisoners and their experiences paint a picture of confinement that is patently different from those described by penal officials and governments. There are numerous issues that shape the experiences of confinement, both historically and in the present day, a list longer than can be adequately addressed in this entry. Still, there are key concerns that recur in the literature and in ongoing debates about incarceration. Included here are human rights abuses, overcrowding, the overuse of solitary confinement, the situation of women prisoners, the incarceration of indigenous peoples, and health, especially mental health concerns.

The Significance of Small Journeys: Travel and the Congregational Music of Kroonvale, South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 229-247
Author(s):  
Marie Jorritsma
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Local People ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Church Congregations ◽  
Congregational Music ◽  
Point Of Departure

In James Clifford’s influential text, Routes (1997), he makes the point that, contrary to the entrenched belief that only the ethnographer is a traveller to faraway places, the local people and communities are also travellers. This article takes his notion as its point of departure and investigates the implications of travel within the context of my research among the members of three church congregations of coloured people in Kroonvale, South Africa, where I undertook fieldwork in 2004 and 2005. Historically, the international journeys of colonial officials, European missionaries and slaves from the Cape, along with large-scale migration of the indigenous peoples across the country’s frontiers, resulted in the encounters which gave rise to this congregational music. More recently, while the community appears static and fixed in a certain place, there is an ongoing occurrence of small journeys: mobile ministers, church members travelling between denominations, moving from place to place in and around Kroonvale and, perhaps most poignantly, the congregations’ move from the main town of Graaff-Reinet to Kroonvale as part of the implementation of the apartheid-era Group Areas Act (1950). In this article, I examine Clifford’s theories in conjunction with notions of music and place in order to argue that these short journeys have made an important contribution to the sound and style of congregational music in Kroonvale.

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