scholarly journals Retrofitting, repurposing and re-placing: A multi-media exploration of occupation in Cape Town, South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liza Rose Cirolia ◽  
Nobukhosi Ngwenya ◽  
Barry Christianson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Documentary Photography ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
Hospital Building ◽  
Multi Media

The vast majority of city planning literature on informal occupations has focused on how residents occupy vacant and peripheral land, developing informal structures to address their basic needs. A smaller body of work, but one with much purchase in South Africa, explores the informal occupation of existing formal structures and how residents infuse these emergent places with social and political meaning. Across this work, occupations represent a dominant mode of city-building in the Global South. Contributing to this debate on city-making and occupations, this paper departs from an unusual case of South African occupation. We explore how displaced people have occupied a multi-storey vacant hospital building situated close to Cape Town’s city centre. Using documentary photography and interviews with residents, we argue that this occupation reflects a logic of ‘retrofit city-making’. We show that, through processes of repairing, repurposing, and renovating, dwellers have retrofit an institutional building, previously designed by the state for a very different use, to meet their needs and desires. As cities become more densely built and vacant land more peripheral or scarce, the retrofit of underutilised buildings, particularly through bottom-up actions such as occupation, will become an increasingly important mode of urban development. Not only are the practices of material transformation useful to understand, so too are the ways in which occupations reflect significantly more than simply survivalist strategies, but also care and meaning-making.

Teacher Use of iPads in the Classroom of a South African Public School

2019 ◽  
pp. 251-276
Author(s):  
Vuyo P. C. Lupondwana ◽  
Emma Coleman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Technical Support ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
Teacher Use ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Developed World

This chapter argues that when implementing technologies such as iPads in developing country educational contexts, there are different factors to consider than when implementing in the developed world. It is important to consider these to reap benefits that improve the inclusivity of education for all. The chapter examines teacher use of iPads in the classroom of a township school in South Africa and the benefits and challenges experienced by teachers in using the devices. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with teachers. The findings of the study indicated that overall the effect of iPad use by the teachers was positive. The use of iPads resulted in the teachers having access to quality multi-media and educational apps to teach their subjects which led to learners' increased class involvement and independent learning. The study revealed that effective use of iPads requires teachers that are adequately trained to use the iPad in relation to subject specific content, a reliable wireless connection, technical support, and mitigation of learners' distractions.

scholarly journals Exploring the role of the church as a ‘reformation agency’ in enhancing a socially transformative agenda in South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Micheal M. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Servant Leadership ◽  
South African ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
The Church

International political, social, economic and religious developments influence how local communities operate. The South African church society is influenced by such developments taking place globally and which clearly influence how local churches function. This article explores the role of the contemporary church as a ‘reformation agency’ in enhancing a socially transformative agenda in South Africa. A qualitative research approach – an interpretative phenomenology design – was employed to negotiate a shared understanding through conversation and intersubjective meaning-making with church ministers, with the primary focus being their subjective experience of the changing role of the church in enhancing a transformative agenda in a South African context. A purposive sampling (n = 6) consisted of local church leaders who participated in the face-to-face and telephonic semi-structured interviews to achieve the purpose of the study. The findings clearly show that deliberate and intentional actions by churches allow them to become a voice for the marginalised, to create spaces for searching for excellence and to increase the quality of servant leadership, all as vehicles for transforming church society. Furthermore, servant leadership is a social phenomenon, a philosophy-in-practice aimed at leading by example to achieve a common goal. To accomplish this, church ministers are required to spearhead the challenge as a prerequisite to creating ‘lived experienced’ opportunities for members as an inward-outward spiritual journey. Finally, church leaders believed that transformation is a secular dimension, but that it can also be aligned towards God’s redemption plan and enhancing a socially just transformation agenda. Ultimately, this study proposed several recommendations to allow the local church to be relevant in practicing and promoting stronger unity and reconciliation amongst all churches nationally and globally.

scholarly journals Constructing racial hierarchies of skill – Experiencing affirmative action in a South African organisation: A qualitative review

2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shanya Reuben ◽  
Shaida Bobat
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
South African ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Value Add ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Orientation: Apartheid in South Africa constructed racial, economic, social and political segregation, the consequences of which are still experienced today. Government has made concerted efforts to ‘deracialise’ South Africa, most notably through affirmative action (AA) measures.Research purpose: This study aimed to explore employees’ social constructions of AA in a South African organisation.Motivation for the study: Research in this field focuses mostly on attitudinal perspectives of AA with an emphasis on traditional approaches. Subjective, contextualised approaches to AA have received little attention. Thus, this study aimed to critically engage with the embodied nature of prejudice, particularly in reference to how we understand and experience AA.Research approach, design and method: This study aimed to explore AA from a social constructionist orientation, using semi-structured interviews. More specifically, this study used Potter and Wetherell’s discursive psychology.Main findings: The findings illustrate how participants engage in discursive devices that continue to rationalise a racial order of competence. Ultimately, AA is a controversial subject that traverses many segments of life for all South Africans.Practical/managerial implications: The findings contribute to the discipline of industrial psychology, particularly with regard to policies around preferential treatment, and can add value to the ways in which organisational policy documents are conceptualised. The findings also suggest the importance of developing an inclusive, non-discriminatory organisational culture.Contribution/value-add: This approach adds to the existing body of knowledge around the embodied nature of prejudice. The study’s methodology highlights the value of studying context in meaning-making and implied inferences that underlie talk.

scholarly journals Beyond the Horizon: Visitor Meaning-Making and the Vatican Frescoes

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Brodie
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
First Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Outcomes Based Education

The re-birth of South Africa in 1994 has brought the implementation of effective educational policies. Simultaneously, the Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) approach has been introduced to advance teaching and learning of the Learning areas in schools in South Africa. This article focuses on the learning of English as a Second Language (ESL) in Grade eight. The focus is furthermore on schools from the Black township areas, called previously disadvantaged schools. The introduction of OBE in South Africa heralds an era of meaningful teaching. The use of OBE strives to root out the last vestiges of Apartheid education. With an OBE approach, teaching and learning activities have the aim of empowering learners to succeed in the real life after leaving school. One of the main aims of using a language, for example English, is to develop communicative competence. Communicative competence is the ability to linguistically apply the language correctly in authentic situations. English though is the first language of only 9% of South African citizens (Van der Merwe & Van Niekerk, 1994). The qualitative research method was employed for this study, using semi-structured interviews and observations as research tools. The research study on ESL teaching and learning for Grade eight classes has shown that deficiencies and ineffectiveness occur in most of the classrooms. The findings confirm that Grade eight ESL learners experience problems with ESL due to insufficient use of advanced strategies for teaching and learning by the educators.

scholarly journals Poetic Bodies: Weavings of Bodies, Languages and Environments in War Poetry by S.E.K. Mqhayi

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Genis
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
Different Levels

The creation of “poetic bodies” refers to the embodiment of poetic experience through an eclectic theoretical and methodological conceptualisation. This poetic embodiment allows for the re-membering and experiencing of poetic texts in general, and specifically, indigenous South African poetry in the classroom. At its core is the haunting of memory in poetic texts: the inter-generational experiencing of poetry is embodied in the students’ responses to literature. Conjuring these poetic bodies comprises three acts of meaning-making that are woven together to create a unique experience and understanding of poetry: the Bodily, which refers to the figurative devices and images in poetry; the Inner Bodily, which relates to intergenerational memory construction; and the Outer Bodily, which encompasses social, cultural and historical contexts. In South Africa, the process of poetic embodiment is characterised by a strong sense of loss due to the country’s colonial and apartheid past. The weaving of the different levels of re-membering and experiencing in indigenous South African poetry is illustrated in the war poetry of S.E.K. Mqhayi (1875–1945). His poems are used as a case study to illustrate how poetic bodies may be re-membered or reconstructed as a literary-theoretical approach to facilitate understanding and experiencing poetry with marked traces of loss.

Artbooks as witness of everyday resistance. Using art with displaced children living in Johannesburg, South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 204361062199582
Author(s):  
Glynis Clacherty
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Creative Arts ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Displaced Children ◽  
Everyday Resistance ◽  
Laws And Policies

Artbooks, which are a combined form of picture and story book created using mixed media, can be a simple yet powerful way of supporting children affected by war and displacement to tell their stories. They allow children to work through the creative arts, which protects them from being overwhelmed by difficult memories. They also allow, even very young children, to show us how they cope with past violence and present injustice by recalling and representing the small everyday overcomings of their lives – a garden they planted in DRC, a mother who walks them across a busy Johannesburg street, a curtain blowing in the door of their new home – just as it did in their old home. The books allow them to witness to the injustice of xenophobic violence by neighbours and the immoveable bureaucracy attached to accessing documents, through representing the small details of their lives in crayons and paint. Making artbooks also allows for some measure of meaning-making in the chaos of the everyday in a hostile city where their parents struggle to maintain a normal life for them. Books are also a powerful way for children to safely share their stories and advocate for changed attitudes, laws and policies in the increasingly migrant-hostile South African society. The article will tell the story of a book-making project run over a number of years at a community counselling centre that works with families on the move in Johannesburg South Africa. It will also describe how some of the children’s books have become a powerful advocacy tool through their inclusion in the digital library of the African Storybook project. The article will explore some of the practical details of the project and the theory around the power of the representation of the everyday which we are beginning to derive from the work.

Reframing Xenophobia in South Africa as Colour-Blind: The Limits of the Afro Phobia Thesis

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-444
Author(s):  
Amanuel Isak Tewolde
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Conflict Theory ◽  
Black African ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Online Newspaper ◽  
Close Proximity ◽  
Realistic Conflict Theory

Many scholars and South African politicians characterize the widespread anti-foreigner sentiment and violence in South Africa as dislike against migrants and refugees of African origin which they named ‘Afro-phobia’. Drawing on online newspaper reports and academic sources, this paper rejects the Afro-phobia thesis and argues that other non-African migrants such as Asians (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and Chinese) are also on the receiving end of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. I contend that any ‘outsider’ (White, Asian or Black African) who lives and trades in South African townships and informal settlements is scapegoated and attacked. I term this phenomenon ‘colour-blind xenophobia’. By proposing this analytical framework and integrating two theoretical perspectives — proximity-based ‘Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT)’ and Neocosmos’ exclusivist citizenship model — I contend that xenophobia in South Africa targets those who are in close proximity to disadvantaged Black South Africans and who are deemed outsiders (e.g., Asian, African even White residents and traders) and reject arguments that describe xenophobia in South Africa as targeting Black African refugees and migrants.

Region of Birth and Child Mortality among Black Migrants to South Africa: Is there a foreign-born advantage?

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany L Green ◽  
Amos C Peters
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Black Immigrants ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Region Of Origin ◽  
Child Deaths

Much of the existing evidence for the healthy immigrant advantage comes from developed countries. We investigate whether an immigrant health advantage exists in South Africa, an important emerging economy.  Using the 2001 South African Census, this study examines differences in child mortality between native-born South African and immigrant blacks.  We find that accounting for region of origin is critical: immigrants from southern Africa are more likely to experience higher lifetime child mortality compared to the native-born population.  Further, immigrants from outside of southern Africa are less likely than both groups to experience child deaths.  Finally, in contrast to patterns observed in developed countries, we detect a strong relationship between schooling and child mortality among black immigrants.

Some Reflections on Reparation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, using a Couple Therapy Intervention as a Microcosm of South African Society

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Hill ◽  
Sylvia Poss
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Couple Therapy ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Depressive Position ◽  
Central Hypothesis ◽  
Transference And Countertransference ◽  
Constructive Engagement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Therapy Intervention

The paper addresses the question of reparation in post-apartheid South Africa. The central hypothesis of the paper is that in South Africa current traumas or losses, such as the 2008 xenophobic attacks, may activate a ‘shared unconscious phantasy’ of irreparable damage inflicted by apartheid on the collective psyche of the South African nation which could block constructive engagement and healing. A brief couple therapy intervention by a white therapist with a black couple is used as a ‘microcosm’ to explore this question. The impact of an extreme current loss, when earlier losses have been sustained, is explored. Additionally, the impact of racial difference on the transference and countertransference between the therapist and the couple is explored to illustrate factors complicating the productive grieving and working through of the depressive position towards reparation.

The Final ‘Thank You’

Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Black President ◽  
The Moment

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1

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