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South Africa is rapidly obliterating its cultural resources and indigenous values. Particularly, this is the case in rural South Africa where manifestations of socio-economic declensions are evident. However, a number of the policies that are meant to enhance rural development lack a cohesive strategy that is based on culture-based theoretical frameworks. The paper argues that the conspicuous disregard to address rural development and its concomitant socio-economic challenges in the Revised White Paper on Arts, Culture, and Heritage, 2017, by the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), now (DSAC); poses a great threat to sustainable rural development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early twentieth century M.K. Gandhi articulated Satyagraha as a decentering quest for truth through everyday politics. Satyagraha privileged the "minor" or the marginalized over the dominant and everydayness and dwelling over history. In light of the contemporary criticisms of Gandhi, this paper examines Gandhian Satyagraha as a minor force that may hold him accountable for his entrenchment within dominant race and caste relations. The paper is divided into three sections devoted to "minor" matters of dwelling and ordinariness. I begin with an examination of Gandhi's politics through race and labor in South Africa, between 1896 and 1905. To understand Gandhi's racism in South Africa it is necessary to pay attention to his marginalization of social and legal narratives related to labor, agriculture, rent and places of habitation such as the hut. I then foreground Gandhi's marginalization of architecture in his discourses around Akash (the sky) and his body in 1932 and in 1942 during his incarcerations in Pune. Finally, I focus on the architecture of the huts built for him in Wardha in 1936–37 and the conflict that emerges between his conception of the social reproduction of labor as a minor voice within the self and his embrace of caste through varnashramadharma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their high vulnerability, mountain communities are adversely affected by climate change and variability causing significant challenges to their livelihood strategies. The objective of this paper is to examine the perceptions of local households in the Eastern Free State Region of South Africa regarding how climate change impacts their livelihoods. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 400 respondents on whom a semi-structured household questionnaire survey was administered to gather information about the impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods. Sixty-seven percent of the agriculture-based mountain households reported declining water quality and quantity as the most significant impact, while 48%, 33%, 38% and 68% considered crop loss, reduced crop yields, animal diseases, and livestock mortality as the most significant impacts, respectively. Agriculture-based mountain households also cited climate-related socio-economic impacts- higher prices, farm and non-farm income loss, and increased labour as impacts of climate change. These findings reveal that the impacts of climate change effects on on-farm and off-farm activities can be contextualised according to households' primary livelihood activities. The paper concludes that understanding the mountain communities' perceptions about climate change impacts on their livelihoods could be useful for identifying context-specific adaptation strategies applicable to these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the ambitions of Africa's first independent nonprofit school of architecture—the School of Explorative Architecture—in light of the decoloniality ideas that were galvanized by the Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Cape Town in 2015. The paper describes the School's three modes of teaching and learning architecture, namely the thing (professional competencies of designing a building), the shadow of the thing (theorized and critical thinking around buildings and architecture), and the painted shadow of the thing (creative acts engaging architecture in ideas and critical thinking). The paper explains the nuances of teaching and learning architecture in the South African context and the importance of teaching professional competencies while surfacing 'other' conditions through the painted shadow. The paper ends by asking if a radical spatial alterity—the folding of the thing, the shadow, and the painted shadow into each other—is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a study on blindness discourses found in South African non-profit organisations that provide rehabilitation services to visually impaired adults. The paper investigates what the public relations materials of these organisations communicate about blindness. It also considers the ideological assumptions that blindness discourses reinforce and embed in rehabilitation practice. The primary focus is a discourse analytic review conducted on a sample of organisation public facing material. The findings comprise three clusters of assumptions, with concomitant enactments in practice. These are i) third-person alliances around the blind subject and a resulting objectification of service users ii) 'journey discourse' which prohibits the expression of complex disability experiences and iii) polarised blindness fantasies which promote othering and prescribe acceptable ways of being for blind subjects. This paper questions what might be imparted to blind persons at a symbolic level through rehabilitative practices. This article explores the ways that blindness and blind persons are represented on the websites of organisations that provide visual impairment rehabilitation services in South Africa. These representations affect the way that society views visually impaired people, and the way that visually impaired people feel about themselves. Organisation websites describe visually impaired people in ways that make it seem as though they play little active role in the rehabilitation process. The idea that rehabilitation is a journey from dependence and depression to independence and self-acceptance might make it difficult for rehabilitation service users to express ongoing feelings of grief and loss. There is a need for more focus on interdependence in rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation organisations must think carefully about what their public relations materials communicate to society about blindness and blind persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's Just Energy Transition (JET) from coal to renewable energy in response to climate change mitigation policies comes packaged with social costs that these mitigation policies tend to overlook, considering their focus on carbon emission reduction. The paper argues that Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), a component of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) focused on social impact mitigation, can be a long-term approach to closing the social cost gap. Against this backdrop, the paper's arguments were informed by a literature analysis on SIAs and the Just Energy Transition, semi-structured interviews, and surveys with 230 participants, including experts, from Kriel and Carolina in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The findings point to skills development barriers such as poor school attendance, a lack of alignment between existing curriculum design and labour markets, and students' low aptitude for STEM subjects. It also identifies community sustainability issues linked to poor public participation, gender inequalities in land reform and economic participation, and culturally disruptive displacements that will intensify as the energy shift unfolds. The paper submits that SIAs, if incorporated into mainstream energy transition planning, might be a long-term approach to mitigating societal costs and can support socially responsible policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses an ongoing business-to-business (B2B) relationship perspective to establish the interrelationships between trust, commitment, and relationship satisfaction (as relational constructs) and specific assets, formalization, and opportunism (as transaction cost variables) from a buyer's perspective, framed within micro-enterprises in the business banking industry in South Africa. Data were collected via self-administered online questionnaires from 381 micro-enterprise customers of one of South Africa's major banks. We first used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the measurement model before structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to estimate the hypothesized relationships between the study constructs. The measurement and structural models fitted the data well. The research was approached using the dual theoretical lenses of relationship marketing and transaction cost theory to investigate relationship satisfaction from a buyer's perspective. The results support the notion that, in a B2B context, relationship satisfaction is an outcome of trust and commitment, with commitment being the stronger predictor. Relationship satisfaction, in turn, was positively related to both specific assets and formalization (the relationship with formalization being the strongest), and a negative relationship between relationship satisfaction and opportunism. Since our results found commitment to be a stronger predictor of relationship satisfaction than trust (contrary to much previous research that found the opposite to be true), the paper concludes with several commitment-related suggestions for banks. Although much research exists on trust, commitment, and satisfaction, to our knowledge this study is the first using dual theoretical lenses (relationship marketing and transaction cost theory) to investigate relationship satisfaction from a buyer's perspective among micro-enterprise customers in a banking context. The insights gained from our study therefore not only address this under-researched area (micro-enterprises), but also contribute toward expanding our understanding of forming (and maintaining) banking relationships with the customers of the smallest-sized businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to education for undocumented migrant children in South Africa remains a significant challenge. While the difficulties related to their inability to access education within the country have been highlighted elsewhere, there remains a lack of clarity on an approach to how this basic human right can be achieved. In this conceptual paper, we draw on the distinction between equality and equity, and describe the various ways in which education has been conceptualised in the South African Constitution – which in part contributes to the existing confusion on education for various groups, including undocumented migrant children. In this paper, we critically reflect on the need to develop an integrated approach for creating a platform that allows all undocumented migrant children access to education in South Africa. We argue that an integrated approach – which entails ways through which access to education can be delivered through the lens of equity – will enhance the right to education for undocumented migrant children in South Africa. We conclude that the South African government must urgently consider this integrated approach to enable access to education for undocumented migrant children, so that they can achieve their full educational potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how four major challenges in the ocean economy is linked to the 15 global challenges and the sectors that are influenced by these challenges. The ocean is becoming a focal point in the discourse on growth and sustainable development, both at national and international levels. Human aspirations and economic growth exert pressure on the ocean and the marine ecosystem and, therefore, constitute challenges for sustaining growth and ocean economy development. This conceptual paper analyses definitions of the ocean economy, the ocean economy's contribution toward world economic growth, the 15 global challenges, and specific challenges in the South African ocean economy. Four critical challenges are highlighted, firstly, pollution, which includes environmental disasters such as oil spills and dumping at sea, secondly, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, thirdly, climate change and, finally, disease events. As both private and public sectors should address these challenges, this research identifies possible reform measures for further consideration by these sectors to find possible solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges and potential benefits of interdisciplinary dialogue between anthropologists and economists. It reflects on a seminar where anthropologists and economists attempted to bridge the gap between their disciplines and highlights the difficulties in understanding each other's language and concepts. The article then focuses on a specific paper presented at the seminar, which examines the impact of a minimum wage increase on poverty reduction in the agricultural sector in South Africa. The paper finds that the wage increase led to significant increases in wages and household incomes, as well as a decline in poverty, challenging the belief that minimum wage increases result in job losses and increased poverty. The authors attribute the success of the wage increase to alternative enforcement mechanisms and the expectations of workers. The article concludes by suggesting that ethnographic research and anthropological perspectives can contribute to economics research and vice versa, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. [Extracted from the article]

Research and experimental development (R&D) is an important driver of economic growth and productivity. Gross expenditure on domestic R&D (GERD) is a country's total expenditure on R&D performed by all sectors of the economy. South Africa's GERD as a percentage of its GDP (GERD/GDP) remains below government targets and has stagnated over the past decade, largely due to declining business sector R&D. This paper aims to identify the drivers of firm-level R&D intensity, defined as the firm's R&D expenditure as a percentage of turnover. It is the first South African study to examine both micro- and macro-economic drivers of firm R&D, with a paucity of literature on this topic for middle-income countries. Using the South African National R&D Survey data, the study utilized the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model and found that public financial support for firms, smaller firm-size, firm-level collaboration, political stability, foreign direct investment, and public R&D investment are positively associated with firm R&D intensity. The results highlight the importance of public financial support for smaller firms and investments in higher education and research institutions in promoting firm-level R&D, thereby providing useful policy insights for boosting business sector and economy-wide R&D expenditure and reaching national GERD/GDP targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial body of research has examined the role of English in South Africans' linguistic repertoires. Many of these studies have investigated whether a language shift towards English might be underway among first-language (L1) speakers of the indigenous languages. At the same time, the role of English in the repertoires of L1 English speakers has received little attention, the implicit assumption being that English remains dominant for them. This paper presents an empirically informed comparison of English experience within and across L1 and non-L1 (Ln) English speakers in order to shed light on the importance of English in these individuals' repertoires. Cluster analysis is employed to analyze language background data from bi-/multilinguals (n = 200). The analysis produces two clusters, which differ in extent of English exposure and preference for English use. All but one of the L1 English speakers belong to the 'higher exposure, higher preference' cluster, while the vast majority of the Ln speakers fall into the 'lower exposure, lower preference' cluster. The results indicate that English experience is relatively homogeneous across L1 speakers but differs, for the most part, across L1 and Ln speakers. The findings are relevant to our understanding of language use in multilingual South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents and men are two populations that perform poorly within the HIV cascade of care, having worse AIDS-related health outcomes, and experiencing higher levels of HIV-related stigma. This paper explores institutional health system discrimination as experienced by adolescent boys with perinatally-acquired HIV, situating them within the social and gendered contexts of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Life history narratives (n = 36) and in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 32) with adolescent boys living with HIV aged 13–22 were conducted in 2017-2018. In-depth semi-structured interviews with biomedical and traditional health practitioners (n = 14), analysis of health facility files (n = 41) and clinic observations were also conducted. Together, triangulated sources point to an incongruence between the complex needs of adoelscent boys and young men living with HIV and their experiences within the health system. Two institutional discrimination-related deterrents to retention in care were identified: (1) lack of confidentiality due to health facility layouts and practices that visibilised people living with HIV; and (2) mistreatment in the form of shouting. This article contributes to the limited literature on the experiences of young men within the HIV continuum of care, focusing on how stigma influences how young men experience and engage with the health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a sound policy framework, the right of learners with disabilities in South Africa to inclusive and equitable quality education is not being met. A key reason hindering the realisation of this right is that there are very few teacher education programs focused on supporting learners with disabilities. Acknowledging the urgency of teacher education, in this paper we draw on qualitative data from 109 teacher participants and 39 course facilitators of a series of disability inclusion-focused teacher education short courses in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Based on their experience of the courses, we consider how teachers can be empowered to meet the diverse needs of their learners within an inclusive framework. Findings highlight that professional and personal growth facilitated a more empathic understanding of learners and the opportunity to collaborate with others, enabling teachers to find creative ways of solving problems faced in their workplaces. To support teachers in meeting the needs of their learners, teacher training should facilitate active reflection on the role they play in shaping the lives of their learners, and prepare teachers to respond to challenges strategically, taking advantage of the resources available to them within and beyond their school environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What were the effects of a 52 per cent increase in the minimum wage in the agricultural sector in South Africa in 2013? We estimate the short run effects of this policy change on the income, employment, and poverty rate of farmworkers, using individual-level panel data from the Quarterly Labour Force Surveys (QLFS). Before the implementation date, 90 per cent of farmworkers were paid below the new minimum wage level. We find that the wage gain of farmworkers is strongly quadratically related to pre-implementation wages, suggesting lower compliance as the gap between the minimum and the pre-implementation wage increases. We estimate that farmworkers received a median wage increase of 9 per cent as a result of the policy, and we find no evidence of job losses. Overall, farmworkers were 7 per cent less likely to have household income per person below the poverty line. One possible explanation for these outcomes is that endogenous compliance may mitigate against unemployment effects. While the minimum wage literature is large, our paper adds to the small subset of this literature on large increases, partial compliance, and poverty effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The burden of malnutrition experienced globally, coupled with the increasing rate of micronutrient deficiencies, compromises the health and well-being of women during their reproductive years. Obesity places young South African women at particular risk during pregnancy, and increases obesity risk for their offspring. To address these risks, the Bukhali trial is being implemented in Soweto, South Africa with 18–28-year-old women, as part of the Healthy Lifestyle Trajectory Initiative. A dietitian is part of the Bukhali intervention team (community health workers) to provide nutritional support for overweight/obese trial participants, making use of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Nutrition Checklist. This paper reflects on the experiences and lessons learned by the Bukhali dietitian, including the use of the FIGO Nutrition Checklist and Healthy Conversation Skills to facilitate conversations about making healthy dietary behaviour changes. Identified challenges that influence nutrition and behaviour are discussed, including lack of food affordability, cultural and social influences on healthy food choices, unsupportive environments and food insecurity. Strategies to optimise this nutritional support are also mentioned. The Bukhali trial is showing that introducing additional nutrition support by a dietitian for at-risk participants has the potential to encourage young women to prioritise nutrition and health, even in the midst of contextual challenges to both nutrition and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a key socioeconomic and environmental concern in South Africa. The South African government introduced several climate change initiatives to address the impacts of climate change, resulting in the proliferation of climate adaptation policies across spheres of government. This paper studies different climate change adaptation policies and climate policy paradigms (CPP) to understand the adaptation landscape; it explains and compares the changes in CPP in South Africa over time. We mapped 40 policy documents from 2004 to 2022, which shows 12 national policies, 12 provincial (sub-national) policy documents and 14 metropolitan city policy documents. We then used 12 national policy documents to illustrate and understand the CPP. The research shows that different stakeholders have shaped climate change adaptation policy, both private and public firms advised on climate change policy and there are a number of different funding partners supporting the adaptation policy like GEF, C40 and GIZ. The changing policy environment has introduced new frameworks, objectives and processes. Therefore, more efforts will be needed going forward to guide adaptation policy across national, provincial and local governments. We find that several CPPs have emerged, that is different paradigms encompassing a range of policy goals, framings and instruments. The present National CC Adaptation Strategy (NCCAS) mandates adaptation across all levels of government and allows all important stakeholders to address climate change consequences. This NCCAS increases the number and ambition of adaptation policy, encourages integrated approaches, policy coherence and clear direction on how to handle climate risks and impacts in varied South Africa and its global commitment. Changes in policy paradigm enable the use of new policy instruments, including funding and budget mechanisms. Finally, climate adaptation policy has become more ambitious and stringent, requiring all levels of government to plan for climate change. The climate change policy landscape in South Africa has grown over the past 18 years, with policy development across different spheres of government (national, sectoral, provincial and metros), New CPPs have emerged, supported by new policy frames, goals and instruments. The NCCAS provides a clear policy goal, which also provides new policy instruments to implement climate actions and acts to enhance integrated approaches, The lack of domestic budget allocation remains a challenge for national government, but external partnerships have begun to provide support for policy development. Notably, a shift from a flexible to stringent approach to climate policy is needed to deliver effective climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firm-level innovation in sub-Saharan Africa remains under-researched. To address this gap, this paper examines the obstacles to innovation faced by small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa. Using the 2018 Business Innovation Survey, we apply the double-hurdle model to investigate factors determining a firm's decision to invest, and the intensity of innovation. Our results show that cost and institutional obstacles were significantly more important as disincentive factors for medium-sized enterprises while knowledge obstacles were significant disincentive factors for large enterprises. In addition, market obstacles hampered investment among large enterprises. Interestingly, none of these factors was found to deter innovation intensity among small and micro enterprises. The study findings suggest that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to innovation policy and intervention programmes to support innovation within firms of different sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, youth (15–34 years) are the most vulnerable age group, assuming a large share of unemployment and NEET rates. This has raised concerns of their living standards, which have a great influence on their overall development. Although much has been written on poverty in South Africa, poverty specifically among the youth remains under-researched. This study analyses factors that determine poverty among youth-headed households in South Africa using the 2018 General Household Survey data from Statistics South Africa. Using a binary logistic regression, the paper provides findings and makes recommendations and imperative insights to policy-makers in advancing the socio-economic status of young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the spatio-temporal patterns of household crimes in Durban, South Africa, using precinct-level population and decadal crime data for burglary and robbery at residential areas and Malicious Damage to Property (MDP) in the Municipality. Crime rates and Moran I statistic were computed for the precincts, while maps depicted spatio-temporal variations in the crimescape. While the rates of MDP (−7.5%) and robbery (−4.2%) reduced, burglary (5.0%) escalated across many neighbourhoods. Both robbery and MDP showed significant spatial dependence. The momentum for crime appears to have shifted to the sparsely populated suburbs, with implications for future policies and crime-fighting strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited scholarship on planning practice that foregrounds narratives of practitioners, especially those based in the post-colonial contexts. Juxtaposing biographical narratives of 12 practitioners from South Africa, this paper highlights the diversity and plurality that exist amongst planners and their practice in these contexts. Having trained in planning to enable socio-spatial change, these practitioners curate their practice within and beyond planning, following their passion, interests, personality, and personal circumstances. It is argued that central to this curation are the considerations of 'where' and 'with whom' to practice. The place of practice and the people they practice with become expressions of what practitioners value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Stuart Hall's concept of articulation and the concrete with Bridget O'Laughlin's reminder of a focus on the struggles of living labour, this paper theorizes racial capitalism in South Africa from the concrete relations of retail labour in Johannesburg. The paper examines ways in which white working class women constituted retailing, struggling for their own claims in relation to gendered family and workplace orders, which in turn conditioned how black women organized when they entered front-line service jobs in the late 1960s, which then disrupted this order to explain a very different class politics and to constitute anew these meaningful spaces. These processes happened through multiple mediations. Retail capital not only contributed to economic expansion; labour relations in shops constituted specific affective spaces as meaningful terrains of collective belonging, projecting ideologies and explaining differentiated "subjects in struggle". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the African communal ethic of Ubuntu as it is understood in the South African context. Its background and context and the various interpretations of this lived ethic in society and academia will be explored. According to Ubuntu, what is good is constituted by how one relates to others (affirming others, empathising, etc.). It is not an ethic that is purely governed by laws and the outcomes of actions. This paper considers the detrimental effect of gangsterism on prisoners' personal and social development in South African prisons and illustrates how the solidarity and identity of prisoners is merely an illusion that misguidedly resembles communal harmony or Ubuntu. Specifically, after pointing out how indigenous values in South Africa tend to prescribe honouring harmonious relationships, this paper will reveal how this approach to morality affects the way one understands prison conditions, prison relations and criminal justice. It advances that the values of Ubuntu have the potential to aid in prisoner rehabilitation and help prisoners stand against gang life in prison. This paper will suggest that the harmony found in Ubuntu has implications different from gang conformity. Lacking the space to systematically defend harmony as a fundamental value, it nonetheless urges theorists not to disregard it when considering prison transformation in South Africa. The intention of this study is not to demonstrate that Ubuntu is superior to the more popular Western moral theories in South Africa, but rather to tease out the implications of one plausible interpretation of Ubuntu and apply it to prison communities in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Path-breaking transformative change is needed in human-environment relations to move towards more sustainable development trajectories at local, national and global scales. Crises may trigger transformative change and learning in the short and in the long term. However, in particular, a short-term response to crises may also be reactive, strengthening established unsustainable practices and further perpetuating vulnerability and inequality rather than supporting transformative change towards a more sustainable path. To understand the nature and response to a crisis in the context of sustainability transformations, this paper elaborates on the following aspects of a crisis: What are the characteristics of a crisis? What and who shapes the narrative(s) of a crisis? What and who shapes the nature of the response to a crisis? Do responses to crises trigger higher levels of learning? Conceptual synthesis is complemented with an exploratory comparative analysis of the Cape Town water crisis and of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. To this end the paper analyzes the interplay between mobilizing individual, collective and relational agency and navigating and transforming power relations to challenge and profit from already weakened unsustainable structures. This approach proves to be promising to understand the role of crises in catalysing and supporting transformative learning to eventually replace unsustainable structures. ● During and immediately after crises, it is important to identify opportunities for policy change to address persistent governance failures. ● To support transformative change towards sustainability, governments typically should adopt a network governance style and act more as a convenor for deliberative processes in the later phase of the response to a crisis. ● Formation of innovation platforms bringing together actors from different levels and different roles (e.g. pioneering innovators, investors, scientists, policymakers, regulators) could support the scaling up of local initiatives and innovative approaches that have been developed during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of children in mainstream (no fee, poorly resourced, African language dominant) public schools in South Africa fall significantly behind curricular norms in mathematics by Grade 3; the early learning gap grows across time. The provision of quality instructional materials is a well-recognised component of effective strategies to improve early grade mathematics in low- and middle-income contexts. However, there has been little explication of what constitutes quality instructional materials, nor long-term design work to contribute theory to this instructional design challenge. Across 15 years, the author has been working in an education design hub with teacher educators and teachers in the rural Eastern Cape, with the goal of improving early grade mathematics. The gains in mathematics performance have been among the most significant reported in research literature. This paper presents the design principles emerging from the work. Engaging the theoretical layers discussed by diSessa and Cobb, the paper contributes to design theory by emphasising the relationship between explicit instructional assumptions and design principles, integrating four ontological categories (motive, pedagogy, language use and mathematical meaning-making). Since 2011, the Department of Basic Education has provided learner workbooks to support teaching and learning in foundation phase mathematics at system scale. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to the ongoing development of this vital national resource. The paper makes explicit instructional assumptions and design principles (available for critique, adaptation, and refinement), and provides a more nuanced framework through which to assess and improve materials across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two competitive approaches are dominant in the debate about the optimal strategy to cope with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Conflict-Management and Conflict-Resolution. This paper suggests looking at them as complementary. It presents four models of peacemaking. The first, the Strong Leader Model, involves drastic unilateral initiatives taken by one of the parties. The second, the Social Reformer Model, encourages domestic reforms within each of the parties. The third, the Political Elite Model, offers various forms of diplomatic interactions and is the dominant experience in Middle East peace processes. The fourth, the Public Assembly Model, proposes the creation of a major Israeli-Palestinian Public Negotiating Congress, based on the multiparty talks used in South Africa and Northern Ireland during the 1990s. This paper concludes that a multifaceted approach, which uses insights from all models in an integrated fashion, has the potential to create a momentum for a revolutionary peacemaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinary research has gained traction globally for mapping pathways for sustainable urbanisation. The involvement of local communities is believed to central to knowledge co-production needed to address sustainability challenges. But working with local communities can be challenging. This paper is structured around the authors' personal reflections on undertaking transdisciplinary household energy conservation projects in Ghana and South Africa. The paper reflects on the assumptions and challenges of doing transdisciplinary research in urban Africa and suggests some guidelines for consideration when doing transdisciplinary projects. An inductive analysis of our reflections showed five key challenges: lack of integration, divergent problem identification, tensions in knowledge co-production, asymmetrical power relations, and distrust and managing expectations. We draw on our collective experiences to develop guidelines for conducting transdisciplinary research in urban Africa. These guidelines are not prescriptive but can be useful for a growing and broader audience interested in undertaking transdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the embeddedness of xenophobia in institutions through a theoretical but empirically under-researched concept of structural violence. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interview data with refugee women in Gauteng, South Africa, we explore the empirical utility of the concept of structural violence in shaping refugee women's everyday experiences of xenophobia through three analytical themes: (a) unequal access to resources (b) constrained agency and (c) dehumanization. While keeping an empirical grip on experiential narratives on xenophobia, we draw attention to three public institutions that enhance the vulnerability of those already vulnerable: The Department of Home Affairs, The South African Police Service and Public Hospitals. Our paper elucidates how refugee women experience xenophobia and how they manage their "everyday" in these circumstances- an aspect that remains underdeveloped in existing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology-based interventions in healthcare are often anticipated to improve the quality of healthcare services. These expectations are based on a perceived belief in the ability of technology to alleviate some of the challenges associated with manual, paper-based healthcare service delivery. As a result, the drive to implement healthcare technology has gained significant traction in recent years. Unfortunately, the implementation efforts of most health-related technologies have been tainted with several challenges such as fragmentation, lack of interoperability, and co-ordination. As a result, data management and health-related information dissemination across various levels of healthcare systems have been jeopardized. The objective of this study is to identify context-based factors that influence healthcare information systems (IS) implementation in resource-constrained public hospitals. The emphasis is on the public healthcare landscape in South Africa. A qualitative methodological approach was employed. Semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled participants in a public healthcare hospital provided primary data. The findings indicate that factors such as implementation of policies, planning and support strategies, and analysis of healthcare IS's fitness for purpose in healthcare workflows processes influence successful healthcare IS implementation. Addressing these factors is critical if public healthcare hospitals are to realise fully the transformative potential of technology-based interventions. The contributions made in this paper may be useful to the relevant government bodies, policymakers and other stakeholders interested in advancing adequate healthcare service delivery using healthcare IS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spider species distribution in the Cape Floristic Kingdom (CFK) was compiled as part of the South African National Survey of Arachnida (SANSA), whose main aim was to create a relational database for the country's arachnid fauna. Data from the CFK was extracted from taxonomic and faunistic published papers, as well as unpublished faunistic survey data in national collections. A total of 11 500 records from 130 localities were recorded in the CFK until the end of 2023, representing 62 families, 334 genera and 960 species, with two further families (Synotaxidae and Theridiosomatidae) only known from undescribed species. This represents 42.4% of the total spider fauna of South Africa. For each species, the global and CFK distribution, as well as the level of endemicity and a conservation assessment using the IUCN Red List criteria, are provided. A total of 269 spp. (28.0%) are endemic to the CFK, 49 spp. (5.1%) are of special concern, and 229 spp. (23.9%) are Data Deficient. However, most of the species (682 spp., 71.0%) have a wide distribution with no known threats and are categorised as Least Concern. Salticidae is the most species-rich family (128 spp.), with 30 spp. endemic to the CFK, followed by the Gnaphosidae (107 spp.), Thomisidae (86 spp.) and Lycosidae (49 spp.), while six families are represented by a single species. The last decade has seen an exponential growth in the knowledge of spiders in South Africa, and there are certainly many more species that must still be discovered and described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural heritage practitioners and activists in South Africa engage in community autoethnography both in process and in the product. We spent over seven years collaborating with post-conflict museums that include community autoethnographic products in their tours and/or exhibits. This collaborative research focused on oral storytelling as adopted by the museum guides. This storytelling includes community visual autoethnographic products that engage the viewer in a performative manner. One example of such products is cairns. These sacred sites are similar in structure to those found in the landscapes across the world, including in South Africa, and are mostly linked to the indigenous hunter-gatherers or the early herders or farmers. However, the cairns focused upon in this paper memorialize three historical eras in the South African history of conflict and reconciliation: colonial conflict between the Voortrekkers and the British and the isiZulu-speaking people in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1800s; forced removals in Cape Town in the 1960s to 1980s; and the dawn of democracy in the 1990s after the release of President Nelson Mandela. The research identifies some of the elements of cairns that give them global relevance, and posits guidelines for post- and present-conflict communities on how cairns as community autoethnographic heritage sites can still evolve and stimulate sustainable community relevance and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion not only promotes tolerance among societies with different backgrounds, but also serves to enhance human society. In contrast, however, religion is seen to be the cause of conflict and division around the world. Hence, it is crucial that schools handle the teaching of religion with greater care. This paper aims to share schools' experiences of religion-in-education policy change in South Africa – whether it unifies or divides them. It concludes that religion in education is neither a divider nor a unifier. Nonetheless, the approach that schools adopt toward the teaching of religion to learners remains a concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of learning losses and altered schooling patterns in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). Five major trends emerge from a review of the evidence. These include significant learning losses (38–118% of a year of learning), widened learning inequality, lowered grade repetition rates, increased secondary school enrolments and an unprecedented rise in candidates writing and passing the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination. School completion significantly increased in 2021 and 2022, spurred by COVID-19 adjusted assessment and promotion practices in Grades 10 and 11. Larger numbers of youth also achieved a NSC pass or Bachelor's pass enabling access to university. With twin pandemic shocks of learning losses and secondary school enrolment increases, remediating losses and realigning progression rules to effective assessment practices should be prioritised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite high rates of education expenditure, South Africa's education system remains sharply unequal and underperforms overall compared to other countries. One approach to addressing education inequality and underperformance is community-based peer mentorship. This paper presents evidence from the Nine Tenths mentorship programme in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) as a way to improve academic performance among matric students in under-resourced secondary schools. Using school matric pass rates from 2012 to 2021 and student admission metrics for participants in 2020–2022, a strong association is found between the activities of Nine Tenths and improved academic performance. No-fee schools where Nine Tenths is active record pass rates that are 28 percentage points higher on average than schools without Nine Tenths. Matric students who participate in Nine Tenths increase their Admissions Points Score (APS) by 4.23 points on average, and every student between 2020 and 2022 earned a bachelor pass. While the evidence suggests that Nine Tenths is effective, the programme operates on a relatively small scale and is not broad-based in its implementation. The programme shows is a promising example of community-based interventions to address schooling inequality independently and more efficiently than the current education policy in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on an evaluative study of an agroecology movement that has been running in South Africa for over 20 years. The study applied a Value Creation Framework to gather value creation stories from key movement members, farmers, trainers, and the involved organizations. Data was generated through storytelling interviews, document analysis and participant observations. The findings show that the functions of the movement are enabled by support from tertiary institutions, government departments, NGOs, international networks and the private sector. In the initial stages, the movement's growth as measured by the uptake of agroecology faced resistance because the associated labor intensity, especially in the early stages and farmers considered it to be very slow compared to conventional methods. However, the movement's mobilization through open dialogs, co-creation and farmer-centered learning approaches has seen a gradual and wide adoption of agroecology practices by over 2700 new and existing farmers in the Eastern Cape alone, thereby widening the learning and seed-sharing network. In the communities it has reached, the movement has registered transformational gains in biodiversity preservation, social cohesion, market power, gender equality and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) are integral to and manifest in LGBTIQ rights including homosexuality and same-sex marriage. International law promotes these rights and prohibits discrimination on these grounds. Many western countries endorse these rights and prohibitions in parliamentary legislation or judicial fiat. In comparison with all other jurisdictions worldwide, and within the African sub-region, only South Africa specifically prohibits unfair direct or indirect discrimination based on "sexual orientation" in its national constitution. This paper explores African approach to SOGI and LGBTIQ rights including homosexuality and same-sex marriage. It argues that despite the threat of homocapitalism, prevalent Afrocentrism and religions reject these form of "new rights" for being immoral, ungodly, unnatural and un-African, thereby underlining the limits of human rights in the sub-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African bioeconomy strategy did not clearly articulate the measurement framework to monitor the implementation of the strategy. This paper provides an analysis of bioeconomy patents, the most prolific organizations and citations at the EPO and USPTO for South Africa, BRICS, Egypt and Nigeria during the Ten-Year Innovation Plan 2008–2018. The terms 'biotechnology', 'medical technology', 'pharmaceuticals' and 'selected environment-related technologies' were used to search for patents. The OECD patents by technology, the EPO PATSTAT and the USPTO PatFT databases were used to map patents and citations. The results show that South Africa ranked last in the BRICS group but produced a higher number of patents than Egypt and Nigeria. The number of patents generally decreased for the selected countries except for China. The total citations for the selected countries was generally inconsistent. The important innovators for South Africa in the bioeconomy are mainly universities and public research institutions. A new fiscal approach to encourage knowledge application in bioeconomy in South Africa is required. Incentives from government that encourage collaboration between research institutions and industry to direct research with industry application are required. The study contributes to the development of metrics to monitor the bioeconomy in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this paper adopted a transformative framework in this article to examine how the legacy of apartheid continues to manifest within higher education in South Africa. In particular, the authors analyzed (a) how mainstream mentoring knowledge of 'black' and 'marginalized' people have influenced mentoring in post-apartheid South Africa; (b) varied ways in which mentoring initiatives and programs have been silenced and ignored previously marginalized voices through the application of apartheid mentoring knowledge, and (c) shared how the mentors/lecturers and students show and tell their stories about the demands of mentoring and the emphasis of contextual and responsive mentoring for the previously marginalized people in higher education in South Africa. The shortage of mentoring has been cited as a crucial reason for women's lack of advancement in leadership. Implications for advancing transformation through mentoring in higher education in South Africa are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International comparative measures show that South Africa has extremely low standards in reading. A variety of programmes aimed at boosting reading have been developed, however, the effectiveness of these programmes is unclear. Prior reviews of effective reading instruction practices have focused almost exclusively on learners whose first language and language of instruction is English. This paper reviews evidence from 17 intervention studies which focused on the teaching of reading comprehension in the distinctive multilingual context of South Africa. Although in line with prior reviews, we found some evidence that reading strategy instruction including vocabulary development are features of successful interventions alongside effective teacher education and resourcing of reading. These findings remained inconclusive due to variability in the quality of research, considerable methodological variations of the studies and the limited number of studies. Research in this field requires a more rigorous scientific approach to improve the evidence base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of fiscal redistribution on regional income inequality in South Africa using the spatial models. Yearly provincial-level data on different spending categories are considered for the period from 2014 to 2018. The study uses various spatial panel specifications to control for both spatial dependence and heterogeneity among provinces. When factor incomes and market prices are controlled for, empirical results indicate that local inequality spills over to neighbouring provinces. Particularly, a basic point increase in local income inequality contributes about 0.14 to 0.158-point increase in income inequality of neighbouring provinces. Furthermore, provincial spending allocation to social development grant and education spurs regional income inequality while expenses receipt on health, infrastructure, and conditional grants exhibit mitigating effects on provincial income inequality. These findings suggest that health, infrastructure, and conditional grants are key sectors to prioritize in the government's efforts to reduce income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous philosophical work on distrust in science has argued that understanding public distrust in science and scientific interventions requires that we pay careful attention not only to epistemic considerations (that is, beliefs about science), but also to values, and the emotional contexts in which assessments of scientific credibility are made. This is likely to be a truncated list of relevant factors for understanding trust/distrust, but these are certainly key areas of concern. The aim of this paper is not to further innumerate the list of relevant factors. Rather, it is to map the ways that these key areas (beliefs, values, and emotions) are related to each other. These are not distinct categories, but rather they interact, making our picture of distrust more complicated than we might otherwise imagine. This discussion will take place in the context of resistance to medical interventions. Notably, Ebola interventions in West Africa, HIV/AIDS testing in South Africa, and vaccines across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With mega state housing projects needing large land parcels and that are often located in the periphery, this paper investigates what impact relocating residents to Golden Gardens housing development has had on the quality of life and their financial wellbeing. Using primary data obtained from residents living in the Golden Gardens housing development, the findings show that respondents' access to and quality of physical and social facilities, such as refuse services, water, and electricity, has improved. Respondents were also unanimous that staying in their Golden Gardens homes has significantly improved their security. However, many residents currently living in Golden Gardens used to live closer to work and social activities than they do now, which means that they used to spend less each month on transport than they do now. The high-commuting cost has increased household expenses, meaning that the respondents' financial wellbeing has been negatively impacted. These results imply yet unmet long-term objectives of human settlements as envisaged in various government policies and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Karen Barad's agential realism and Donna Haraway's use of the Chthulucene, our paper profoundly troubles and unsettles the humanist subject that has been the cause of so much trouble. Re-turning to a government primary school in Cape Town as the "research site," we adopt temporal and spatial diffraction as a postqualitative research methodology. The colonial practices related to land ownership, are not in the past, but remain in its be(com)ing. Land "use" in South Africa during Apartheid, was, and still is, a form of violence. Thinking-with Neimanis and McLauchlan, we understand a school as not separate from the phenomenon of climate change, but as one of its sites and as a feminist project. A diffractive image articulates aesthetically and politically how the land as the more-than-human is a significant part of the phenomenon and queers school as a concept and "research site." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the current debates, anxieties, and perceptions around the idea of scholarly artistic research within doctoral studies, internationally and in South Africa. A common point of contention, both in South Africa and in the international arena, is the reluctance within institutional structures and external bodies to accept artmaking as research and the creative production or artifact as a legitimate component of the research output. Creative practice is permissible at the doctoral level of study but usually research or new knowledge that emerges from such practice is evaluated and analyzed through the lens of textual research. The unwillingness to qualify practice as autonomous research is coupled with its awkward positioning in the humanities as a kind of study secondary to and distinct from that associated with scientific research methodology. This discussion engages with policies, developments, debates, and discourse around practice-based doctoral study in South African and globally, with the hope of presenting a comprehensive overview of the current state of doctoral level artistic research. Moreover, in drawing on international discourse and precedents the study proposes some guidelines, parameters and methodological approaches that can contribute to the understanding and development of doctoral artistic research in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the influence of the 'new' ontologies of animisms and performative materialisms, research has shown that people, animals and things are relational and have agency. In southern San ethnography, behaving with understanding was essential for maintaining reciprocal, beneficial relationships between human and animal persons for the good of these communities. People identified with certain animals to facilitate these negotiations. This paper also considers how certain people may have identified through specific animals. San rock paintings of lion and other felines and their painted contexts provide an opportunity to investigate these multiplex relationships and identities. Felines are relatively commonly depicted in sites from the southern Maloti-Drakensberg and adjacent northeastern Stormberg Mountains. Predominantly, lions and felines are depicted walking or standing and are painted with male and female eland, female rhebok and hartebeest. Felines are also depicted with men and women in clothing, postures and equipment that have been associated with ritual specialists and their use of potency. These painted contexts of felines bring focus to their roles as efficient hunters and protectors and the establishment of reciprocal relations with antelope. The similar roles and skillsets of ritual specialists and their leonine transformations are highlighted with both their dividual and individual selves. In addition, the paper considers the affective range of wild and tame behaviours and notions of !ko-se and related !nnn sse practices. Depictions of felines may be exemplars of powerful ritual specialists accentuating their skill and status, an interpretation that has important implications for realising a multiplex understanding of San personhood and identity marking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages issues of complicated femininity and the representation of such in South African telenovela Gomora. Set in South African township Alexandra, Gomora tells the story of contemporary life in post-apartheid South Africa, where people are forced to engage issues of poverty, inequality, racism, and more. In particular, the paper engages one of the main characters in the program, Nomasonto Mildred Molefe. Mam' Sonto is the matriarch of her family who is also the head of an established hijacking syndicate. Throughout the first season of this show, audiences are able to engage with a complicated woman who is good and bad, kind and cruel. Moving away from a moral reading of the character, this paper unpacks how the character comes to be and how she asserts her own power and agency in engaging a deeply racist and sexist society in order to survive and provide for her family. Engaging works of Pumla Gqola, Sisonke Msimang, Roxanne Gay, and more, the paper presents a reading of this character that enables a clear argument for the need for such depictions of complicated womanhood as part of pushing the reified boundaries of patriarchy that women are forced to exist within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the South African findings from an international mixed methods study between the LEGO Foundation, Dubit and the Universities of Sheffield (England) and Cape Town (South Africa) on young children's learning with digital technology. The findings of the study, the first of its kind in South Africa, show the consistency of qualities and experience of play, but also reveal socio-economic, linguistic, ethnic, gender and racial inequalities in the play environments of both groups of 3–11-year-olds. Yet, despite these structural inequalities, the play ecologies of children in resource-constrained environments show their creativity within the digital/non-digital environment. The paper discusses some of the analytical tools used and the geo-political issues raised, and considers these in conjunction with selected data. We conclude that the different socio-cultural conditions and geo-political realities offer new insights about the role global education research can play in helping combat structural inequalities in resource-constrained environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the resurgence internationally of strikes in recent years, studies on the temporality of strike waves within a long-wave perspective has been marked by silence in the literature. This paper revisits the debate on the veracity of long-wave theory to explain the temporality of upsurges in strike activity and the disputes on the measurement of strike waves from an international perspective. The paper applies long-wave theory to South Africa, which is a new contribution and proposes a new quantitative approach to examine the long-term patterning of strikes. This study finds that the predictive power of long-wave theory—that an escalation of the class struggle unfolds around the peaks and troughs of economic long waves—holds throughout the period 1886–2022. This paper makes a new finding that long waves of strikes display a countercyclical patterning to long waves of capitalist development, providing proof of the relative autonomy of the class struggle from long waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education institutions globally, are increasingly driven to integrate innovative technologies in teaching spaces. While many studies have been conducted on e-learning, blended learning and m-learning, only a few studies have concentrated on the STEM preservice teachers' e-readiness for using online multimodal teaching methods in developing economic contexts. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay of experiences, attitudes and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) self-efficacy as they influence STEM preservice teachers' e-readiness for implementing online multimodal teaching. This paper employed a descriptive online survey method and a stratified random sampling technique to collect data from 204 final-year STEM preservice teachers on a teacher training programme in South Africa. Statistical tools of confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, bivariate and correlation analysis were employed on the collected data. The results revealed that STEM preservice teachers have positive attitudes towards multimodal online learning. However, STEM preservice teachers do not feel confident in using multimodal online resources in their teaching. In addition, this paper found that experiences of online multimodal teaching impacted on preservice teachers' attitudes and resultantly, STEM preservice teachers' TPACK self-efficacy. The results and discussions inform the design for improvement in online multimodal teaching methods e-readiness and usage by preservice teachers. Recommendations include resource support, alignment of teacher training curricula and development of practicum practices for overall improvement of preservice teachers' experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning outcomes are predominantly framed in narrow and measurable terms, with students as decontextualised learners. As an alternative, the paper outlines a capabilitarian approach, building a four-dimensional matrix for reconceptualising learning outcomes. It is made up of a varied, multi-dimensional set of opportunities, processes and outcomes to enable students to flourish and become people who can live fulfilling and connected lives in and beyond higher education. The matrix dimensions are made up of a capability set, corresponding functionings, material resources and conversion processes, underpinned by Constitutional and human development values. The paper draws on a project on higher education outcomes in South Africa, especially the longitudinal life history data. It makes the case for a reparative futures orientation which might dismantle the colonial-apartheid past and present, and outlines key capabilitarian concepts. The social and higher education context is sketched, followed by a focus on the capability set and what data supports its value to students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]