Black Twitter and Digital Counterpublics in South Africa
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2024
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455188 , vital:75411 , https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v12i2.6540
- Description: The growth of technology has made the Internet an essential tool in so-ciety. Scholars have argued that the Internet supports a more delibera-tive democracy. However, scholars have also raised concerns about the role of the Internet in political matters. While scholars agree that the Internet has facilitated broader public discussion, in many regards, its ‘virtual public sphere’still mirrors existing social structures. Twitter has become a common social media platform for many South Africans. This has led to a virtual community of Twitter users engaged in real-time dis-courses primarily related to Black South Africans. Black Twitter in South Africa is used for social, political, and economic motivations. This study argues for the practice of Black Twitter as a digital counterpublic in South Africa. The aim is to spotlight how black people in South Africa have used Black Twitter as a digital counterpublic for the marginalized groups within South Africa. The research will investigate the potential challenges and opportunities associated with Black Twitter functioning as a digital counterpublic. Utilizing digital ethnography, the study gath-ered a dataset of tweets from Black Twitter in 2022, focusing on those addressing social, political, and economic issues. More than 700,000 tweets were identified under these specific thematic hashtags.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2024
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455188 , vital:75411 , https://doi.org/10.11114/smc.v12i2.6540
- Description: The growth of technology has made the Internet an essential tool in so-ciety. Scholars have argued that the Internet supports a more delibera-tive democracy. However, scholars have also raised concerns about the role of the Internet in political matters. While scholars agree that the Internet has facilitated broader public discussion, in many regards, its ‘virtual public sphere’still mirrors existing social structures. Twitter has become a common social media platform for many South Africans. This has led to a virtual community of Twitter users engaged in real-time dis-courses primarily related to Black South Africans. Black Twitter in South Africa is used for social, political, and economic motivations. This study argues for the practice of Black Twitter as a digital counterpublic in South Africa. The aim is to spotlight how black people in South Africa have used Black Twitter as a digital counterpublic for the marginalized groups within South Africa. The research will investigate the potential challenges and opportunities associated with Black Twitter functioning as a digital counterpublic. Utilizing digital ethnography, the study gath-ered a dataset of tweets from Black Twitter in 2022, focusing on those addressing social, political, and economic issues. More than 700,000 tweets were identified under these specific thematic hashtags.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024
Challenges and Opportunities of Preserving African Indigenous Knowledge Using Digital Technologies: The Case of Bogwera
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455424 , vital:75429 , ISBN 9781668470244 , DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-7024-4.ch007
- Description: Most indigenous knowledge systems, practices, and values disappear due to the influence of technology, human migrations, climate change, globalization, death, memory loss, and civilization. Therefore, indigenous knowledge systems will disappear if they are no longer used. This is because many traditional practices and activities within indigenous knowledge systems that have been used are essential coping and living strategies and are now in danger of disappearing. The chapter investigates how social web technologies, social media platforms, and online video tools can digitize, share, and preserve indigenous knowledge for the current generations that need to be more knowledgeable about these systems and future generations. With the example of bogwera, the chapter studies the role that digital technologies can play in protecting and preserving indigenous knowledge systems in the Taung community in North West, South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455424 , vital:75429 , ISBN 9781668470244 , DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-7024-4.ch007
- Description: Most indigenous knowledge systems, practices, and values disappear due to the influence of technology, human migrations, climate change, globalization, death, memory loss, and civilization. Therefore, indigenous knowledge systems will disappear if they are no longer used. This is because many traditional practices and activities within indigenous knowledge systems that have been used are essential coping and living strategies and are now in danger of disappearing. The chapter investigates how social web technologies, social media platforms, and online video tools can digitize, share, and preserve indigenous knowledge for the current generations that need to be more knowledgeable about these systems and future generations. With the example of bogwera, the chapter studies the role that digital technologies can play in protecting and preserving indigenous knowledge systems in the Taung community in North West, South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
Literary Byways in Duncan Brown’s Finding My Way: A Review Essay
- Authors: Klopper, Dirk
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/458573 , vital:75753 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-iseaeng_v50_n2_a5
- Description: The poetics of Duncan Brown’s Finding My Way: Reflections on South African Literature (2020) is intimated in the title of the book, where the infinitude of ‘finding’ and the provisionality of ‘reflections’ anticipate what, in the introductory chapter “Finding My Way”, is described as an avoidance of the “monumentalising study” in favour of a more “mobile, tentative, suggestive scholarship” that is comfortable with “paradox and open-endedness” (12). The chapters that follow explore ways in which the notion of South African literature and the notion of the literary may be reimagined, and explicate a mode of reading ‘with’ the text, showing how this may be applied to ways of reading belief. They also examine the notion of creative non-fiction, revisit orality in South African literature, describe an autobiographical history with a book, and end with a reflection on postapartheid South African literature as “a place of radical newness and obsessive return” (175). What the book omits in its coverage, but which is nevertheless present in its ways of thinking, is Brown’s environmental concern with ‘wildness’ and ‘rewilding’, described in his book Wilder Lives: Humans and Our Environments (2019), published a year earlier. As is the case with the essays in the earlier book, the essays in Finding My Way speak to one another, disclosing of a way of thinking, of finding one’s way, that is recursive in style and attentive to the thing under scrutiny.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
- Authors: Klopper, Dirk
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/458573 , vital:75753 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-iseaeng_v50_n2_a5
- Description: The poetics of Duncan Brown’s Finding My Way: Reflections on South African Literature (2020) is intimated in the title of the book, where the infinitude of ‘finding’ and the provisionality of ‘reflections’ anticipate what, in the introductory chapter “Finding My Way”, is described as an avoidance of the “monumentalising study” in favour of a more “mobile, tentative, suggestive scholarship” that is comfortable with “paradox and open-endedness” (12). The chapters that follow explore ways in which the notion of South African literature and the notion of the literary may be reimagined, and explicate a mode of reading ‘with’ the text, showing how this may be applied to ways of reading belief. They also examine the notion of creative non-fiction, revisit orality in South African literature, describe an autobiographical history with a book, and end with a reflection on postapartheid South African literature as “a place of radical newness and obsessive return” (175). What the book omits in its coverage, but which is nevertheless present in its ways of thinking, is Brown’s environmental concern with ‘wildness’ and ‘rewilding’, described in his book Wilder Lives: Humans and Our Environments (2019), published a year earlier. As is the case with the essays in the earlier book, the essays in Finding My Way speak to one another, disclosing of a way of thinking, of finding one’s way, that is recursive in style and attentive to the thing under scrutiny.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
Water, Transport, Oil and Food: A Political–Economy–Ecology Lens on Changing Conceptions of Work, Learning and Skills Development in Africa
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434894 , vital:73114 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: Not enough has been said about the kinds of skills develop-ment that are needed if we are to stem the rising tides and impacts of political economies that have been driving what some call ‘fossil capital’(Malm, 2016). In this book, we are producing an emerging argument that it is necessary to also rethink and reframe vocational education and training (VET) logics and approaches if we are to fully consider the implica-tions of a warming future. This chapter provides the context of why this is such an urgent challenge and some thinking tools for understanding where we have come from and where we need to go. The prognosis is that it is now almost impossible to stop global warming below 2oC. The 2021 In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is-sued a ‘red alert’for humanity, noting climate change to be one of the most severe challenges facing human societies for decades and potentially centuries to come. Scientists are warning that we have entered a new ‘geological epoch’, named the ‘Anthropocene’, in which human activity, especial-ly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through fossil-based pollution, is transforming the stability of the earth system and creating knock on effects such as ice melt and methane release, which exacerbate the impacts of pollutants on the stability of the earth system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434894 , vital:73114 , ISBN 978-1529224634 , https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/transitioning-vocational-education-and-training-in-africa
- Description: Not enough has been said about the kinds of skills develop-ment that are needed if we are to stem the rising tides and impacts of political economies that have been driving what some call ‘fossil capital’(Malm, 2016). In this book, we are producing an emerging argument that it is necessary to also rethink and reframe vocational education and training (VET) logics and approaches if we are to fully consider the implica-tions of a warming future. This chapter provides the context of why this is such an urgent challenge and some thinking tools for understanding where we have come from and where we need to go. The prognosis is that it is now almost impossible to stop global warming below 2oC. The 2021 In-tergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is-sued a ‘red alert’for humanity, noting climate change to be one of the most severe challenges facing human societies for decades and potentially centuries to come. Scientists are warning that we have entered a new ‘geological epoch’, named the ‘Anthropocene’, in which human activity, especial-ly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through fossil-based pollution, is transforming the stability of the earth system and creating knock on effects such as ice melt and methane release, which exacerbate the impacts of pollutants on the stability of the earth system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023
The emergence of isiZulu in Skeem Saam (2011) sociolinguistics: factors and the politics of the ‘loss of ethnolinguistic pluralism’at the SABC 1
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455285 , vital:75418 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2022.2063115
- Description: This study aims to investigate how an ecological understanding of pol-yglossia is used in the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) television channel, SABC 1 to maintain and create ethnolinguis-tic dominance. Key arguments this study will make are: (1) polyglossia is a language ideology masquerading as ethnolinguistic pluralism, (2) there is a loss of ethnolinguistic pluralism in SABC 1 because of the polyglot culture and its transmissions, (3) isiZulu is emerging as a lan-guage and cultural flare of the channel. This paper concluded that isi-Zulu’s presence is rising in a soap initially meant to be a Sepedi show. And this has negative consequences for language equality in the SABC.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Aiseng, Kealeboga
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455285 , vital:75418 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2022.2063115
- Description: This study aims to investigate how an ecological understanding of pol-yglossia is used in the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) television channel, SABC 1 to maintain and create ethnolinguis-tic dominance. Key arguments this study will make are: (1) polyglossia is a language ideology masquerading as ethnolinguistic pluralism, (2) there is a loss of ethnolinguistic pluralism in SABC 1 because of the polyglot culture and its transmissions, (3) isiZulu is emerging as a lan-guage and cultural flare of the channel. This paper concluded that isi-Zulu’s presence is rising in a soap initially meant to be a Sepedi show. And this has negative consequences for language equality in the SABC.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Determinants of Job Satisfaction Among Academics at A Selected Institution of Higher Learning in The Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
- Mefi, Nteboheng Patricia, Asoba, Samson Nambei
- Authors: Mefi, Nteboheng Patricia , Asoba, Samson Nambei
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Education (Higher) Education (Higher) Computer File , Job Satisfaction Job Satisfaction Computer File
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/11260/7443 , vital:53976 , https://www.abacademies.org/articles/determinants-of-job-satisfaction-among-academics-at-a-selected-institution-of-higher-learning-in-the-eastern-cape-province-of-sout-13195.html
- Description: Many studies have considered job satisfaction and its antecedents in the profit making sector. These studies have provided a number of factors that influence job satisfaction including autonomy, compensation, growth opportunities, leadership styles, task variety and so on. There are numerous factors that have been discovered to positively influence job satisfaction. Interest in job satisfaction arises from the fact that productivity and other favourable organisational outcomes such as service delivery and quality of outputs have been found to associate with job satisfaction. This study followed a quantitative approach based on a Likert questionnaire to collect data on the antecedents of employee job satisfaction within a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in South Africa. It was established that antecedents of job satisfaction in the HEI resembled closely those established in the literature. It is recommended that HEI should consider factors such as remuneration, task variety, work autonomy, good workplace relations and leadership styles to foster employee motivation. Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Higher Education Institutions, Human Capital, Productivity
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Mefi, Nteboheng Patricia , Asoba, Samson Nambei
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Education (Higher) Education (Higher) Computer File , Job Satisfaction Job Satisfaction Computer File
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/11260/7443 , vital:53976 , https://www.abacademies.org/articles/determinants-of-job-satisfaction-among-academics-at-a-selected-institution-of-higher-learning-in-the-eastern-cape-province-of-sout-13195.html
- Description: Many studies have considered job satisfaction and its antecedents in the profit making sector. These studies have provided a number of factors that influence job satisfaction including autonomy, compensation, growth opportunities, leadership styles, task variety and so on. There are numerous factors that have been discovered to positively influence job satisfaction. Interest in job satisfaction arises from the fact that productivity and other favourable organisational outcomes such as service delivery and quality of outputs have been found to associate with job satisfaction. This study followed a quantitative approach based on a Likert questionnaire to collect data on the antecedents of employee job satisfaction within a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in South Africa. It was established that antecedents of job satisfaction in the HEI resembled closely those established in the literature. It is recommended that HEI should consider factors such as remuneration, task variety, work autonomy, good workplace relations and leadership styles to foster employee motivation. Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Higher Education Institutions, Human Capital, Productivity
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
No size fits all: Design considerations for networked professional development in higher education
- Pallitt, Nicola, Gachago, Daniela, Bali, Maha
- Authors: Pallitt, Nicola , Gachago, Daniela , Bali, Maha
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453520 , vital:75260 , ISBN 978-3-030-85241-2 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85241-2_4
- Description: This chapter develops a framework for design considerations that can be used to analyze, contrast, and design networked professional development (NPD) in higher education (HE) contexts. The framework was developed after reflecting on three professional development (PD) courses, each with facilitators who are academic developers across the African continent. Using a Collaborative Autoethnographic methodology, the three authors reflect on design considerations for different forms of blended and online PD courses, based on their experiences of designing and/or facilitating these interventions and with PD more broadly. We argue that course designs can be positioned along a range of dimensions, namely open/closed, structured/unstructured, facilitated/unfacilitated, certified/uncertified, with/without date commitments, homogenous versus autonomous learning path, content vs. process centric, serious vs. playful, and individual vs. collaborative. We discuss relationships between dimensions and learning theories (the more open dimensions speak to connectivist, while more structured courses follow social constructivist approaches). We also identify various tensions that arise in the design of NPD, such as between academic developers’ pedagogical advocacy vs. usefulness, need to maintain volunteerism without exploitation of affective labour, and struggle to create spaces for agency within institutional constraints.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Pallitt, Nicola , Gachago, Daniela , Bali, Maha
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453520 , vital:75260 , ISBN 978-3-030-85241-2 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85241-2_4
- Description: This chapter develops a framework for design considerations that can be used to analyze, contrast, and design networked professional development (NPD) in higher education (HE) contexts. The framework was developed after reflecting on three professional development (PD) courses, each with facilitators who are academic developers across the African continent. Using a Collaborative Autoethnographic methodology, the three authors reflect on design considerations for different forms of blended and online PD courses, based on their experiences of designing and/or facilitating these interventions and with PD more broadly. We argue that course designs can be positioned along a range of dimensions, namely open/closed, structured/unstructured, facilitated/unfacilitated, certified/uncertified, with/without date commitments, homogenous versus autonomous learning path, content vs. process centric, serious vs. playful, and individual vs. collaborative. We discuss relationships between dimensions and learning theories (the more open dimensions speak to connectivist, while more structured courses follow social constructivist approaches). We also identify various tensions that arise in the design of NPD, such as between academic developers’ pedagogical advocacy vs. usefulness, need to maintain volunteerism without exploitation of affective labour, and struggle to create spaces for agency within institutional constraints.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
"When in Doubt, Leave Out”: The Country Editor Who Declined to Publish a Long Letter from Olive Schreiner
- Walters, Paul S, Fogg, Jeremy
- Authors: Walters, Paul S , Fogg, Jeremy
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/458322 , vital:75732 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-iseaeng-v47-n2-a3
- Description: The authors deal with six unpublished communications from Olive Schreiner to James Butler, Editor of the Cradock newspaper The Midland News and Karroo farmer between March 1893 and October 1905, as well as a reply from Butler to Schreiner. These documents are housed in the Cory Library for Historical Research at Rhodes University. Transcriptions by J. Fogg are appended. The heart of the article deals with Butler’s refusal to publish Schreiner’s “letter to the Women of Somerset East” which she had sent as a contribution to the protest meeting held in Somerset East on 12 October 1900 to mark the first anniversary of the declaration of the South African War.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Walters, Paul S , Fogg, Jeremy
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/458322 , vital:75732 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-iseaeng-v47-n2-a3
- Description: The authors deal with six unpublished communications from Olive Schreiner to James Butler, Editor of the Cradock newspaper The Midland News and Karroo farmer between March 1893 and October 1905, as well as a reply from Butler to Schreiner. These documents are housed in the Cory Library for Historical Research at Rhodes University. Transcriptions by J. Fogg are appended. The heart of the article deals with Butler’s refusal to publish Schreiner’s “letter to the Women of Somerset East” which she had sent as a contribution to the protest meeting held in Somerset East on 12 October 1900 to mark the first anniversary of the declaration of the South African War.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Academic development: Autonomy pathways towards gaining legitimacy
- Authors: Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/445759 , vital:74427 , ISBN 9781003028215 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003028215-16/academic-development-jo-anne-vorster
- Description: Despite playing a critical role in universities grappling with change, practitioners working in the field of academic staff development often struggle with legitimacy. Being a relatively young field in higher education, the challenges faced by these actors are largely un-theorized and under-researched. This chapter explores how academic staff development practitioners at eight universities seek (and gain) legitimacy amongst disciplinary academic peers. Drawing on LCT concepts of ‘autonomy codes’, it analyses practices in terms of the fields from which they come and the purpose to which they are directed. Data include publications by academic developers and interviews with academic developers, academics and senior managers of the eight institutions. The chapter demonstrates how academic developers often struggle to gain legitimacy as they occupy a liminal position between academic or administrative positions in relation to the disciplinary experts they work with. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the most successful academic development work occurs when disciplinary staff view academic development as enabling them to become better teachers. The chapter reveals how legitimacy may be more successfully enabled in the field of academic staff development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/445759 , vital:74427 , ISBN 9781003028215 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003028215-16/academic-development-jo-anne-vorster
- Description: Despite playing a critical role in universities grappling with change, practitioners working in the field of academic staff development often struggle with legitimacy. Being a relatively young field in higher education, the challenges faced by these actors are largely un-theorized and under-researched. This chapter explores how academic staff development practitioners at eight universities seek (and gain) legitimacy amongst disciplinary academic peers. Drawing on LCT concepts of ‘autonomy codes’, it analyses practices in terms of the fields from which they come and the purpose to which they are directed. Data include publications by academic developers and interviews with academic developers, academics and senior managers of the eight institutions. The chapter demonstrates how academic developers often struggle to gain legitimacy as they occupy a liminal position between academic or administrative positions in relation to the disciplinary experts they work with. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the most successful academic development work occurs when disciplinary staff view academic development as enabling them to become better teachers. The chapter reveals how legitimacy may be more successfully enabled in the field of academic staff development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Decolonizing the science curriculum: When good intentions are not enough
- Adendorff, Hanelie, Blackie, Margaret A L
- Authors: Adendorff, Hanelie , Blackie, Margaret A L
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/445796 , vital:74433 , ISBN 9781003028215 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003028215-14/decolonizing-science-curriculum-hanelie-adendorff-margaret-blackie
- Description: Universities across the world are facing the need to transform as access is opened up and student cohorts diversify. In the case of South Africa, these calls for transformation are specifically related to ‘decolonization’. Since 2015, South African universities have experienced growing student protests as students mobilize against institutional racism and demand that higher education curricula are decolonized. This chapter uses the LCT specialization plane, which explores the basis of legitimacy in relation to knowledge and knowers, to analyse the content of these calls for decolonization, particularly with respect to science education. The analysis provides a way into real dialogue. Having established what is at stake in the conversation we turn to the ‘autonomy code’ to explore what decolonization might look like in practice and shows why current decolonization attempts might be perceived as perpetuating past injustices. Although focused on the South African context, this chapter offers generalizable principles applicable to any educational institutions undergoing transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Adendorff, Hanelie , Blackie, Margaret A L
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/445796 , vital:74433 , ISBN 9781003028215 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003028215-14/decolonizing-science-curriculum-hanelie-adendorff-margaret-blackie
- Description: Universities across the world are facing the need to transform as access is opened up and student cohorts diversify. In the case of South Africa, these calls for transformation are specifically related to ‘decolonization’. Since 2015, South African universities have experienced growing student protests as students mobilize against institutional racism and demand that higher education curricula are decolonized. This chapter uses the LCT specialization plane, which explores the basis of legitimacy in relation to knowledge and knowers, to analyse the content of these calls for decolonization, particularly with respect to science education. The analysis provides a way into real dialogue. Having established what is at stake in the conversation we turn to the ‘autonomy code’ to explore what decolonization might look like in practice and shows why current decolonization attempts might be perceived as perpetuating past injustices. Although focused on the South African context, this chapter offers generalizable principles applicable to any educational institutions undergoing transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Eco-schools as education for sustainable development in rural South Africa
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436854 , vital:73310 , ISBN 978-3-030-46820-0 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46820-0_16
- Description: This chapter takes the reader into the context of rural South Africa with a sketch of developmental and educational chal-lenges from the point of view of a young person born here. It goes on to ask whether Eco-Schools has a role in this chal-lenging context, as a vehicle for or form of Education for Sus-tainable Development (ESD). Past Eco-Schools evaluations are reviewed against current educational needs and livelihood opportunities. The findings suggest that Eco-Schools gives teachers greater environmental awareness and motivates pedagogical practices such as active learning in relation to lo-cally relevant issues. Learners develop environmental com-mitment and a sense of agency, and may become more com-mitted to academic learning – all of which is necessary to pre-pare them for thriving in and also improving their socio-ecological contexts. Eco-Schools further supports schools sys-temically through meaningful partnerships with external agen-cies. The conclusion is that attempts should be made to scale up and scale out this impact. In the process, key features of the programme should be preserved. These include a focus on sustainable solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436854 , vital:73310 , ISBN 978-3-030-46820-0 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46820-0_16
- Description: This chapter takes the reader into the context of rural South Africa with a sketch of developmental and educational chal-lenges from the point of view of a young person born here. It goes on to ask whether Eco-Schools has a role in this chal-lenging context, as a vehicle for or form of Education for Sus-tainable Development (ESD). Past Eco-Schools evaluations are reviewed against current educational needs and livelihood opportunities. The findings suggest that Eco-Schools gives teachers greater environmental awareness and motivates pedagogical practices such as active learning in relation to lo-cally relevant issues. Learners develop environmental com-mitment and a sense of agency, and may become more com-mitted to academic learning – all of which is necessary to pre-pare them for thriving in and also improving their socio-ecological contexts. Eco-Schools further supports schools sys-temically through meaningful partnerships with external agen-cies. The conclusion is that attempts should be made to scale up and scale out this impact. In the process, key features of the programme should be preserved. These include a focus on sustainable solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Invasive alien aquatic plants in South African freshwater ecosystems:
- Hill, Martin P, Coetzee, Julie A, Martin, Grant D, Smith, Rosali, Strange, Emily F
- Authors: Hill, Martin P , Coetzee, Julie A , Martin, Grant D , Smith, Rosali , Strange, Emily F
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176271 , vital:42680 , ISBN 978-3-030-32394-3 , 10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3
- Description: South Africa has a long history of managing the establishment and spread of invasive fioating macrophytes. The past thirty years of research and the implementation of nation-wide biological and integrated control programmes has led to widespread control of these species in many degraded freshwater ecosystems. Such initiatives are aimed at restoring access to potable freshwater and maintaining native biodiversity.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Hill, Martin P , Coetzee, Julie A , Martin, Grant D , Smith, Rosali , Strange, Emily F
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176271 , vital:42680 , ISBN 978-3-030-32394-3 , 10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3
- Description: South Africa has a long history of managing the establishment and spread of invasive fioating macrophytes. The past thirty years of research and the implementation of nation-wide biological and integrated control programmes has led to widespread control of these species in many degraded freshwater ecosystems. Such initiatives are aimed at restoring access to potable freshwater and maintaining native biodiversity.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2020
Nutrient patchiness, phytoplankton surge-uptake, and turbulent history: a theoretical approach and its experimental validation
- Schapira, Mathilde, Seuront, Laurent
- Authors: Schapira, Mathilde , Seuront, Laurent
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149774 , vital:38883 , https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids5020080
- Description: Despite ample evidence of micro- and small-scale (i.e., millimeter- to meter-scale) phytoplankton and zooplankton patchiness in the ocean, direct observations of nutrient distributions and the ecological importance of this phenomenon are still relatively scarce. In this context, we first describe a simple procedure to continuously sample nutrients in surface waters, and subsequently provide evidence of the existence of microscale distribution of ammonium in the ocean. We further show that ammonium is never homogeneously distributed, even under very high conditions of turbulence. Instead, turbulence intensity appears to control nutrient patchiness, with a more homogeneous or a more heterogeneous distribution observed under high and low turbulence intensities, respectively, under the same concentration in nutrient. Based on a modelling procedure taking into account the stochastic properties of intermittent nutrient distributions and observations carried out on natural phytoplankton communities, we introduce and verify the hypothesis that under nutrient limitation, the “turbulent history” of phytoplankton cells, i.e., the turbulent conditions they experienced in their natural environments, conditions their efficiency to uptake ephemeral inorganic nitrogen patches of different concentrations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Schapira, Mathilde , Seuront, Laurent
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149774 , vital:38883 , https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids5020080
- Description: Despite ample evidence of micro- and small-scale (i.e., millimeter- to meter-scale) phytoplankton and zooplankton patchiness in the ocean, direct observations of nutrient distributions and the ecological importance of this phenomenon are still relatively scarce. In this context, we first describe a simple procedure to continuously sample nutrients in surface waters, and subsequently provide evidence of the existence of microscale distribution of ammonium in the ocean. We further show that ammonium is never homogeneously distributed, even under very high conditions of turbulence. Instead, turbulence intensity appears to control nutrient patchiness, with a more homogeneous or a more heterogeneous distribution observed under high and low turbulence intensities, respectively, under the same concentration in nutrient. Based on a modelling procedure taking into account the stochastic properties of intermittent nutrient distributions and observations carried out on natural phytoplankton communities, we introduce and verify the hypothesis that under nutrient limitation, the “turbulent history” of phytoplankton cells, i.e., the turbulent conditions they experienced in their natural environments, conditions their efficiency to uptake ephemeral inorganic nitrogen patches of different concentrations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Probing the structural dynamics of the Plasmodium falciparum tunneling-fold enzyme 6-pyruvoyl tetrahydropterin synthase to reveal allosteric drug targeting sites:
- Khairallah, Afrah, Ross, Caroline J, Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Authors: Khairallah, Afrah , Ross, Caroline J , Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/163057 , vital:41008 , https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2020.575196
- Description: The de novo folate synthesis pathway is a well-established drug target in the treatment of many infectious diseases. Antimalarial antifolate drugs have proven to be effective against malaria, however, rapid drug resistance has emerged on the two primary targeted enzymes: dihydrofolate reductase and dihydroptoreate synthase. The need to identify alternative antifolate drugs and novel metabolic targets is of imminent importance. The 6-pyruvol tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS) enzyme belongs to the tunneling fold protein superfamily which is characterized by a distinct central tunnel/cavity. The enzyme catalyzes the second reaction step of the parasite’s de novo folate synthesis pathway and is responsible for the conversion of 7,8-dihydroneopterin to 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin. In this study, we examine the structural dynamics of Plasmodium falciparum PTPS using the anisotropic network model, to elucidate the collective motions that drive the function of the enzyme and identify potential sites for allosteric modulation of its binding properties.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Khairallah, Afrah , Ross, Caroline J , Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/163057 , vital:41008 , https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2020.575196
- Description: The de novo folate synthesis pathway is a well-established drug target in the treatment of many infectious diseases. Antimalarial antifolate drugs have proven to be effective against malaria, however, rapid drug resistance has emerged on the two primary targeted enzymes: dihydrofolate reductase and dihydroptoreate synthase. The need to identify alternative antifolate drugs and novel metabolic targets is of imminent importance. The 6-pyruvol tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS) enzyme belongs to the tunneling fold protein superfamily which is characterized by a distinct central tunnel/cavity. The enzyme catalyzes the second reaction step of the parasite’s de novo folate synthesis pathway and is responsible for the conversion of 7,8-dihydroneopterin to 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin. In this study, we examine the structural dynamics of Plasmodium falciparum PTPS using the anisotropic network model, to elucidate the collective motions that drive the function of the enzyme and identify potential sites for allosteric modulation of its binding properties.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Protected and un-protected urban wetlands have similar aquatic macroinvertebrate communities: a case study from the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos region of southern Africa
- Blanckenberg, Michelle, Mlambo, Musa C, Parker, Denham, Motitsoe, Samuel N
- Authors: Blanckenberg, Michelle , Mlambo, Musa C , Parker, Denham , Motitsoe, Samuel N
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149288 , vital:38822 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1371/journal.pone.0233889
- Description: Rapid urbanisation has led to major landscape alterations, affecting aquatic ecosystems’ hydrological and biogeochemical cycles, and biodiversity. Thus, habitat alteration is considered a major driver of aquatic biodiversity loss and related aquatic ecosystem goods and services. This study aimed to investigate and compare aquatic macroinvertebrate richness, diversity and community structure between urban temporary wetlands, located within protected and un-protected areas. The latter were found within an open public space or park with no protection or conservation status, whereas the former were inaccessible to the public and had formal protected, conservation status.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Blanckenberg, Michelle , Mlambo, Musa C , Parker, Denham , Motitsoe, Samuel N
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/149288 , vital:38822 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1371/journal.pone.0233889
- Description: Rapid urbanisation has led to major landscape alterations, affecting aquatic ecosystems’ hydrological and biogeochemical cycles, and biodiversity. Thus, habitat alteration is considered a major driver of aquatic biodiversity loss and related aquatic ecosystem goods and services. This study aimed to investigate and compare aquatic macroinvertebrate richness, diversity and community structure between urban temporary wetlands, located within protected and un-protected areas. The latter were found within an open public space or park with no protection or conservation status, whereas the former were inaccessible to the public and had formal protected, conservation status.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
The alternative theory of state-minded protest texts in the music of democratic Nigeria:
- Authors: Osiebe, Garhe
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160423 , vital:40444 , DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2020.1810085
- Description: This paper centres on an alternative discourse of popular music culture in re-democratized Nigeria. Whereas much work has been done on state-minded protest music in Nigeria, studies have been reticent in appreciating the works of Fela's son, Femi; particularly within a framework of re-democratized Nigeria's equivalent of Fela's works which constituted a major alternative voice through military-ruled Nigeria. The paper is an attempt to make up this lacuna along the lines of Chris Atton’s 2006 alternative media theory. The analysis of the alternative media theory is complemented by an analysis of the texts of selected state-minded protest works from two crossover popular musicians – Blackface and Mr Raw – of re-democratized Nigeria, both of whose state-minded protest works have hitherto been unexplored by the academe.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Osiebe, Garhe
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160423 , vital:40444 , DOI: 10.1080/21681392.2020.1810085
- Description: This paper centres on an alternative discourse of popular music culture in re-democratized Nigeria. Whereas much work has been done on state-minded protest music in Nigeria, studies have been reticent in appreciating the works of Fela's son, Femi; particularly within a framework of re-democratized Nigeria's equivalent of Fela's works which constituted a major alternative voice through military-ruled Nigeria. The paper is an attempt to make up this lacuna along the lines of Chris Atton’s 2006 alternative media theory. The analysis of the alternative media theory is complemented by an analysis of the texts of selected state-minded protest works from two crossover popular musicians – Blackface and Mr Raw – of re-democratized Nigeria, both of whose state-minded protest works have hitherto been unexplored by the academe.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Tracing the Voice of Protest in Selected Oral Literature:
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174452 , vital:42479 , ISBN 9783030555177
- Description: This chapter aims to present the notion of “protest” as a contested arena in the production of oral literature, against the backdrop of continued and contested sociopolitical change in Africa. This contestation can be politically based, gender based and sometimes even based in religion. The chapter looks specifically at poetry, songs and the folktale to establish how the “voice of protest” has been presented over time in relation to specific African countries such as Senegal, South Africa, Somali, Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Poetic protest as part of political protest is also discussed. Furthermore, the chapter seeks to explore how this “voice of protest” has been received, both from an audience point of view and from the point of view of those who control power.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174452 , vital:42479 , ISBN 9783030555177
- Description: This chapter aims to present the notion of “protest” as a contested arena in the production of oral literature, against the backdrop of continued and contested sociopolitical change in Africa. This contestation can be politically based, gender based and sometimes even based in religion. The chapter looks specifically at poetry, songs and the folktale to establish how the “voice of protest” has been presented over time in relation to specific African countries such as Senegal, South Africa, Somali, Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Poetic protest as part of political protest is also discussed. Furthermore, the chapter seeks to explore how this “voice of protest” has been received, both from an audience point of view and from the point of view of those who control power.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
(Re) activated heritage:
- Authors: Siegert, Nadine
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146321 , vital:38515 , ISBN 9780429624353
- Description: Book abstract. Securing Urban Heritage considers the impact of securitization on access to urban heritage sites. Demonstrating that symbolic spaces such as these have increasingly become the location of choice for the practice and performance of contemporary politics in the last decade, the book shows how this has led to the securitization of urban public space. Highlighting specific changes that have been made, such as the installation of closed-circuit television or the limitation of access to certain streets, plazas and buildings, the book analyses the impact of different approaches to securitization.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Siegert, Nadine
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146321 , vital:38515 , ISBN 9780429624353
- Description: Book abstract. Securing Urban Heritage considers the impact of securitization on access to urban heritage sites. Demonstrating that symbolic spaces such as these have increasingly become the location of choice for the practice and performance of contemporary politics in the last decade, the book shows how this has led to the securitization of urban public space. Highlighting specific changes that have been made, such as the installation of closed-circuit television or the limitation of access to certain streets, plazas and buildings, the book analyses the impact of different approaches to securitization.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Culture, language and productivity in the workplace within the BRICS Nations:
- Kaschula, Russell H, Mostert, André M, Wolff, H Ekkehard
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Mostert, André M , Wolff, H Ekkehard
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174624 , vital:42495 , https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.25159/2663-6697/5009
- Description: The changing economic environment globally carries challenges and opportunities for business. Cross-cultural environments and financial integration call for greater understanding of the workplace. The authors assess the usage and status of language and culture in workplaces within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries through a light touch survey to assist in framing further and deeper research activities. The objective is to develop a suitable research framework regarding the place of language and culture in the workplace in multilingual and multicultural contexts. The authors argue for the inclusion of a cultural dimension linked to multilingual strategies in the workplace. The inextricable link between language and culture is explored in this article.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Mostert, André M , Wolff, H Ekkehard
- Date: 2019
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174624 , vital:42495 , https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.25159/2663-6697/5009
- Description: The changing economic environment globally carries challenges and opportunities for business. Cross-cultural environments and financial integration call for greater understanding of the workplace. The authors assess the usage and status of language and culture in workplaces within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries through a light touch survey to assist in framing further and deeper research activities. The objective is to develop a suitable research framework regarding the place of language and culture in the workplace in multilingual and multicultural contexts. The authors argue for the inclusion of a cultural dimension linked to multilingual strategies in the workplace. The inextricable link between language and culture is explored in this article.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Formative interventionist research generating iterative mediation processes in a vocational education and training learning network
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370575 , vital:66356 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter addresses a research problem identified in the vocational agricultural learning system where there was a gap in vocational education and training knowledge flow from research institutions to knowledge users. The chapter develops a theoretical framework for dealing with the problem of ‘knowledge flow’ in vocational education and training settings. The problem emerges around the uptake and use of relevant research-based knowledge resources on rainwater harvesting and conservation practices for agricultural education and training focused on small-scale farmers and household food producers in South Africa. These resources, despite their contemporary relevance, were not being used in agricultural colleges or in the related agricultural learning support system. Drawing on a social ecosystemic approach to knowledge flow and mediation, the chapter surfaces five iterative mediation processes developed via a generative, formative interventionist research process over a five year period (Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2016; Pesanayi, 2019; cf. Chapter 8) that facilitated the development of a regional learning network which enabled vertical facilitatory processes and horizontal connectivities that impacted on farmers’ food production system, as well as the agricultural learning system. We illuminate key features of these as important for supporting knowledge flow within a regional social ecosystemic framework for skills development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Pesanayi, Tichaona V
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370575 , vital:66356 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: This chapter addresses a research problem identified in the vocational agricultural learning system where there was a gap in vocational education and training knowledge flow from research institutions to knowledge users. The chapter develops a theoretical framework for dealing with the problem of ‘knowledge flow’ in vocational education and training settings. The problem emerges around the uptake and use of relevant research-based knowledge resources on rainwater harvesting and conservation practices for agricultural education and training focused on small-scale farmers and household food producers in South Africa. These resources, despite their contemporary relevance, were not being used in agricultural colleges or in the related agricultural learning support system. Drawing on a social ecosystemic approach to knowledge flow and mediation, the chapter surfaces five iterative mediation processes developed via a generative, formative interventionist research process over a five year period (Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2016; Pesanayi, 2019; cf. Chapter 8) that facilitated the development of a regional learning network which enabled vertical facilitatory processes and horizontal connectivities that impacted on farmers’ food production system, as well as the agricultural learning system. We illuminate key features of these as important for supporting knowledge flow within a regional social ecosystemic framework for skills development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019