Exploring and expanding transdisciplinary research for sustainable and just natural resource management
- Authors: Finca, Andiswa , Wolff, Margaret G , Cockburn, Jessica J , de Wet, Christopher J , Bezerra, Joana C , Weaver, Matthew J T , de Vos, Alta , Ralekhetla, Mateboho M , Libala, Notiswa , Mkabile, Qawekazi B , Odume, Oghenekaro N , Palmer, Carolyn G
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/416307 , vital:71337 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11077-240414"
- Description: Transdisciplinarity is gaining acceptance in sustainability science research as an approach to work across disparate types of knowledge and practices in order to tackle complex social-ecological problems. On paper, transdisciplinarity appears to be substantially helpful, but in practice, participants may remain voiceless and disadvantaged. In this paper, we retrospectively investigate four case studies using recent design principles for transdisciplinary research, to explore a deeper understanding of the practical successes and failures of transdisciplinary research engagement. We show that the transdisciplinary way of working is time consuming, challenging, and insists that researchers and participants contribute reflexively. Careful attention to research design and methodology is central. The acceptance that complexity renders knowledge provisional, and complete honesty about the purpose of the research are critical to building relationships between researchers and participants. Gaining an understanding of the values people hold influences the research process and the possible outcomes toward sustainable and just natural resource management. We suggest that in order to enable sustainable and just natural resource management, transdisciplinary research should include values and ethics in the design, implementation, and reporting of projects.
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- Date Issued: 2019
No longer in their proper place : anthropology in search of its subject-matter : inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University
- Authors: de Wet, Christopher J
- Date: 1998-06-10
- Subjects: Anthropology -- Research , Anthropology -- Methodology , Participant observation -- Philosophy
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:617 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020686 , ISBN 0868103462
- Description: Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University , Rhodes University Libraries (Digitisation)
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- Date Issued: 1998-06-10
Resettlement in the Border/Ciskei region of South Africa
- Authors: de Wet, Christopher J , Lujabe, Phumeza , Metele, Nosipho
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Relocation (Housing) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Relocation (Housing) -- South Africa -- Ciskei Eastern Cape (South Africa) -- Population Rural population -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Sada (South Africa) -- Social conditions Dongwe (South Africa) -- Social conditions Oxton (South Africa) -- Social conditions Whittlesea (South Africa) -- Social conditions Kat river (South Africa) -- History Citrus fruit industry -- South Africa Gqugesi (South Africa) -- History Fort Beaufort (South Africa) -- History Farmers -- South Africa Farmers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Upisdraai (South Africa) -- History Ilinge (South Africa) -- History Migrant labor -- South Africa Black people -- Relocation -- South Africa -- Ciskei
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2849 , vital:20335 , ISBN 0868103160
- Description: This paper presents the findings of part of a research project entitled "Population Mobility and Settlement Patterns in the Eastern Cape, 1950 to 1990", which was funded by the Human Sciences Research Council. The part of the project with which this paper is concerned, is the study of resettlement in the Border/Ciskei area of the (new) Eastern Cape Province. It involves two main foci: a) the Whittlesea district of the former Ciskei, where research was done in the resettlement area of Sada (where findings are compared with research done there in 1981) and Dongwe; and b) the Fort Beaufort area, where we looked at the two 'black spot' communities of Upisdraai and Gqugesi which were uprooted and moved to the Fort Beaufort township of Bhofolo in the 1960s, and at the establishment of black citrus farmers in the Kat River Valley in the late 1980s, on previously White owned farms which were bought out by the (then) Ciskei government. In the Conclusion, some important differences are suggested between resettlement in the Eastern Cape and in QwaQwa, one of the areas of South Africa that has been most severely affected by resettlement. Ways in which the South African material may be seen in terms of prevailing models for the analysis of resettlement, and may provide an input for the modification of these approaches, are briefly considered. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1996
Local responses to political policies and socio-economic change in the Keiskammahoek district, Ciskei: anthropological perspectives
- Authors: de Wet, Christopher J , Manona, Cecil W , Palmer, Robin C G
- Date: 1992
- Subjects: Burnshill -- Economic conditions Burnshill -- Social conditions Gymnothorax -- Economic conditions Gymnothorax -- Social conditions Land tenure -- South Africa -- Ciskei Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: book , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1810 , vital:20229 , ISBN 086810230x
- Description: This report relates to research done in the Keiskammahoek district of the Ciskei (see Map No. l) during 1989 and early 1990, with the financial support of the Programme for Development Research (PRODDER) of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa. The project was designed and conducted against the background of previous research, and has served as a pilot project for a larger project, entitled "Socio- Economic Change and Development Planning in the Keiskammahoek District of the Ciskei". This larger project which is currently in progress, (and which has been funded by the Institute for Research Development of the HSRC, by the Chairman's Fund of Anglo-American and De Beers, and by Johannesburg Consolidated Investments Co Ltd), is intended to give rise to a process of consultation and planning, leading to various local-level development initiatives in the District. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1992
The effects of externally induced socio-economic and political changes in rural areas: the Keiskammahoek district 1948-1986: a pilot project
- Authors: de Wet, Christopher J , Leibbrandt, M V , Palmer, Robin C G , Mills, M E , Tantsi, V
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Land use -- South Africa -- Keiskammahoek Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Keiskammahoek (South Africa) -- Social conditions Ciskei (South Africa) -- Social conditions Ciskei (South Africa) -- Economic conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1848 , vital:20233 , ISBN 0868101893
- Description: This Working Paper contains the results of a pilot investigation undertaken in 1986/87 in selected areas of the Keiskammahoek District of Ciskei. The pilot study was undertaken in order to compile a comprehensive plan for a long-term study of the Keiskammahoek District as a whole. Such a study would be designed to analyse socio-economic and political changes which have taken place in the District, measured against the results of a major multidisciplinary research project (The Keiskammahoek Rural Survey) which was undertaken in the area between 1948 and 1950. The existence of the Keiskammahoek Rural Survey affords a unique opportunity for comparative social science research, particularly because it is well known that substantial changes have taken place in the District. However, the precise nature and scale of the changes were unknown; hence, the decision to conduct a pilot survey first. The results of the pilot survey, published here, have turned out to be extremely valuable in formulating proposals for a subsequent on-going research undertaking; and have fully justified the time and money devoted to the exploratory investigation which constituted the basis of the pilot project. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1989
Rural communities in transition: a study of the socio-economic and agricultural implications of agricultural betterment and development
- Authors: de Wet, Christopher J , McAllister, Patrick A
- Date: 1983
- Subjects: Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Ciskei -- Case studies Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Transkei -- Case studies Agricultural development projects -- South Africa -- Homelands -- Case studies Homelands (South Africa) -- Rural conditions -- Case studies Villages -- South Africa -- Homelands -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1831 , vital:20231 , ISBN 086810101x
- Description: This comparative study, undertaken in the anthropological tradition of long-term field research, highlights the impact of agricultural "betterment" schemes in two rural communities - Chatha in Keiskammahoek district, Ciskei and Shixini in Willowvale district, Transkei. The authors provide a wealth of historical, sociological and ecological detail to describe and assess the implications of the continuation of the present official "betterment" strategy. This is done by comparing conditions in Chatha, where the strategy was implemented in the 1960s, with those in Shixini, where it was being implemented during fieldwork. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1983
Migrancy and development: prelude and variations on a theme
- Authors: Whisson, Michael G , de Wet, Christopher J , Manona, Cecil W , McAllister, Patrick A , Palmer, Robin C G
- Date: 1982
- Subjects: Labor supply -- South Africa Africans -- Employment Working class -- South Africa Ciskei (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Xhosa (African people)
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2101 , vital:20255 , ISBN 0868100994
- Description: Communities which have been characterised by migrancy for a long period of time, such as the Xhosa and the Italians considered in this paper, develop sets 6f terms which describe migrants. The Xhosa have varied criteria for their categories, e.g. amajoyini - those on contract to mainly the mining and construction industries; abafuduga - those who deliberately sell up and go elsewhere; amagoduka - those who intend to return home; imfiki - impoverished migrants from white owned farms. Italians tend to view the crossing of international boundaries as the essence of migration and classify their migrants by the state in which they work e.g. Inglesi, Americani, rather than by the more complex terminology of the Xhosa. Some terms are simply descriptions, others are categories with wider connotations, into which people place others and themselves. As far as possible we shall use the peoples' own categories, which define their relationships to "home", the region to which they migrate and to migrancy as a way of life, as these have important implications for what happens at home. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1982
Some human and structural constraints on rural development: the Amatola Basin, a Ciskeian case study
- Authors: Bekker, S B , de Wet, Christopher J
- Date: 1982
- Subjects: Amatola River Watershed (South Africa) Agriculture -- South Africa -- Ciskei Land tenure -- South Africa -- Ciskei Middledrift (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2227 , vital:20267 , ISBN 0868100900
- Description: A rural development project is currently under way in the Amatola Basin, Ciskei. This paper introduces the project and outlines the socio-economic and agricultural conditions current in the area. An overview of present project activities is included. It then attempts to identify a number of potential and actual human and structural constraints operating on the implementation of the project. Such constraints arise out of the existing agricultural system in the project area, as well as out of the state bureaucratic structures operating in Ciskei, and the agency implementing the project itself. One aim is to identify the units involved in dryland cultivation. This is done by tracing ties of cooperation between cultivating households in one Amatola village. It will be shown, in this village at least, that the household does not form the main unit of cultivation. A second aim of this paper is to show that checks on rural development in general should not be sought solely within the area under consideration, but derive to an important degree from outside sources. , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1982
A socio-economic survey of the Amatola Basin: interim report
- Authors: Bekker, S B , de Wet, Christopher J , Manona, Cecil W
- Date: 1981
- Subjects: Ciskei (South Africa) -- Rural conditions Agriculture -- South Africa -- Ciskei Middledrift (South Africa) Fingo (African people) Hlubi (African people) Agriculture -- South Africa -- Ciskei Amatola River Watershed (South Africa) -- Economic conditions Amatola River Watershed (South Africa) -- Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2282 , vital:20272 , ISBN 0868100730
- Description: Early in 1981, Professor S. Bekker of Rhodes University was invited to attend a meeting of the Amatola Basin Steering Committee of the Agricultural and Rural Development Research Institute (ARDRI) at the University of Fort Hare. At this meeting, Professor Bekker was invited to undertake a socio-economic survey of the Amatola Basin. The Board of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University gave Professor Bekker permission in February 1981 to undertake the research project on condition that it was conducted in the fashion this Institute usually requires. It was subsequently agreed that the survey, known as 'Amatola Basin VII: Socio-economic survey', was to establish the basic demographic, kinship, consumption and employment patterns of the residents of the Amatola Basin. Practices and traditions related to dry land agriculture would also be identified , Digitised by Rhodes University Library on behalf of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
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- Date Issued: 1981