Collaborative research in contexts of inequality: the role of social reflexivity
- Leibowitz, Brenda, Bozalek, Vivienne, Farmer, Jean, Garraway, James, Herman, Nicoline, Jawitz, Jeff, McMillan, Wendy, Mistri, Gita, Ndebele, Clever, Nkonki, Vuyisile, Quinn, Lynn, Van Schalkwyk, Susan, Vorster, Jo-Anne, Winberg, Chris
- Authors: Leibowitz, Brenda , Bozalek, Vivienne , Farmer, Jean , Garraway, James , Herman, Nicoline , Jawitz, Jeff , McMillan, Wendy , Mistri, Gita , Ndebele, Clever , Nkonki, Vuyisile , Quinn, Lynn , Van Schalkwyk, Susan , Vorster, Jo-Anne , Winberg, Chris
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66634 , vital:28973 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0029-5
- Description: publisher version , This article reports on the role and value of social reflexivity in collaborative research in contexts of extreme inequality. Social reflexivity mediates the enablements and constraints generated by the internal and external contextual conditions impinging on the research collaboration. It fosters the ability of participants in a collaborative project to align their interests and collectively extend their agency towards a common purpose. It influences the productivity and quality of learning outcomes of the research collaboration. The article is written by fourteen members of a larger research team, which comprised 18 individuals working within the academic development environment in eight South African universities. The overarching research project investigated the participation of academics in professional development activities, and how contextual, i.e. structural and cultural, and agential conditions, influence this participation. For this sub-study on the experience of the collaboration by fourteen of the researchers, we wrote reflective pieces on our own experience of participating in the project towards the end of the third year of its duration. We discuss the structural and cultural conditions external to and internal to the project, and how the social reflexivity of the participants mediated these conditions. We conclude with the observation that policy injunctions and support from funding agencies for collaborative research, as well as support from participants’ home institutions are necessary for the flourishing of collaborative research, but that the commitment by individual participants to participate, learn and share, is also necessary.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Leibowitz, Brenda , Bozalek, Vivienne , Farmer, Jean , Garraway, James , Herman, Nicoline , Jawitz, Jeff , McMillan, Wendy , Mistri, Gita , Ndebele, Clever , Nkonki, Vuyisile , Quinn, Lynn , Van Schalkwyk, Susan , Vorster, Jo-Anne , Winberg, Chris
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66634 , vital:28973 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0029-5
- Description: publisher version , This article reports on the role and value of social reflexivity in collaborative research in contexts of extreme inequality. Social reflexivity mediates the enablements and constraints generated by the internal and external contextual conditions impinging on the research collaboration. It fosters the ability of participants in a collaborative project to align their interests and collectively extend their agency towards a common purpose. It influences the productivity and quality of learning outcomes of the research collaboration. The article is written by fourteen members of a larger research team, which comprised 18 individuals working within the academic development environment in eight South African universities. The overarching research project investigated the participation of academics in professional development activities, and how contextual, i.e. structural and cultural, and agential conditions, influence this participation. For this sub-study on the experience of the collaboration by fourteen of the researchers, we wrote reflective pieces on our own experience of participating in the project towards the end of the third year of its duration. We discuss the structural and cultural conditions external to and internal to the project, and how the social reflexivity of the participants mediated these conditions. We conclude with the observation that policy injunctions and support from funding agencies for collaborative research, as well as support from participants’ home institutions are necessary for the flourishing of collaborative research, but that the commitment by individual participants to participate, learn and share, is also necessary.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
Decoupled reciprocal subsidies of biomass and fatty acids in fluxes of invertebrates between a temperate river and the adjacent land:
- Moyo, Sydney, Chari, Lenin D, Villet, Martin H, Richoux, Nicole B
- Authors: Moyo, Sydney , Chari, Lenin D , Villet, Martin H , Richoux, Nicole B
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/140843 , vital:37923 , DOI: 10.1007/s00027-017-0529-0
- Description: Streams and riparian areas are tightly coupled through reciprocal trophic subsidies, and there is evidence that these subsidies affect consumers in connected ecosystems. Most studies of subsidies consider only their quantity and not their quality. We determined the bidirectional exchange of organisms between the Kowie River and its riparian zone in South Africa using floating pyramidal traps (to measure insect emergence) and pan traps (to capture infalling invertebrates).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Moyo, Sydney , Chari, Lenin D , Villet, Martin H , Richoux, Nicole B
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/140843 , vital:37923 , DOI: 10.1007/s00027-017-0529-0
- Description: Streams and riparian areas are tightly coupled through reciprocal trophic subsidies, and there is evidence that these subsidies affect consumers in connected ecosystems. Most studies of subsidies consider only their quantity and not their quality. We determined the bidirectional exchange of organisms between the Kowie River and its riparian zone in South Africa using floating pyramidal traps (to measure insect emergence) and pan traps (to capture infalling invertebrates).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Disclaiming/denigrating/dodging: white South African academics’ everyday racetalk
- Vincent, Louise, Idahosa, Grace E, Msomi, Zuziwe
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E , Msomi, Zuziwe
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141900 , vital:38014 , DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2017.1292119
- Description: The call for the ‘transformation’ of higher education in South Africa is one instance of a wider effort, since the country’s first democratic election in 1994, to surmount an apartheid and colonial legacy of institutionalised racism. In 2015 and 2016 nationwide protests led to universities being shut down as students and staff expressed frustration institutions that continue to be experienced as racist and ‘untransformed’. In this study we report on interviews conducted with senior white academics at one South African university shortly before these protests began. Given that our participants are people of influence in their respective university departments, we asked, in in-depth open-ended interviews, what contribution they saw themselves making to ‘transformation’. We argue that the talk of these participants could be described as what authors in the field call 'racetalk', Talk is understood here as a form of social practice, the analysis of which helps us to understand how racism is reproduced in mundane ways which, taken together, account for the persistence of pervasive institutionalised racism in South African higher education that appears impervious to policy and regime change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Idahosa, Grace E , Msomi, Zuziwe
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141900 , vital:38014 , DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2017.1292119
- Description: The call for the ‘transformation’ of higher education in South Africa is one instance of a wider effort, since the country’s first democratic election in 1994, to surmount an apartheid and colonial legacy of institutionalised racism. In 2015 and 2016 nationwide protests led to universities being shut down as students and staff expressed frustration institutions that continue to be experienced as racist and ‘untransformed’. In this study we report on interviews conducted with senior white academics at one South African university shortly before these protests began. Given that our participants are people of influence in their respective university departments, we asked, in in-depth open-ended interviews, what contribution they saw themselves making to ‘transformation’. We argue that the talk of these participants could be described as what authors in the field call 'racetalk', Talk is understood here as a form of social practice, the analysis of which helps us to understand how racism is reproduced in mundane ways which, taken together, account for the persistence of pervasive institutionalised racism in South African higher education that appears impervious to policy and regime change.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Interacting motif networks located in hotspots associated with RNA release are conserved in Enterovirus capsids
- Ross, Caroline J, Knox, Caroline M, Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Authors: Ross, Caroline J , Knox, Caroline M , Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124855 , vital:35704 , https://doi.10.1002/1873-3468.12663
- Description: Enteroviruses are responsible for a multitude of human diseases. Expansion of the virus capsid is associated with a cascade of conformational changes that allow the subsequent release of RNA. For the first time, this study presents a comprehensive bioinformatic screen for the prediction of interacting motifs within intraprotomer interfaces and across respective interfaces surrounding the fivefold and twofold axes. The results identify a network of conserved motif residues involved in interactions in enteroviruses that may be critical to capsid stabilisation, providing guidelines towards developing antivirals that interfere with viral expansion during RNA release.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Ross, Caroline J , Knox, Caroline M , Tastan Bishop, Özlem
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124855 , vital:35704 , https://doi.10.1002/1873-3468.12663
- Description: Enteroviruses are responsible for a multitude of human diseases. Expansion of the virus capsid is associated with a cascade of conformational changes that allow the subsequent release of RNA. For the first time, this study presents a comprehensive bioinformatic screen for the prediction of interacting motifs within intraprotomer interfaces and across respective interfaces surrounding the fivefold and twofold axes. The results identify a network of conserved motif residues involved in interactions in enteroviruses that may be critical to capsid stabilisation, providing guidelines towards developing antivirals that interfere with viral expansion during RNA release.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Interrogating citizen journalism practices: a case study of Rhodes University’s Lindaba Ziyafika Project
- Nyathi, Sihle, Garman, Anthea
- Authors: Nyathi, Sihle , Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/158915 , vital:40240 , https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2016.1259740
- Description: Several scholars have noted that citizen journalism in the West is essentially an online phenomenon, driven by the affordability of Internet technologies. In Africa, projects such as Ushahidi in Kenya have been enabled by platforms such as cell phones and social networks. Voices of Africa, based in southern Africa, publishes on the web only. Publishing on the Internet presumes a citizenry which is relatively well educated; has familiarity with, and access to, new media as a form of social communication; and is confident in their right to participate in newly developed public spheres – particularly those online.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Nyathi, Sihle , Garman, Anthea
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/158915 , vital:40240 , https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2016.1259740
- Description: Several scholars have noted that citizen journalism in the West is essentially an online phenomenon, driven by the affordability of Internet technologies. In Africa, projects such as Ushahidi in Kenya have been enabled by platforms such as cell phones and social networks. Voices of Africa, based in southern Africa, publishes on the web only. Publishing on the Internet presumes a citizenry which is relatively well educated; has familiarity with, and access to, new media as a form of social communication; and is confident in their right to participate in newly developed public spheres – particularly those online.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Privilege, poverty, and pedagogy: reflections on the introduction of a service-learning component into a postgraduate political studies course
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142224 , vital:38060 , DOI: 10.17159/2221-4070/2017/v6i2a4
- Description: This paper reflects on the experience of integrating a service-learning component into a postgraduate course in political studies. The course in question aims to get students to reflect on the ways in which poverty and privilege are tied up with each other, and on whether and how the relatively privileged can be involved in helpful ways in struggles against oppression. The service-learning component involved spending a week volunteering with a rural community-based organisation. Students were required to relate their volunteering experience to the course content. The paper reflects on the implications of the course's failure to live up to many criteria for quality service-learning, arguing that despite its failings, the service-learning experience significantly enhanced the learning of the students and also my own learning as an educator. I show that the nature of this learning calls into question some possible assumptions about how service-learning ought to be done. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the ways in which service-learning can assist in the achievement of social justice-related goals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142224 , vital:38060 , DOI: 10.17159/2221-4070/2017/v6i2a4
- Description: This paper reflects on the experience of integrating a service-learning component into a postgraduate course in political studies. The course in question aims to get students to reflect on the ways in which poverty and privilege are tied up with each other, and on whether and how the relatively privileged can be involved in helpful ways in struggles against oppression. The service-learning component involved spending a week volunteering with a rural community-based organisation. Students were required to relate their volunteering experience to the course content. The paper reflects on the implications of the course's failure to live up to many criteria for quality service-learning, arguing that despite its failings, the service-learning experience significantly enhanced the learning of the students and also my own learning as an educator. I show that the nature of this learning calls into question some possible assumptions about how service-learning ought to be done. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the ways in which service-learning can assist in the achievement of social justice-related goals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Refocusing the traumatic past (an essay in two parts):
- Authors: de Jager, Maureen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147380 , vital:38631 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC-a867f5bb0
- Description: In the greater landscape of South Africa’s traumatic past, the South African War of 1899-1902 is arguably “old history”, surpassed in time and importance by more pressing traumas. Moreover, because it was usurped by Afrikaner nationalism as a myth of national origin and used to justify claims of Afrikaner sovereignty, it is also often seen as “old Afrikaner history”: at best, an episode of limited relevance to the many South Africans effectively written out of this narrative; at worst, a platform for nostalgic hankering by a conservative few.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: de Jager, Maureen
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147380 , vital:38631 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC-a867f5bb0
- Description: In the greater landscape of South Africa’s traumatic past, the South African War of 1899-1902 is arguably “old history”, surpassed in time and importance by more pressing traumas. Moreover, because it was usurped by Afrikaner nationalism as a myth of national origin and used to justify claims of Afrikaner sovereignty, it is also often seen as “old Afrikaner history”: at best, an episode of limited relevance to the many South Africans effectively written out of this narrative; at worst, a platform for nostalgic hankering by a conservative few.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The myth of a green economy and green jobs: what strategy for labour?
- Authors: Cottle, Eddie
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Economic development -- South Africa South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Social policy Economic development -- Political aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59500 , vital:27620 , ISBN 9780868106106
- Description: This paper seeks to analyse the policy position of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to that of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in relation to the green economy and green jobs. It is argued that the ITUC position is consistent with the paradigm of the UNEP that the source of the ecological and jobs crisis lays within the problem of a lack of investment in appropriate alternative technologies and not that of capital accumulation and the nature of material production itself. It is further argued that both the ITUC and the UNEP’s paradigm is flawed on the basis of an assumption that technological efficiencies based upon alternative technologies will reduce the carbon footprint of countries. On the contrary this paper argues that the ITUC and UNEP failed to locate their perspective on a historical understanding of the contradiction of technological efficiencies as part of capital accumulation itself and the continuous expansion of production and secondly, that alternative energy production is still reliant of fossil fuels which will not lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, this paper argues that the ITUC does not have an alternative position as the notion of the ‘Just Transition’ is trapped within the existing social democratic, sustainable development paradigm which is committed to a system of capitalist growth. The paper argues that the only viable alternative is for labour to develop and struggle for an alternative eco-socialist society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Cottle, Eddie
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Economic development -- South Africa South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Social policy Economic development -- Political aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Book , Text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59500 , vital:27620 , ISBN 9780868106106
- Description: This paper seeks to analyse the policy position of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to that of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in relation to the green economy and green jobs. It is argued that the ITUC position is consistent with the paradigm of the UNEP that the source of the ecological and jobs crisis lays within the problem of a lack of investment in appropriate alternative technologies and not that of capital accumulation and the nature of material production itself. It is further argued that both the ITUC and the UNEP’s paradigm is flawed on the basis of an assumption that technological efficiencies based upon alternative technologies will reduce the carbon footprint of countries. On the contrary this paper argues that the ITUC and UNEP failed to locate their perspective on a historical understanding of the contradiction of technological efficiencies as part of capital accumulation itself and the continuous expansion of production and secondly, that alternative energy production is still reliant of fossil fuels which will not lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, this paper argues that the ITUC does not have an alternative position as the notion of the ‘Just Transition’ is trapped within the existing social democratic, sustainable development paradigm which is committed to a system of capitalist growth. The paper argues that the only viable alternative is for labour to develop and struggle for an alternative eco-socialist society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Towards a framework for assessing the sustainability of local economic development based on natural resources: honeybush tea in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
- Polak, James, Snowball, Jeanette D
- Authors: Polak, James , Snowball, Jeanette D
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69201 , vital:29445 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2016.1196348
- Description: Despite the popularity of local economic development (LED) as a job creation and economic growth strategy in South Africa, many LED projects have not proved to be sustainable in the long-run, especially where human systems interact with biological ones. This article examines the relationship between sustainability and LED within the context of the emerging honeybush tea industry in the Eastern Cape. Data were gathered from provincial as well as local government policy documents and reports, and via key informant interviews. The data were analysed using Connelly’s [(2007). Mapping sustainable development as a contested concept. Local Environment, 12 (3), 259–278] three pronged approach to sustainable development as a lens through which to view the local industry. Findings showed that the industry offers many opportunities for development, including job creation in poorer, rural households; sustainable wild harvesting using a permit system; commercial cultivation; potential to develop social capital; potential for community-based LED; and product diversification. However, there are also corresponding challenges: There is currently no reliable data on the maximum sustainable yield, which is needed to guide quota allocations for entrepreneurial harvesters harvesting from wild stocks; possible biodiversity loss; and enforcing the permit scheme is proving difficult in remote rural areas.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Polak, James , Snowball, Jeanette D
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69201 , vital:29445 , https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2016.1196348
- Description: Despite the popularity of local economic development (LED) as a job creation and economic growth strategy in South Africa, many LED projects have not proved to be sustainable in the long-run, especially where human systems interact with biological ones. This article examines the relationship between sustainability and LED within the context of the emerging honeybush tea industry in the Eastern Cape. Data were gathered from provincial as well as local government policy documents and reports, and via key informant interviews. The data were analysed using Connelly’s [(2007). Mapping sustainable development as a contested concept. Local Environment, 12 (3), 259–278] three pronged approach to sustainable development as a lens through which to view the local industry. Findings showed that the industry offers many opportunities for development, including job creation in poorer, rural households; sustainable wild harvesting using a permit system; commercial cultivation; potential to develop social capital; potential for community-based LED; and product diversification. However, there are also corresponding challenges: There is currently no reliable data on the maximum sustainable yield, which is needed to guide quota allocations for entrepreneurial harvesters harvesting from wild stocks; possible biodiversity loss; and enforcing the permit scheme is proving difficult in remote rural areas.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
University protests, specific performance, and the public/private-law divide
- Authors: Glover, Graham B
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70637 , vital:29683 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-8ff6ee9c3
- Description: The upheaval experienced by most of South Africa’s tertiary institutions in 2015 and 2016 as a result of the #feesmustfall protests made national headlines, and was at certain periods the most significant social and political issue in the nation. Many tertiary institutions looked to the law to try to manage the unfolding events by obtaining the assistance of the South African Police Service (‘SAPS’) to try to restore order in the interests of the academic project. They did so by seeking urgent prohibitory interdicts to establish in as precise terms as possible where the boundaries of lawful and unlawful conduct lay.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Glover, Graham B
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70637 , vital:29683 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-8ff6ee9c3
- Description: The upheaval experienced by most of South Africa’s tertiary institutions in 2015 and 2016 as a result of the #feesmustfall protests made national headlines, and was at certain periods the most significant social and political issue in the nation. Many tertiary institutions looked to the law to try to manage the unfolding events by obtaining the assistance of the South African Police Service (‘SAPS’) to try to restore order in the interests of the academic project. They did so by seeking urgent prohibitory interdicts to establish in as precise terms as possible where the boundaries of lawful and unlawful conduct lay.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2017
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