List of Titles

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Mitochondrial STAT3 and reactive oxygen species: a fulcrum of adipogenesis?

- Kramer, Adam H, Kadye, Rose, Houseman, Pascalene S, Prinsloo, Earl

Authors: Kramer, Adam H , Kadye, Rose , Houseman, Pascalene S , Prinsloo, Earl
Date: 2015
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431674 , vital:72795 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21623996.2015.1084084"
Description: The balance between cellular lineages can be controlled by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Cellular differentiation into adipocytes is highly dependent on the production of ROS to initiate the process through activation of multiple interlinked factors that stimulate mitotic clonal expansion and cellular maturation. The signal transducer and activator of transcription family of signaling proteins have accepted roles in adipogenesis and associated lipogenesis. Non-canonical mitochondrial localization of STAT3 and other members of the STAT family however opens up new avenues for investigation of its role in the aforementioned processes. Following recent observations of differences in mitochondrially localized serine 727 phosphorylated STAT3 (mtSTAT3-pS727) in preadipocytes and adipocytes, here, we hypothesize and speculate further on the role of mitochondrial STAT3 in adipogenesis.
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Date Issued: 2015

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The legacy of colonial and apartheid eras on the distribution, composition and representation of street trees in South Africa

- Shackleton, Charlie M, Gwedla, Nananmhla, Davoren, Elandrie

Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Gwedla, Nananmhla , Davoren, Elandrie
Date: 2022
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433984 , vital:73017 , ISBN 9781003054672 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003054672
Description: South Africa is a country of social, economic and racial contrasts and inequities, the roots of which can be traced back to the colonial and the post-colonial, racist apartheid periods. During these periods, urban black South Africans were restricted to living in specifically designated neighbourhoods apart from white citizens. These areas became characterised by institutionalised underdevelopment, insufficient infrastructure, limited opportunities and deep poverty. Despite the democratic transition in the mid-1990s, the imprints of the previous institutionalised segregation remain visible in many facets of the spatial geography of South African towns and cities. The legacies of colonialism and apartheid remain strongly expressed in street trees in terms of where they are found in the urban areas (i.e. very few in the former black neighbourhoods) and the provenance of prevalent species (mostly non-native species in older areas). Similarities to and reproduction of colonial approaches are evident in even contemporary initiatives such as the national social housing programme, the national Champion Trees inventory and the naming of streets after non-native species. This has translated into apathy or antagonism towards street trees in some regions by officials and the public.
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Date Issued: 2022

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Non-timber forest products in livelihoods

- Shackleton, Charlie M

Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M
Date: 2015
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433699 , vital:72995 , ISBN 9781317916130 , https://www.routledge.com/Ecological-Sustainability-for-Non-timber-Forest-Products-Dynamics-and-Case/Shackleton-Pandey-Ticktin/p/book/9781138618251
Description: That people from around the world have incorporated numerous plant and animal products into their lives, economies, cultures, traditions and histories is well known, and is the subject of a multitude of academic and non-academic documents across many disciplines. Historically, the use of these products has underlain trade between cultures and continents and the domestication of many present day crops and breeds (Laws 2011), so much so, that most urban citizens in the developed world have forgotten the original wild origins of current day staples in foods (eg corn, potatoes, rice, tomatoes, oranges, melons, sugar, coffee, tea, spices), medicines (aspirin, codeine, quinine, strychnine), fibres (cotton, sisal, coir, hemp), resins (lacquer, gum Arabic, rubber, turpentine), dyes (cochineal, indigo, saffron), intoxicants (tobacco, mushrooms, cannabis, opium) and artefacts. While such staple foods, medicines and the like used by the ‘western’urban consumer have become domesticated and are now almost exclusively produced in farming systems or replaced by synthetic substitutes, thousands of other animal, plant and fungi species are still widely used by peoples around the world.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Introduction: the need to understand the ecological sustainability of non-timber forest products harvesting systems

- Shackleton, Charlie M, Ticktin, Tamara, Pandey, Ashok K

Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Ticktin, Tamara , Pandey, Ashok K
Date: 2015
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433683 , vital:72994 , ISBN 9781317916130 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315851587-2/introduction-charlie-shackleton-tamara-ticktin-ashok-pandey
Description: The importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in rural livelihoods in developing countries has become widely acknowledged over the last decade or so within the research and, increasingly, policy arenas, on the basis of numerous studies from around the world. Indeed, there has been a tenfold increase in the annual number of research papers published over the last 20 years (Figure 1.1). Most of these studies are from developing countries, but they do include developed countries (e.g. Kim et al. 2012, Poe et al. 2013, Sténs and Sandström 2013). Additionally, most are from rural areas, albeit with a smattering from urban settings (e.g. Kilchling et al. 2009, Poe et al. 2013, Kaoma and Shackleton 2014), although with increasing urbanization this distinction is blurred with significant markets for rural NTFPs imported into towns and cities (Lewis 2008, Padoch et al. 2008, McMullin et al. 2012). Two pertinent findings of many of these studies is that NTFPs generally contribute in many different ways to local livelihoods (see Chapter 2) and that when translated into income terms many households earn a significant proportion of their income (cash and/or non-cash) from NTFPs (Shackleton et al. 2007, Angelsen et al. 2014). In other words, they are not simply minor products of little value, but rather they are vital components of livelihoods, and in some instances, of local and regional economies. This requires that they, and the land on which they are found, are managed in a responsible manner to ensure that these livelihood benefits continue to accrue to rural, and often impoverished, people.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Futures analysis

- Hichert, Tanya, Biggs, Reinette, de Vos, Alta

Authors: Hichert, Tanya , Biggs, Reinette , de Vos, Alta
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433871 , vital:73006 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: Futures analysis methods can help people to think constructively and systematically about the future and advance our understanding of change and uncertainty in complex social-ecological systems (SES). This is important because there is not one single predictable future but multiple ones, depending on the complex, unpredictable interplays and interactions of actors, institutions, ecological processes and other elements of the system and its dynamics. Actively developing ideas, images and/or stories about different futures can enable us to make different choices and take different actions in the present in relation to, for example, risk mitigation, adaptation, resource allocation and strategy development, which can help build more sustainable and just futures.
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Date Issued: 2021

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Participatory data collection

- de Vos, Alta, Preiser, Rika, Masterson, Vanessa A

Authors: de Vos, Alta , Preiser, Rika , Masterson, Vanessa A
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433842 , vital:73004 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: Participatory mapping (direct-to-digital participatory mapping, 3D-participatory mapping, participatory GIS), photovoice, transect walks, ranking exercises, focus group discussions, Venn diagrams, matrix scoring, ecograms, timelines, Q-methodology, community mapping, participatory videography, photo elicitation, seasonal calendars, participatory action research, participatory rural appraisal, participant observation, arts-based methods.
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Date Issued: 2021

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The practice and design of social-ecological systems research

- de Vos, Alta, Maciejewski, Kristine, Bodin, Orjan, Norstrom, Albert, Schluter, Maja, Tengo, Maria

Authors: de Vos, Alta , Maciejewski, Kristine , Bodin, Orjan , Norstrom, Albert , Schluter, Maja , Tengo, Maria
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433826 , vital:73003 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: Studying social-ecological systems (SES) can be a challenging task, as explained in Chapter 2. Phenomena of interest and characteristics of SES research result from both social and ecological processes, and complicated feedback dynamics blur the distinction between cause and effect (Young et al. 2006). Furthermore, multiple causal processes may be operating simultaneously, outcomes are strongly influenced by the system’s context and it is difficult to determine system boundaries (Bodin and Prell 2011).
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Date Issued: 2021

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Scenario development

- Hichert, Tanya, Biggs, Reinette, de Vos, Alta, Peterson, Garry

Authors: Hichert, Tanya , Biggs, Reinette , de Vos, Alta , Peterson, Garry
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433857 , vital:73005 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: Scenario development connects to various other methods, but in particular to futures analysis (Chapter 10) as it is also regarded as a futures analysis method. It warrants a separate chapter in addition to the other futures analysis methods (described in Chapter 10) because of its importance and widespread use. Scenario development also connects to facilitated dialogues (Chapter 9), serious games (Chapter 12), participatory modelling and planning (Chapter 13), dynamical systems modelling (Chapter 26) and agent-based modelling (Chapter 28).
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Date Issued: 2021

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What are social-ecological systems and social-ecological systems research

- Biggs, Reinette, Clements, Hayley, de Vos, Alta, Folke, Carl, Manyani, Amanda, Maciejewski, Kristine, Martin-Lopez, Berta, Preiser, Rika, Selomane, Odirilwe, Schluter, Maja

Authors: Biggs, Reinette , Clements, Hayley , de Vos, Alta , Folke, Carl , Manyani, Amanda , Maciejewski, Kristine , Martin-Lopez, Berta , Preiser, Rika , Selomane, Odirilwe , Schluter, Maja
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433900 , vital:73008 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: The period since the Second World War has been marked by rapid and accelerating changes to many aspects of human society and the environment (Clark, Crutzen, and Schellnhuber 2004; Steffen et al. 2011; Steffen et al. 2015a). There is accumulating evidence and rising concern about the potential consequences these changes hold for key Earth system processes at a global scale, and human well-being and prosperity into the future (Krausmann et al. 2013; Steffen et al. 2015b). The Anthropocene, as this new era of extensive human impact on the Earth has come to be known (Crutzen 2006), manifests in a closely intertwined set of social and ecological changes. Technological advances, increasing human population, rising levels of wealth and consumption, and the institutional arrangements we have developed to govern our economies and societies interplay with one another, and drastically affect the Earth’s climate, biological diversity, fresh-water and biogeochemical flows, and levels of novel pollutants in the environment (Steffen et al. 2015a). These environmental changes, in turn, contribute to increasingly frequent and severe droughts (Dai 2013; Trenberth et al. 2014), floods (Milly et al. 2002; Nicholls 2004), heatwaves (Guo et al. 2018; Oliver et al. 2018) and the emergence of novel pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 (Everard et al. 2020; O ’Callaghan-Gordo and Antò 2020; Schmeller, Courchamp, and Killeen 2020) that can lead to massive societal disruption and hardship, especially among the poor (Wheeler and Von Braun 2013; Barbier and Hochard 2018).
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Date Issued: 2021

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Synthesis and emerging frontiers in social-ecological systems research methods

- Schluter, Maja, Biggs, Reinette, Clements, Hayley, de Vos, Alta, Maciejewski, Kristine, Preiser, Rika

Authors: Schluter, Maja , Biggs, Reinette , Clements, Hayley , de Vos, Alta , Maciejewski, Kristine , Preiser, Rika
Date: 2021
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433887 , vital:73007 , ISBN 9781000401516 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/49560
Description: Social-ecological systems (SES) research is a rapidly emerging new research domain within the broader emerging area of sustainability science. It is largely a problem-driven and action-oriented field, motivated by the immense sustainability and equity-related challenges facing society (see Chapter 1). Social-ecological systems research is based on an understanding that SES are complex adaptive systems (CAS), where social and ecological dynamics are deeply intertwined, and give rise to features and problems that cannot be understood or addressed by studying these dimensions in isolation (see Chapter 2). The field draws on and combines methods from both natural and social sciences, and combines quantitative and qualitative approaches. As such, SES research is characterised by epistemological and methodological pluralism, which is challenging for those entering the field and has complex implications for the research process, methods and ethical considerations to be taken into account in SES research (see Chapter 3). This book aims to clarify and synthesise this plurality by providing an introduction to SES research (Part 1), and the diversity of methods currently used in the field (Part 2). The aim of this final chapter (Part 3) is to provide a synthesis of the current landscape of SES methods, critically reflect on the methods with respect to their ability to address systemic features of SES and discuss some of the most common methodological challenges associated with the complex adaptive and intertwined nature of SES. Based on this synthesis, we identify methodological gaps and discuss novel methods and method combinations that may help to address these gaps and move the field forward.
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Date Issued: 2021

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Grandmothers of the sea: Stories and lessons from five Xhosa ocean elders

- Francis, Buhle, McGarry Dylan K

Authors: Francis, Buhle , McGarry Dylan K
Date: 2023
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433926 , vital:73010 , ISBN 9781003355199 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003355199-12/grandmothers-sea-buhle-francis-dylan-mcgarry
Description: We surface a historical, political, spiritual, economic and cultural analysis made by five Xhosa Grandmothers based in the Eastern Cape, regarding their entangled relationship with the Ocean. A nuanced, complex relationship with the ocean and the politics of natural resource management in South Africa emerged from our interviews, as scholar-activists, with these Grandmothers, and this chapter attempts to explore how a gendered upbringing, with its associated roles and responsibilities, have created a unique relationship with the ocean that must be understood in all its nuanced and complex facets. We explore how the identities and values of these Xhosa Grandmothers are relationally entangled with the ocean and politics of South Africa, and explore the deep ecological knowledge that they hold, yet is shamelessly ignored. Through their own renderings, we unpack the rich understanding of marine species, customary rights, ocean policy and governance practices that impact, impede and complicate their lives. Working with first-hand accounts (stories translated from Xhosa), the Grandmothers provide a nuanced and brazen analysis of the status quo of ocean governance, ocean literacy and policy. They unpack what interventions are needed, and call for a response that recognises Grandmothers as central to South Africa’s wellbeing, a health that sits precariously with the complex realities of older women’s entangled and diverse vulnerabilities. Finally, the firsthand accounts and analyses made by the Grandmothers, offer a politically rigorous contribution to the field of hydrofeminism, one told in their own way, using their own idiomatic rendering, with their own metaphors and figurations.
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Date Issued: 2023

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Introducing a Critical Pedagogy of Sexual and Reproductive Citizenship: Extending the ‘Framework of Thick Desire'

- Macleod, Catriona I, Vincent, Louise

Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Vincent, Louise
Date: 2013
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , book chapter
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434411 , vital:73056 , ISBN 978-1-4899-8025-0 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203069141-7/introducing-critical-pedagogy-sexual-reproductive-citizenship-catriona-macleod-louise-vincent
Description: In Michelle Fine’s influential 1988 paper,‘Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire’, she examined the “desires, fears, and fantasies”(p. 30) shaping responses to sex education in the United States in the 1980s. Fine’s work encouraged a ‘turn to pleasure’in sexuality education research. This work focused on and critiqued Fine’s idea, elaborated below, of a ‘missing discourse of desire’in the education of young people and of young women in particular (see for instance Allen, 2004, 2005; Connell, 2005; Rasmussen, 2004, 2012; Tolman, 1994; Vance, 1993). Less taken up, however, was a second major thread in Fine’s 1988 paper, namely the ‘absence of entitlement’in which she argued that not only the absence of a discourse of desire but also the absence of “viable life options” for young women combined to produce their vulnerability (Fine, 1988, p. 49). Almost twenty years later, in a 2006 article, Fine, with Sara McClelland, revisited the missing discourse of desire, this time in the context of an educational crusade in the United States advocating Abstinence Only Until Marriage (AOUM) approaches to sexuality education.
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Date Issued: 2013

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Characterisation of the dietary relationships of two sympatric hake species, Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus, in the northern Benguela region using fatty acid profiles

- Iitembu, Johannes A, Richoux, Nicole B

Authors: Iitembu, Johannes A , Richoux, Nicole B
Date: 2016
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/456010 , vital:75475 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.2989/1814232X.2015.1115778"
Description: The two sympatric species of Cape hake, Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus, have been the main targets of bottom-trawl fisheries off Namibia for several decades. The feeding ecology of these hakes has been studied mainly using stomach content analyses and thus there remain some gaps in our knowledge about food assimilated over the longer term. In this study, we used fatty acid (FA) profiles to characterise the dietary relationships of M. capensis and M. paradoxus. Muscle samples from hake (n=110) and their known prey (n=68) were collected during trawl surveys off Namibia during 2011. Significant differences between the neutral FA profiles of the hake populations were detected in December 2011 but not in January 2011, an indication of temporal variations in diet and resource partitioning. Comparisons of the neutral FAs in hake and the total FAs of potential prey showed no clear trophic connections, with the exception of flying squid Todarodes sagittatus, which had FA profiles very similar to those of M. paradoxus in December 2011. Our results highlight the complex and temporally shifting relationships that exist between hake and the large pool of prey available to them, and between the two hake species that overlap in their feeding habits and distribution within the highly productive Benguela Current region.
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Date Issued: 2016

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Reproductive health systems analyses and the reparative reproductive justice approach: a case study of unsafe abortion in Lesotho

- Macleod, Catriona I, Reynolds, John H

Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Reynolds, John H
Date: 2022
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441288 , vital:73874 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1887317"
Description: Health systems analyses are touted as mechanisms through which health policy and planning may be implemented. An example is the WHO health systems approach that connects people (needs, rights, perspectives) with services and technologies (equitable access, quality of care, mix of interventions) and with policies and institutional capacities (laws, regulations, human/physical resources, management and financing). The approach is comprehensive and multi-faceted, which is a strength. We argue, however, that health systems analyses should be supplemented with a focus on reproductive justice. Using the WHO health systems approach as an exemplar, we show how the reparative reproductive justice approach outlined by the first author and colleagues assists with outlining comprehensive remedies to the inequities identified in the systems analysis. We argue for attention to remedies at individual and collective, material and symbolic levels. We illustrate our argument using unsafe abortion, legal abortion services and post-abortion care in Lesotho as a case study. We outline the policies, services and people components of abortion in Lesotho using the WHO systems model, followed by a reparative justice analysis of remedies.
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Date Issued: 2022

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Comparative situational analysis of comprehensive abortion care in four Southern African countries

- Macleod, Catriona I, Reuvers, Megan, Reynolds, John H, Lavelanet, Antonella, Delate, Richard

Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Reuvers, Megan , Reynolds, John H , Lavelanet, Antonella , Delate, Richard
Date: 2023
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441199 , vital:73865 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2023.2217442"
Description: We report on a comparative situational analysis of comprehensive abortion care (CAC) in Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia. We conducted systematic literature searches and country consultations and used a reparative health justice approach (with four dimensions) for the analysis. The following findings pertain to all four countries, except where indicated. Individual material dimension: pervasive gender-based violence (GBV); unmet need for contraception (15−17%); high HIV prevalence; poor abortion access for rape survivors; fees for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services (Eswatini). Collective material dimension: no clear national budgeting for SRH; over-reliance on donor funding (Eswatini; Lesotho); no national CAC guidelines or guidance on legal abortion access; poor data collection and management systems; shortage and inequitable distribution of staff; few facilities providing abortion care. Individual symbolic dimension: gender norms justify GBV; stigma attached to both abortion and unwed or early pregnancies. Collective symbolic dimension: policy commitments to reducing unsafe abortion and to post-abortion care, but not to increasing access to legal abortion; inadequate research; contradictions in abortion legislation (Botswana); inadequate staff training in CAC. Political will to ensure CAC within the country’s legislation is required. Reparative health.
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Date Issued: 2023

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Male Peer Talk About Menstruation: Discursively Bolstering Hegemonic Masculinities Among Young Men in South Africa

- Macleod, Catriona I, Glover, Jonathan M, Makusem, Manase, Kelland, Lindsay, Paphitis, Sharli A

Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Glover, Jonathan M , Makusem, Manase , Kelland, Lindsay , Paphitis, Sharli A
Date: 2022
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426502 , vital:72358 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2022.2057830"
Description: In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: “disgusting” menstruating women versus “reasonable” non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier “woman” for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation.
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Date Issued: 2022

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