Browsing by Title
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Hayes, Patricia (Wiley - Blackwell Publishing, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: Born in 1956, Santu Mofokeng formed part of the Afrapix Collective that engaged in exposé and documentary photography of anti-apartheid resistance and social conditions during the 1980s in South Africa. However, Mofokeng was an increasingly important internal critic of mainstream photojournalism, and of the ways black South Africans were represented in the bigger international picture economy during the political struggle. Eschewing scenes of violence and the third-party view of white-on-black brutality in particular, he began his profound explorations of the everyday and spiritual dimensions of African life, both in the city and in the countryside. His formal techniques favor “fictions” that contain smoke, mist, and other matters and techniques that occlude rather than expose. Using angularity and ambivalence, he also ruptures realist expectations and allows space for the uncanny and the supernatural. He works with the notion of seriti (a northern seSotho term encompassing aura, shadow, power, essence, and many other things). The essay follows strands in Mofokeng’s writings and statements in relation to certain of his photographs, most recently repositioned in the substantial 2007 exhibition Invoice, to argue that he has pushed for a desecularization and Africanization of photography from the 1980s to the present. In more recent work the scourge of apartheid has been replaced by the HIV/AIDS virus, a mutation of nature, exacerbating the spiritual insecurities of many people in postapartheid South Africa. The essay concludes that Mofokeng’s work poses a critique of the parallel paradigms of Marxist-influenced social history and documentary photography in 1980s South Africa, both still highly influential, by attempting to reinsert aura (seriti) into photography and by highlighting what secular Marxism has concealed and proscribed. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/559 Files in this item: 1
HayesSantuMofokeng2009.pdf (660.2Kb) -
Lalu, Premesh (University of the Western Cape, 2000)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper deals with cognitive failures and historiographical blind spots in legal and historical representations of the colonised subject. It concerns an archival fragment from the seventeenth century - the suicide of a young woman called Sara in the period of Dutch rule at the Cape. The paper focuses on the production of evidentiary sources and examines the mediations by which a colonial text on subalterns becomes available to the present URI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41056412 . Files in this item: 1
LaluSara2000.pdf (1.306Mb) -
Scott, Vera; Chopra, Mickey; Azevedo, Virginia; Caldwell, Judy; Naidoo, Pren; Smuts, Brenda (BioMed Central Ltd, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: BACKGROUND: In South Africa the need to integrate HIV, TB and STI programmes has been recognised at a policy and organisation level; the challenge is now one of translating policies into relevant actions and monitoring implementation to ensure that the anticipated benefits of integration are achieved. In this research, set in public primary care services in Cape Town, South Africa, we set out to determine how middle level managers could be empowered to monitor the implementation of an effective, integrated HIV/TB/STI service. METHODS: A team of managers and researchers designed an evaluation tool to measure implementation of key components of an integrated HIV/TB/STI package with a focus on integration. They used a comprehensive health systems framework based on conditions for programme effectiveness and then identified and collected tracer indicators. The tool was extensively piloted in two rounds involving 49 clinics in 2003 and 2004 to identify data necessary for effective facility-level management. A subsequent evaluation of 16 clinics (2 per health sub district, 12% of all public primary care facilities) was done in February 2006. RESULTS: 16 clinics were reviewed and 635 records sampled. Client access to HIV/TB/STI programmes was limited in that 50% of facilities routinely deferred clients. Whilst the physical infrastructure and staff were available, there was problem with capacity in that there was insufficient staff training (for example, only 40% of clinical staff trained in HIV care). Weaknesses were identified in quality of care (for example, only 57% of HIV clients were staged in accordance with protocols) and continuity of care (for example, only 24% of VCT clients diagnosed with HIV were followed up for medical assessment). Facility and programme managers felt that the evaluation tool generated information that was useful to manage the programmes at facility and district level. On the basis of the results facility managers drew up action plans to address three areas of weakness within their own facility. CONCLUSIONS: This use of the tool which is designed to empower programme and facility managers demonstrates how engaging middle managers is crucial in translating policies into relevant actions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/173 Files in this item: 1
ScottScalingUpIntegration2010.pdf (627.0Kb) -
Burton, Stephanie; Cowan, Donald A.; Woodley, John M. (Nature Publishing Group, 2002)[more][less]
Abstract: While the use of enzymes as biocatalysts to assist in the industrial manufacture of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals has enormous potential, application is frequently limited by evolution-led catalyst traits. The advent of designer biocatalysts, produced by informed selection and mutation through recombinant DNA technology, enables production of process-compatible enzymes. However, to fully realize the potential of designer enzymes in industrial applications, it will be necessary to tailor catalyst properties so that they are optimal not only for a given reaction but also in the context of the industrial process in which the enzyme is applied. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/150 Files in this item: 1
BurtonCowanWoodley2002.pdf (768Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (2012)[more][less]
Abstract: South Africa is a youthful society with 54% younger than 24 years. South African young people face disproportionately high rates of unemployment, HIV-AIDS infection, and violent crime. Even in post-apartheid South Africa, the disparities between the historically white and black sectors of schooling are still evident. The implications of the “youth bulge” for South African librarianship are clear. However, public and school libraries face daunting challenges. Fewer than 10% of schools have functioning school libraries and millions of South Africans do not have access to public libraries. Clearly innovative models of service must be found to reach more than the current tiny minority of library users. The paper reports on two case studies of community library services: one a group of dual-use libraries set up in six remote schools as public library “outreach”, and the second a so-called “satellite” library in a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. Their environments and operations are very different; but what they have in common is a willingness to break down conventional barriers and to move into fresh ground. The paper argues that they point to new models of service which, by moving beyond the concept of “outreach”, offer solutions to developing new kinds of library services in South Africa and perhaps in other countries with similar challenges. The sites might well fall short of rigorous international standards but both are imaginative attempts to meet the needs of young South Africans. Description: Paper presented at the Libraries for young people: Breaking through boundaries, IFLA section libraries for children and young adults, Joensuu, Finland, 9-10 August 2012 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/451 Files in this item: 1
HartIFLA2012.pdf (203.7Kb) -
Poroye, Adeola; Tucker, William D.; Norman, Michael (Telkom, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper presents work in progress to explore the utility of Near Field Communication technology to secure mobile financial services. The objective is to evaluate the potential of this approach as an upcoming technology for mobile cash transactions. The paper argues that Near Field Communication technology offers a feasible solution and can be integrated into a standard cellular handset to turn it into a contactless smart card. The motivation is to create a new secure way for the unbanked to perform financial transactions. A prototype has been developed and tested with participants in a laboratory environment. This paper also reports on preliminary results. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/540 Files in this item: 1
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Pretorius, Joelien (Sage, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This article proposes the notion of a security imaginary as a heuristic tool for exploring military isomorphism (the phenomenon that weapons and military strategies begin to look the same across the world) at a time when the US model of defence transformation is being adopted by an increasing number of countries. Built on a critical constructivist foundation, the security-imaginary approach is contrasted with rationalist and neo-institutionalist ways of explaining military diffusion and emulation. Merging cultural and constructivist themes, the article offers a ‘strong cultural’ argument to explain why a country would emulate a foreign military model and how this model is constituted in and comes to constitute a society’s security imaginary. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/452 Files in this item: 1
PretoriusMilitaryIsomorphism2008.pdf (262.1Kb) -
Pagaling, Eulyn; Haigh, Richard D.; Grant, William D.; Cowan, Donald A.; Jones, Brian; Ma, Yanhe; Ventosa, Antonio; Heaphy, Shaun (BioMed Central, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: Background: We are profoundly ignorant about the diversity of viruses that infect the domain Archaea. Less than 100 have been identified and described and very few of these have had their genomic sequences determined. Here we report the genomic sequence of a previously undescribed archaeal virus. Results: Haloarchaeal strains with 16S rRNA gene sequences 98% identical to Halorubrum saccharovorum were isolated from a hypersaline lake in Inner Mongolia. Two lytic viruses infecting these were isolated from the lake water. The BJ1 virus is described in this paper. It has an icosahedral head and tail morphology and most likely a linear double stranded DNA genome exhibiting terminal redundancy. Its genome sequence has 42,271 base pairs with a GC content of ~65 mol%. The genome of BJ1 is predicted to encode 70 ORFs, including one for a tRNA. Fifty of the seventy ORFs had no identity to data base entries; twenty showed sequence identity matches to archaeal viruses and to haloarchaea. ORFs possibly coding for an origin of replication complex, integrase, helicase and structural capsid proteins were identified. Evidence for viral integration was obtained. Conclusion: The virus described here has a very low sequence identity to any previously described virus. Fifty of the seventy ORFs could not be annotated in any way based on amino acid identities with sequences already present in the databases. Determining functions for ORFs such as these is probably easier using a simple virus as a model system. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/140 Files in this item: 1
PagalingSequenceAnalysis2007.PDF (1.860Mb) -
Julie, Hester; Daniels, Felicity; Khanyile, Thembisile (Faculty of Community and Health Sciences, University of the Western Cape, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: This article is informed by a retrospective study conducted by the first author, and a limited literature review on service-learning in South Africa. It attempts to give the reader a clearer understanding of service-learning by contextualizing service-learning within current debates about community engagement in higher education institutions in South Africa. A few dominant definitions of SL are described to espouse the underlying pedagogy of SL. Service –learning is then differentiated from other forms of clinical practice currently in use in nursing, based on the conceptual framework of Furco (1996). The latter discussion thus provides a backdrop for the brief description on how SL has been incorporated into the nursing curriculum at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Lastly the challenges related to the implementation of SL are discussed. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/93 Files in this item: 1
Julie_Service2007.pdf (52.26Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (Community High Education Service Partnership, 2008)[more][less]
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Julie, Hester; Daniels, Priscilla; Adonis, Tracey-Ann (University of Johannesburg, 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: Domestic violence is a pervasive problem in South Africa. The School of Nursing at the University of the Western Cape has responded to the challenge of training sensitive, knowledgeable and skilled health personnel by developing a Management of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) module. The purpose of this paper is to describe the professional and personal development of nursing students in this programme through their service-learning experience in the GBV module based on the analysis of the description of the students’ reflective journals, group project reports and a focus-group discussion as the primary data sources. Analysis showed that students gained critical thinking skills and developed an understanding of the supportive role health professionals can play through developing skills of caring, advocacy and a commitment to civic engagement, which promotes collaborative relationships. Some of the lessons learnt from this experience include realistic planning in terms of outcomes, time frames, and available resources as well ensuring support from colleagues for the effective implementation of the programme. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/82 Files in this item: 1
Julie_Service2005.pdf (65.50Kb) -
Hames, Mary (Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This article takes a critical look at the research methodologies regarding gender-based violence and HIV and AIDS in South Africa over the last two decades. Gender has become the operative term in these research projects and there has been a conflation or collapse of gender with the feminist perspectives analysis. The immediate question is whether the studies on gender and masculinities have de-politiced feminist research and methodologies or whether it has enhanced the work of feminists. This is undoubtedly a loaded argument that has been on the minds of feminists and those who claim to support feminist theory and praxis. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/544 Files in this item: 1
HamesGender-BasedViolence2010.pdf (122.6Kb) -
Hames, Mary (Taylor & Francis, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: Despite the proliferation of policies ostensibly protecting all persons’ rights, and mounting critical academic debate and scholarship on sexuality and sexual orientation, sexual orientation in the academy remains a site of deep contestation. The first section of this paper discusses the national legal framework as a basis from which the state’s new social engineering uses liberal human rights as tools for the democratic transformation of society. In the second section, by focusing on the University of the Western Cape, my critique examines the persisting evidence of prejudice and homophobia in South African society alongside seemingly progressive policymaking and intellectual debate. I consider the centrality of national law and policymaking in the restructuring of the higher education environment and assess the extent to which the new education, labour, and other national policies and legislative measures substantively change the climate and culture of higher education institutions. In developing this critique, I map out some of the everyday struggles which may often be marginalised by an over-emphasis on national and institutional policymaking for change. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/614 Files in this item: 1
HamesSexualIdentity2007.pdf (232.3Kb) -
Wu, Wilson; Radovanovic, Aleksandar; Tucker, William D. (Telkom, 2005)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper presents an innovative use of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for the subscription and notification of geographic information in order to provide a privacy concerned location-based service. SIP is a signaling protocol used for establishing sessions in an IP network. It has been widely used for Internet conferencing and telephony. This research project aims to enhance the SIP presence model in order to protect sensitive geographic information. To achieve this goal, we thoroughly analyzed existing Location-Based Services (LBS), reviewed LBS designs’ pitfalls and identified several key privacy requirements. Based on this research, we presented a SIP flow that meets the privacy requirements. This SIP message flow includes SUBSCRIBE, NOTIFY and PUBLISH messages. A data format to carry geographic location information has also been introduced. The data format is based on Presence Information Data Format (PIDF). We define it as Location-enhanced PIDF, or LPIDF. LPIDF contains geographical information objects. We hope that the outcome of this research project will provide rich, convenient, privacy concerned architecture for LBS. Because LPIDF is based on SIP, this approach can be easily integrated into IP telephony services. LPIDF enables personalization of the Location-Based services address user privacy concerns and hereby increase their satisfaction. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/494 Files in this item: 1
WuRadovanovicTuckerSIP2005.pdf (385.7Kb) -
Kobo, Hlabishi Isaac; Tucker, William D. (IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper describes a situation-aware algorithm based on the current situation of a mesh network with mobile nodes that improves quality of service. After running laboratory performance tests, we concluded that a situation-aware mesh routing protocol offers potential to address issues pertaining to mobility, congestion and scalability in dynamic mesh networks with mobile nodes. Such networks appear promising to provide connectivity to people living in rural areas in developing regions of Africa, and can be easily interconnected to telco-styled networks through gateways for voice and Internet services. Such services can remain free in the mesh, yet can also be billed for interconnection. Our vision offers an attractive business model for up scaling a rural customer base for telcos, while at the same time offering increased quality of service for mobile users on rural mesh networks. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/585 Files in this item: 1
KoboTuckerISTAfrica2012.pdf (465.0Kb) -
Africa, Cherrel; van Rooyen, Garth (SUN Press, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: Small parties and independents play an important role in South Africa’s democracy. It is on the level of the local that these small parties and independents have some chance to make indents in terms of winning a few wards that could turn them into council kingmakers, or at least represent some particular local constituency needs. This chapter examines the multitude of small and micro-parties, as well as independent candidates in the 2011 local government elections. It first features classification-based endeavours to ‘make sense of this multitude of often-neglected but crucial political players in South Africa’. The classifications use the number of contesting candidates and election outcomes as the two classificatory principles. The chapter also explores the increase in contestation by independent candidates. Thereafter it investigates the details of their results, and the reasons for their largely dismal displays in local election 2011. The chapter concludes that while these political actors remain largely in an underworld of small and micro-parties, they retain enthusiasm for electoral contestation, thus continuing to add value to multi-party democracy in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/550 Files in this item: 1
AfricaSmallParties2012.pdf (142.9Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (Library and Information Association of South Africa, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: The article argues that the construct of social capital offers South African public librarianship fresh vision – urgently needed if it is to fulfil its potential role in social inclusion. Social capital refers to the stocks of social trust, norms and networks that a community can draw on to solve common problems. A wide body of research in Southern Africa bears witness to its role in the success of development projects. Restrictive economic policies, coupled with new demands, have put pressure on public libraries and research points to a prevailing low morale among their staff, who, it is suggested, find themselves caught in the transition towards new models of service. Government’s acceptance of social capital as a crucial tool in the developmental state and the news of its intervention to transform South African public libraries suggest the need to articulate the library as “a place for all”. In reaction to neglect in the literature of social capital, internationally, librarians have documented their building of social capital through their education, information and community programmes. This work offers South African librarians a rich resource to draw on in their search for new direction and vision URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/583 Files in this item: 1
HartSocialcapital 2007.pdf (204.7Kb) -
Dubb, Alex (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012)[more][less]
Abstract: This paper argues that the rise and decline of small-scale sugarcane grower (SSG) production in KwaZulu-Natal must be historically located within a changing structural relationship with miller-processors, in turn conditioned by shifts in regulatory frameworks. Critically, the emergence of SSG production in the late-1970s–1980s can be traced to industry-subsidised initiatives disguised as micro-credit which brought commercially inalienable Bantustan land into cane production with strong miller oversight. From the late 1980–1990s, however, the elimination of these subsidies encouraged millers to withdraw from direct oversight and to subcontract support to farmers, while simultaneously instigating an increase in SSG numbers by removing restrictions on grower registration. Enduring drought must certainly be understood as a central proximal factor in the rapid decline of SSGs, but their rapid increase in the first place was structurally fragile. This paper further strives to provide insight into the shifting class dynamics of SSGs under constrained conditions of production, utilising survey data from seventy SSG homesteads and life-history interviews in two rural wards of the Umfolozi region. Although proceeds from sugarcane have represented an important source of cash-income for homesteads, deteriorating terms of exchange and barriers to expansion in land and capital have placed a greater emphasis on sparse off-farm income opportunities for stabilising consumption and enabling limited re-investment in production. The centrality of income-diversification for simple reproduction and limited accumulation has rendered the dynamics of social differentiation both unstable and reversible. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for agrarian reform policy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/571 Files in this item: 1
DubbSugarcaneFarming2013.pdf (913.9Kb) -
Muntingh, Lukas (Institute for Security Studies and the Community Law Centre, University of the Western Cape, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: Civil society organisations play a key role in assisting prisoners and ex-prisoners to reintegrate into society and may at present render the bulk of such services. It is especially in respect of post-release support services that non-governmental organisations play a critical role as the Department of Correctional Services does not have a strong focus on this aspect of reintegration work. The type of services and activities that civil society organisations engage in has not been documented on a national level. There is thus a need to describe the types of prisoner support and offender reintegration programmes rendered by civil society organisations in South Africa based on up-to-date fieldwork. A survey was conducted of 21 organisations working in the off ender reintegration and prisoner support field. This paper presents an analysis of the results which are based on the views of practitioners working in these organisations. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/237 Files in this item: 1
MuntinghCivilSocietyRole2008.pdf (4.643Mb) -
Puoane, Thandi; Matwa, Princess; Hughes, Gail; Bradley, Hazel A. (Kamla-Raj Enterprises, 2006)[more][less]
Abstract: The present study was undertaken to examine socio-cultural factors that influence food intake in different groups of people residing in a black township in Cape Town. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were used to explore these factors in men, and women of different age groups. Discussions were recorded, transcribed and analysed according to emerging themes. The main findings of the study indicated that in addition to nourishing the body, food is a sign of warmth, acceptance and friendship. Meat consumption on a daily basis is associated with a high socioeconomic status, while consumption of vegetables only is associated with a low socioeconomic status. Eating large portions of food is associated with affordability. Food is used for celebrations, rituals, and for welcoming guests. Food is also used during social occasions when people get together and meet socially. Sweets, ice cream and cakes are consumed on happy occasions. Fatty meat is a sign of generosity; lean meat and black tea is often used during mourning periods. Eating behaviours are learned during socialization, and carried over from generation to generation. There are socially accepted norms and values surrounding people’s understanding of what food is. This information needs to be used in a more constructive way to help people choose food wisely to prevent over nutrition and associated risks. In conclusion, this paper illustrates the impact of socio-cultural factors on eating patterns in this population and emphasizes the need to take these factors into consideration in development of interventions to promote healthy eating. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/253 Files in this item: 1
JHE-SI-14-12-089-093-Puoane-T-Text.pdf (145.3Kb)